Divorce has become an incredibly common feature of life, especially over the last 70 years or so. No matter how common or “normal” divorce becomes, the fact remains that it always inflicts a profound wound on families. The couple themselves are certainly affected, but the children of a divorced couple are perhaps impacted more profoundly. Whether young or grown, the divorce leaves a wound that can pain them for the rest of their lives, if left untended.
Dr. Daniel and Bethany Meola are the authors of Life-Giving Wounds: A Catholic Guide to Healing for Adult Children of Divorce or Separation (Ignatius Press, 2023). They are the founders of a Catholic non-profit apostolate of the same name, Life-Giving Wounds. Both are graduates of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. In the book and their apostolate, they draw from their personal experience, theological formation, and academic research, to provide a path to healing that is compassionate, spiritually rich, psychologically sound, and in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
The Meolas recently spoke with Catholic World Report about their new book, the challenges many people face because of divorce, and these wounds can be “life-giving”.
Catholic World Report: How did the book come about?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: Short answer: the Holy Spirit’s providence intertwining life circumstances, experiences, and wisdom and research towards this desired end.
The long answer: it begins with Dan’s experience of his parents’ separation when he was 11 years old in 1996, their eventual divorce in 2011, and him being keenly aware of a deep spiritual need for direction for his own healing and the utter lack of resources in the Church for adult children of divorce, despite there being several books and programs for divorcees. This personal experience interconnected with our academic and research experiences when we attended the John Paul II Institute for studies on marriage and family, where they were doing research about the wounds of adult children of divorce while we both studied there.
This academic experience led to pastoral work and accompaniment, when in 2015 Dan ran a retreat for adult children of divorce. In 2018 we founded Life-Giving Wounds ministry, and incorporated as national non-profit in 2020, to respond to the tremendous need of adult children of divorce or separation (ACODs for short) looking for Catholic faith-grounded responses to the pain and wounds they’d experienced from their family’s breakdown.
Around 2021, we began exploring the possibility of distilling what we’d learned through our time at the JPII Institute, our experience accompanying hundreds of ACODs, and our personal family backgrounds into an accessible book form that an ACOD or their loved ones could pick up and use as an aid for healing and support. We know that men and women from broken homes may be at different places in their healing journey, and we hope the book can be both an introduction for some to the areas in their lives that may need healing, and for others a way to go even deeper into the Lord’s abundant love and mercy.
CWR: Some might object that emotional challenges and psychological problems need psychological solutions, and that faith doesn’t have a part to play. How would you respond to that?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: Mental health professionals and therapists absolutely can play an important role as someone is seeking to heal from the fallout of their family’s breakdown—we always encourage ACODs to consider therapy as a support for their healing and we try to incorporate psychological sciences and knowledge into our book.
But to relegate healing simply to the “professionals” or leave healing at the level of emotions or psychology misses so much. We argue in our book that psychological healing needs to be integrated into spiritual healing, and that the deepest level of healing we all need is spiritual, because every suffering we face is at its core a question addressed to God about his love for us and his will for us. We see this at play clearly in adult children of divorce, who as a group are statistically less likely to be active church-goers or members of a faith community.
Among the many wounds caused by family breakdown is the wound to one’s faith, as a person can wonder “Why, God?” and—especially for those abandoned by their earthly fathers—start to doubt God the Father’s love for them. We see this all the time in our ministry. The big questions about suffering, the meaning of life, who God is, and whether he truly loves me can’t be wholly answered by psychology (which again has an important place), but only in a consistent relationship with the freedom and truth of Christ.
Our dream is for adult children of divorce to find healing at every level that they’ve been wounded, and that often includes their faith, their understanding of God, and—always related—their understanding of their self and identity, too. We dream of a Church where people who are wounded in any way aren’t immediately and only sent to the “professional” healers (therapists, etc.), but are also accompanied in love by trained and faithful witnesses who—while not experts in psychology—can show as peers the “how” from the inside of healing and of persevering joyfully through suffering in friendship with Christ. All of us Christians have a role to play in healing wounded hearts.
