by A. E. Rivera

Created on: June 15, 2008   Last Updated: November 13, 2011

Loving someone should be the easiest thing in the world, especially when they love you back. But when adult children from prior marriages or relationships are involved, loving someone can be quite a challenge.

Children's security and sense of self is tied into their parents as a unit. When parents break up, children feel as if their entire world has come to a screeching halt. In that sense, all children regardless of their social or economic background respond the same. They feel caught in the middle, they blame themselves for the break up, they feel ambivalent toward the parent that decided to leave; they try to protect the parent that was left, they feel confused and unloved, they want their parents to get back together, and so on. The older they are, the more dramatic the response to their parent's break up.

This is a very sad situation, but the reality of the matter is that divorce happens, and when it does parents should try to find the best way to help their children cope with the changes that come as a result of the divorce. The best way to help children cope is by showing them a united front. This takes place when two people who once loved each other realize that they can no longer co-exist, but because their children deserve the best and should come first, they set aside all animosity so that they can continue to work together in co-parenting their children. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to be selfish in this regard. It's becomes more important for them to hold grudges and hate each other than it is to set aside their ill feelings for the benefit of their children, and so children's adjustment is stagnated and thwarted to the point where the children begin to take on one parent's ill feelings toward the other parent. They grow up these feelings that remain unresolved because the parent with the ill-feelings never got past them enough too see the damage being caused to the children.

Enter the new girlfriend or boyfriend, and the fireworks begin. These fireworks can get out of control when there are adult children who are well versed in the art of manipulation. It now becomes a battle for the parent trying to move on and the new person in his/her life because the adult children, feeling threatened by and jealous of this new person, manipulate the parent by attempting to place a guilt trip on them. They begin to talk about the other parent; about how they'll never be happy with anyone else; about how the other parent will end up alone.

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