My children are not from a broken home

In the last three days, I have witnessed at least four conversations on social media about the term ‘broken home’.

I was raised to believe that divorced parents meant a ‘broken home’ but I had no idea until this past year just how wrong that term and viewpoint is.

I also never knew how damaging and triggering that term can be for people who are living with it and have close friends or family use that term about them.

Here’s what I have realised in the past few years. I was living in a broken marriage. I desperately wanted my marriage to be whole and healthy but it wasn’t and hadn’t been for a long time - it was broken.

And so for many years, my kids were being raised by parents in a broken marriage. I remember reading a quote from Glennon Doyle that said...

‘I am staying in this marriage for my little girl. But would I want this marriage for my little girl?’.

I would never want my daughter - or my son - to feel they had to stay in a broken marriage and neither did I want them to carry the burden of me choosing to on their behalf.

And so here we are. I am almost one year separated, very nearly divorced. I am whole again after years of not being, my relationship with my ex is healing little by little, and our family is healthier and more whole than it has been in a long time.

We are not a broken family, we are a healing family, and one day I know we will be a fully healed family.

This is reform - when we firmly refuse the labels put on us by others that don’t help and don’t fit.