CWR: Why is divorce such a problem in our society? How did it get so common?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: Our book doesn’t address this question per se, although it’s of course worthy of attention. There are cultural, moral, and legal layers to this topic, especially the explosion of divorce following the sexual revolution and no-fault divorce laws in the late 1960s and 70s. And research has shown a contagious effect of divorce, that people with divorces in their social circles are also more likely to divorce, so there can (and has been) a real snowball effect to the point of an unprecedented level of relational brokenness and normalization of this brokenness, which proliferates divorce —and choosing to not marry and to settle for even less stable relationships more than ever.
From this normalization, there can be what behavior scientists call a “learned helplessness” that you can see in silent, lukewarm, or destructive responses by Christians and non-Christians alike to the news that a couple is divorcing or thinking about divorce. Many shrug their shoulders and avoid talking about it, or, worse, celebrate the news, when they should be, in the vast majority of cases, fighting for the couple’s marriage and reconciliation by reminding them of the beauty, healing, and joy that can come to them and their children through persevering through the suffering, and honoring their marriage bond.
Taken as a whole, we’ve become selfish and very ‘me-oriented’ to such a point that we’ve lost a very important sacrificial perspective that my marriage is not just for and about me, but for God and the good of my spouse, my children, and the entire world. My marriage is far bigger and greater than my personal happiness and fulfillment, as we can see in how destructive parental divorce can be upon children, their relationships, and even their future children.
This perspective leads to a crucial point that is often missed in discussions on this topic: a major factor driving divorce is that statistically, men and women from broken homes are more likely to divorce themselves, so the brokenness—if not healed—can be passed down to subsequent generations. It can be hard for some to believe that divorce is really that bad, given the vast number of people who have been through it (and whom some are quick to label as “resilient” or “doing fine”). Taken all together, we’re in a position where getting married at all, and staying married, have become countercultural acts and—from a Christian perspective—a tremendous witness, especially to those from broken homes who may never have seen a happy, lasting marriage.
CWR: The Church has always taught the sanctity of the marriage bond, so why is divorce so common even within the Church?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: To start to answer this question, we’d like to propose three reasons.
The first is that the above cultural thinking, behaviors, and trends discussed in the last question have seeped into the Church and the decisions of couples about whether to divorce. We need to proclaim the truth of the indissolubility of marriage, that marriage is meant to last a lifetime, and that what follows from that is that divorce is not what is best for you, your children, or the world.
Second, it’s hard to think of another answer other than sin and—as Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 19—our “hardness of heart”. Marriage isn’t easy! And Catholics aren’t immune from the challenges that any marriage faces, especially in a society that can be quick to look for the easier solutions in difficult situations. (And to be clear, Church teaching does not expect spouses to stay in abusive or dangerous situations; canon law and the Catechism are clear that physical separation and at times civil divorce are licit in such tragic circumstances.) Again, we know anecdotally that struggling spouses are not always offered much help by the Church, or at times are even encouraged to divorce in situations that don’t merit it. We also see many tremendous, beautiful efforts by ministries within the Church to help prepare couples well for marriage and give support to married couples; we need more of that!
And third, we’d contend that we need a lot more support for the adult children of divorce or separation so that the cycle stops in their lives and vocations (one of our goals). The lack of specific resources, pastoral programs, and financial investment for healing the wounds of adult children of divorce or separation, is a stumbling block and sad tragedy because they are most at risk for divorce themselves, but also offer the greatest hope for reversing the trends in our society as we’ve seen countless times in our ministry by ACODs not just faithfully living holy lives, marriages, consecrated life, and priesthood, but also becoming a resource for healing for others. Just as there is a divorce contagion, there is a holiness contagion when healing is found.
CWR: One of the many issues you examine in the book is the “Wound of a Broken Identity” that comes with divorce, and the “Life-giving Identity in Christ”. How can our identity in Christ help those suffering from their parents’ divorce, or anyone going through a major change or trauma that affects their sense of identity?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: Yes, a core topic we write about is how having your parents split up can deeply impact your sense of self and your place in the world—this is called an ontological wound and can be one of the more hidden effects of divorce, although it can show up in areas like low self-esteem, depression, taking on various unhealthy roles in relationships, and more. The core wound is that we’ve lost the love of our parents together, however brief or non-existent for us it may have been, and we, who are always the fruit of this communion and forever connected to both parents, are negatively impacted by this loss. It can be described as being “torn between our parents,” or at times feeling “emotionally homeless” with one or both parents.
