I’d cry at night thinking myself too damaged to create the kind of loving stable home I wanted for my children

Growing up, the worst part of my week was the car rides back and forth between my divorced parents’ homes.

On the way to my mom’s house, where I spent the weekends, I’d wonder with trepidation what might happen there. Her small apartment in a diverse city neighborhood was such a huge stretch from the suburban life I lived during the week, and her broken-down Jeep might as well have been a spaceship propelling me forcefully between planets. I slowly put on the skin of the person I was every weekend and prayed nothing bad would happen.

On the way home in my father’s car, I’d slowly rip the skin off while he rapidly questioned my every move. What did you eat? Where did you sleep? Which friends of your mother came over? Did you interact with your stepfather?

Usually around the exact same mile marker on the highway the questions would turn into a lecture. “Your mom has no idea how to parent a child, how to give her a normal life, and that husband of hers is not fit to be around children.” On and on it went. My stomach hurt the most at this point in the weekend and I curled myself into a tight ball. It usually took until Tuesday for my insides to unclench, almost in time for it to happen all over again.

My parents divorced when I was five months old. My father eventually got custody. I know only murky details of how that happened, stories recounted with pain-filled accusations.

My father remarried when I was three, and I was co-raised by a loving and wonderful stepmother who I have always only thought of as a mother. They eventually divorced as well, though I still lived primarily with my stepmother. Each one of them — my mother, father, and stepmother — went on to marry and divorce three times. Each time affected me less and less as I became more desensitized. I was blessed; I always felt loved by each of my parents. But each one’s love came along with the price tag of their own demons.

I used to wonder and dream about what having a happy marriage would be like. I used to wonder if I would be capable of building such a marriage. I wanted it more than anything in the world. I’d cry at night thinking myself too damaged to create the kind of loving stable home I wanted for my children.