What If My Parents Are Splitting Up?

The short answer: If your parents are splitting up, it is not your fault, and it’s not your job to fix it. It’s right to feel sad, angry or confused, and you can bring every bit of that to God, who is a Father who will never leave. You don’t have to choose sides, and you don’t have to get through it alone.

Maybe you heard the arguments through the wall for months. Maybe it came completely out of nowhere. Maybe one parent has already moved out, and now there are two houses, two sets of rules, and a lot of things nobody is explaining. However it happened, it can feel as if the ground has moved under your feet.

It is not your fault

This needs saying first, because so many young people secretly believe it. Your parents’ marriage ending is not because you were too much trouble, argued too often or weren’t good enough. Adults’ decisions belong to adults. And it isn’t your job to bring them back together, to be the peacemaker or to carry their sadness. You’re allowed to just be their child.

It’s right to grieve

A family splitting up is a real loss, even if it’s also a relief. You may feel sad, angry, embarrassed, numb, or all of those in one day. That’s normal. The Bible says there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4), and this may be your time to mourn.

God doesn’t ask you to put on a brave face. When Jesus stood at His friend’s grave, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). David told God, “Put my tears in Your bottle” (Psalm 56:8). God keeps count of every tear you cry. So pour it out to Him: “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge” (Psalm 62:8). You can tell Him you’re angry, even angry at Him. He can take it.

What God says about this

The Bible treats marriage as a lifelong promise, so it’s natural to wonder what God thinks of your parents now. Divorce isn’t what God designed, and it always involves loss. But it isn’t your job to judge your parents, and sometimes one parent has had no real choice. God sees the whole story, including the parts you don’t know.

What you can know is how God sees you. When earthly families break, He doesn’t. “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me” (Psalm 27:10). He is “A father of the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5). Even if both your parents still love you deeply, as they very likely do, you have a Father in heaven whose home never splits and who has promised, “He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

You don’t have to choose sides

Sometimes parents in pain say unkind things about each other, ask you to pass on messages, or want you to say whose side you’re on. You’re allowed to love both of them. You can say gently, “I don’t want to be in the middle. Please talk to each other about that.” The command to honour your father and mother still applies to both of them, even when they’re not together.

And if anyone at home, in either house, hurts you or makes you feel unsafe, tell a trusted adult right away. That’s never disloyal.

Talk to someone

Don’t keep it all inside. Talk to a grandparent, a youth leader, a teacher, a school counsellor or a friend’s parent you trust. Your church family can share the weight: “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Many schools have counsellors who help students whose parents are separating, and there’s nothing strange about asking.

If the sadness gets so heavy that you think about hurting yourself or not wanting to be alive, tell a parent or trusted adult right away.

You’ll be surprised, too, how many people your age have been through this. Your story isn’t over. God can still build something good in your life, and in time, in your own home one day.

Think about it: Which feeling about your family is hardest to say out loud, and could you say it to God first?

Go deeper: The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith — this chapter argues that much of our unrest comes from not knowing that God is truly and personally our Father, and admits that earthly fathers can be unkind or neglectful, while God, being good, must be a good Father. Start with chapter 5, “He Spoke to Them of the Father”.