In such a scenario, we stress the importance for ACODs (and in some ways, for all of us) to be sure to ground our identities in our origins from God—that we are all willed into existence by Him, loved by Him, and are an image of Him. No matter the vacillations of our earthly families, we can be confident in our identities as children of God, communicated most profoundly through the Sacrament of Baptism, which we can remember every time through a consistent prayer life we must develop in order to heal.
From that steady foundation, ACODs can then do the hard work of seeing in what ways their parents’ split has caused them to doubt their own goodness, or has fractured their identity between the various worlds they’ve had to navigate, and so on. Knowing whose we are and who we are, and attaching to Him in prayer as our stable foundation for life, is a tremendous step forward to finding greater peace and joy in the midst of suffering.
CWR: Are there other resources for adult children of divorce that you would encourage folks to take advantage of?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: We encourage people to participate in our Life-Giving Wounds ministry programs. We currently have nearly twenty in-person chapters across the United States and now Canada, with another 6 or 7 on the way in 2024, that offer retreats, support groups, connection to trusted Catholic counselors and spiritual directors, and much more.
In addition to these in-person chapters, the national ministry also offers online ministry in the form of retreats, support groups, community, a well-curated blog of helpful short essays, mental health resources, print resources, such as journals, Rosary booklets, art, etc., and much more as we are always innovating. For information on all of these programs and offerings, please see www.lifegivingwounds.org. For resources and books outside of our own ministry, we have a full write-up of books, articles, podcasts, videos, and more that we think can be valuable for ACODs on our website.
CWR: What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: We hope that adult children of divorce who read this book feel seen, comforted, encouraged, loved and strengthened by Christ to carry the crosses that they did not ask for but shoulder nonetheless. We hope the stories and advice we share gives an adult child of divorce deeper self-awareness, practical ways to heal the suffering, and renewed motivation to persevere and to believe that their wounds are not life-limiting but can truly, through God’s grace, become resources of profound faith, hope, and love in their lives.
And we hope that everyone else who reads it—Christian leaders, divorced parents, and all those who love an ACOD in their lives—will come away with a greater understanding of the pain divorce causes to children, an openness to receiving the wounds of ACODs in their lives, concrete ways to help them heal and thrive, and a commitment to helping ACODs heal and resist the cultural tendency of downplaying the seriousness and pain of parental divorce.
CWR: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Daniel and Bethany Meola: The Life-Giving Wounds book examines seven areas in life you may have been wounded by your parents’ divorce or separation, and seven life-giving remedies to these wounds within the overarching perspective of the Catholic faith’s teaching on redemptive suffering. There is truly a joy of redemptive suffering that Christ wants each adult child of divorce or separation to discover. So please read the book for this joy in your life, no matter when your parents divorced or separated, and please share about it or purchase a copy for someone you know who could benefit from it.
And finally, please know Life-Giving Wounds ministry is much more than our book and we warmly invite all adult children of divorce seeking healing to join us on retreat, for a support group, or any other event. It is our deepest passion to provide opportunities for ACODs to find healing grounded in Christ and His truth about love and marriage. Anyone can find information at our website: www.lifegivingwounds.org. Feel free to reach out to us by email at info@lifegivingwounds.org. Please be assured of our prayers for everyone who reads this article, the book, or is considering picking up a copy and reading the book. May each one of you find the healing you deeply desire in Christ, and may your wounds become life-giving (1 Peter 2:24).
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In any case, God our Father is supposed to be impartial and so the suffering due to divorce must be within that individuals capacity as Augustine would conclude, and all hype and hubla, not only on this situation but on any apparent misfortune are highly overstated and points to the below par Faith of the followers of such nonChristian theologies as current Pope once commented on a different contest of limiting God’s omnipotence.
One need not have any capacity to suffer *well* at all, in order to suffer. For example, those in hell will certainly suffer, and do so without any merit whatsoever. Pretty much everything is within our capacity to suffer badly.
There’s plenty that is outside of a person’s capacity to suffer well, and still is imposed on them. I would say that no one has the capacity to suffer even a paper cut well. That is an impossibility that we can do only through grace. But suffering well with grace is an integral part of spiritual healing – and it is something that is seldom taught well.
The second point I would like to make is that, if a person is seeking God’s will, then they might find that God’s will is that they be healed and eventually stop suffering so much.
I do not get this therapy/ministry catering to people so profoundly wrapped in themselves that nobody is capable of pitying them more than they pity themselves, and where therapy advised for every adversity…life is HARD for most folk, and always has been, and generally a lot harder in the preceding generations here and still harder for the majority of humans today.
I came from a family where mother lost her mother at age 4, my father lost everyone but an aunt incapable of raising a mean rebellious boy. My parent’s marriage was terrible, my father unfaithful and cruel, him killed by a drunk driver same 17yrs age as me….big deal, life is hard, suck it up, find what God expects of you and do it.
Every excuse for not doing that seems to be a good excuse today, and every adversity a disease to be “cured”. Adults without maturity, and professional shoulders to cry upon.
If you’re an adult when your parents divorce and that hurts your selfish little feelings, I invite you to grow up and mind your own business. What your parents do is their business and it’s their lives and they are free to do as they please. You don’t have to like it or even agree with it, but that also doesn’t guve you the right to act like a little spoiled baby either. If you’re an adult, accept it and move on with your life.
There’s both no more unbecoming than childish adults who demand the world and everyone else’s lives revolve around what they want.
If you’re an adult who enters a sexual relationship with another adult, you accept responsibility for the welfare of any and all children who result. The Catholic Church has always taught that sex is reserved for marriage, and that marriage is primarily for the sake of children, and that is the result of natural law: the clear evidence of how God meant for the human needs of children to be met.
If you can’t handle that, then remain celibate and chaste, and mortify your selfish little feelings and desires for sex. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have the moral right to act like a spoiled baby. Accept it and move on with your life.
Being legally free, and being morally free, are two different things. Just as the parents have the legal right to divorce, the children have the legal right to object and complain and disagree, loudly and vociferously and for the rest of their lives. If you want the moral argument… well there’s a much better one for complaining of evil (just read the Psalms) then for no-fault divorce.
We read: “…the deepest level of healing we all need is spiritual, because every suffering we face is at its core a question addressed to God about his love for us and his will for us.”
We can do religion, but religion is not the solution to crippling loneliness…
And yet, the “spiritual” level of healing is a restoration of lost companionship–empathy with and from others, here and there, and even within God. About such deeper and original companionship—compared to bitter and unfair solitude—Luigi Giussani offers this:
“. . . yes, religion is in fact that which man does in his solitude; but it is also that in which the human person discovers [!] his essential companionship. Such companionship is, then, more original [!] to us than our solitude…Therefore, before solitude there is [already] companionship, a companionship that embraces my solitude. Because of this, solitude is no longer true solitude, but a cry calling back that hidden companionship” (Luigi Giussani, “The Religious Sense,” Ignatius Press, 1990, p. 75).
The eventual rediscovery, personally, of not some added companionship, but an original companionship deeper and prior to any inflicted solitude.
Wow. Some harsh comments here.
Just sayin’.
I agree. I was shocked.
Well, Cleo, just look at how much of modern societal problems are caused by self-pity and inability today to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and followed swiftly by seeking to escape reality through drugs, legal and illegal.
Anything wrong at all and there is a drug and/or a therapist waiting, “America-Better Life Through Chemicals”.
Where if there is pain, something must be wrong requiring intervention, personal or societal. And a weak and paralyzed society.
I suppose a point can be made that First World experiences of childhood trauma can look very different from trauma children in Haiti, the Mid East, Africa & other parts of the world experience but children of divorce still legitimately suffer. No matter where they live. A family falling apart from divorce can shatter a child’s world.
MrsCracker, no argument the pain exists, as I have acquaintance with it as well, and am sure you can say the same. I take umbrage with all the theraputic expert professionals always ready, willing, and able to make a buck off of it.
Many of us have had our world torn apart, and not only once, and it never really stops, from the shock of birth to when the doctor says there is nothing which can be done and through the pains of death.
There is only one cure for these pains, and even that involves transcending them and passing through and using them as means to that union with God… and that needs no paid professional, nor can any theraputic society expert do this in our stead or in any other way. Nor will any “read this”, “click this”, “visit this”, “pay for this” program.
This entire story was more an advertisement seeking sales in an even an ever more ludicrous market, for adults who lack the adulthood enough to get past their childhoods.
The wrong address name was entirely due to faulty memory, and apologies for the error…this is also second attempt as this where first had error in own email address…oh, the pain and shame, but no doubt a therapist can be found for those making idiot of self on the net…or, I can just apologize.
There’s a new book out :”Bad Therapy” that addresses some of what you share in your comments. Childrearing has been made therapeutic, psychotropic drugs are prescribed off label to children, etc., etc.
I agree there’s a problem when we turn everyday life events into traumas requiring professional treatment but the pain of divorce & it’s real, negative effects on children is still an important topic & something that secular therapists can brush off because it goes against ideological narratives.
I know a licensed mental health counselor who was recently divorced & they’ve told me quite confidently that they & their spouse are now be better parents because of that. The pain in their children’s faces is apparent even in their school photos. One little girl who used to be outgoing is now fearful of absolutely everything. But the popular narrative that children are “resilient” is what their parents buy into & promote because it’s reassuring & enabling.
I suspect the main problem with therapists is that almost none of them know what a human being naturally ought to be… particularly seeing how many of them engage in gross violations of natural law.
That is why their solutions tend to make things worse. They’d be worth the money if they helped, but it’s worth paying them to stay away when they’re harmful.
But there is truth to the notion that being a human is complex and requires some thought to mend wounds. We generally need to think to mend our bad habits (psych equivalent being cognitive behavioral therapy), and we generally need to reason well from sound premises in order to understand the evil that has been done to us and how to give each part of that to God (psych equivalent being talk therapy). The trouble is that psychologists are far too concerned with making their patients feel better (hence the addictive pharmaceuticals and lying affirmations), and far too unconcerned about loving their patients for the sake of God and telling them the truth.
Thank you Mr. Senz for this article. I’m thoroughly in agreement with the truths Mr& Mrs Meola concisely stated. I’m a child of separated parents which was traumatic (eased later by Sacraments, Catholic therapists and devout friends). But we repeat what we see as children. And children are angry after divorce which destroys their “domestic church” often due to addiction, lack of Faith, etc). Now I’m divorced and annulled and my children are traumatized. Definitely their statements resonate not overstating the trauma and profound need for healing. I’ll probably buy their book!
I also can’t believe some of the comments that have been posted. Though maybe I’m not surprised since the Church seems more focussed on making sure the divorced and remarried can receive holy communion, then concerning themselves with the children of divorce.
While I acknowledge that there are worse sufferings out there such as child abuse, war etc. But the pain that children of divorce suffer still stands. Like it or not, divorce has contributed to the breakdown of the family and did so before same-sex civil unions existed.
I am a child of divorce, and I don’t wallow in self-pity, but I can’t pretend that it hasn’t affected my life.
When I was a kid in the late 1970s I recall the floodgates opening in my neighborhood regarding divorce. Quite frankly, it really didn’t matter whether or not a family attended church or what religious denomination. By the time I graduated high school (mid-1980s) I only remember a few of my friends still having two parents at home, including mine.
I do recall my Catholic Church (which was probably more progressive than others) having a separated and divorced ministry, but my recollection was that was more of a social club than a healing ministry. My father was a Protestant and his church had a fairly active group for older “single again” adults. I do agree with some aspects of a support group (i.e. babysitting, home repair, fellowship) but I hear very little from priests about the annulment process helping with healing. (Years ago I was a witness in a case for a marriage that lasted about 18 months, and I do realize that if a marriage took place by a Justice of the Peace it’s a little easier to receive an annulment since a marriage by a Justice of the Peace isn’t considered Sacramental).
Looking back to my younger days, I think some of these divorces in the 1970s were due to people getting married too young (like 21 or 22) and with Vietnam happening around the time many men married their high school or college girlfriend in part to defer them being drafted (yes, really – a single man with no dependents was more likely to be drafted circa 1968). Also as people get older there is growth and change and couples need to compromise and adapt (my own family was able to get through this) particularly as several mothers returned to the workforce as the children got older. I also had friends whose fathers either traveled frequently for work or had stressful jobs where a 60+ hour workweek was not uncommon. After a while a man can lose touch with his children and his wife if he doesn’t work at it (and becomes an outsider and a stranger).
Before going through a divorce try to work things out. Many years ago I was dating a woman who I was considering asking for her hand, but I had begun seeing red flags a few months before and decided to break up. It was tough and I think it was harder for me than for her, but a few years later I realized it did both of us a favor.
I believe Ronald Regan said bringing in no-fault divorce was the biggest mistake he made. I think we’re just beginning to see the fallout.