Premium Essay

Personal Narrative: My Life With Divorce

Submitted By
Words 481
Pages 2
Life Looking Up

Sometimes I wonder how many parents are divorced like mine? The divorce ended up making my life better. My family and friends mean a lot to me, especially my grandma and uncle who live in Sweden. I believe in respect for everybody. I was born in Calgary and then my mom, dad, sister and I moved to Sweden in 2006. After a few years we moved back to Calgary when my dad got a job. In 2011 my parents divorced and my dad moved to Ontario, I felt that he had no interest in being my dad.

After my dad left my mom, sister and I lived alone. Personally, this was very tough on me, a kid my age, I couldn't too young to understand why he left, I never seemed to notice the gaping hole I felt inside, he had left, I had no dad. A nanny came into my life to drive my sister and I around. My mom was always working to keep up with financial bills. I could tell she was struggling, so I tried to help out with chores and dinner as best I could but it was a lot for a kid. On weekends when my sister had tennis tournaments out of town, I had to come too. My weekends became dull, watching …show more content…
At first I found him kinda intimidating, but then I found the kind hearted person he is. My mom and him started dating, and we began to see him and his kids more often. A few months later my mom hesitantly asked my sister and I if we’d be ok if they moved in. My moms boyfriend and his kids moved in, and had to share my room with his daughter. I thought it was amazing then. Once they got settled, my sister started to ignore me and hang out with his daughter, and it was like my sister having her best friend over 24/7. I started to spend more time alone. My mom had her boyfriend, my sister had Caitlin and Nathan had his ipad. I missed my family, everything started to feel like a cycle. Wake up, eat breakfast, wait for the bathroom, go to school, come home, go to my bed and

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Personal Narrative: My Life With Divorce

...I wasn’t always raised in a family oriented environment . Where i first grew up there was children in two parent homes up and down every block. You would never hear about problems inside of households because everything always seemed picture perfect. I was about eleven years old when i was snapped back into reality. This was when my parents had gotten a divorce. I went to go live with my father and this was by choice. I didn’t realize or think life would be any different. Until the next morning when I woke up in a two bedroom apartment and my mother not making breakfest. My dad is a very stern person and he always worked. So me and my sister were expected to be able to take care of one another while my father worked. It was here where i made...

Words: 432 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Personal Narrative: How Divorce Changed My Life

...An experience that has changed my life is my parents divorce. They separated when I was really young and divorced a couple years after their separation. I was really devastated when my parents started arguing and not getting along as well, it reached it’s peak when I was in third grade. As I grew older though, I could see clearly that it had been for the better. In a sad, but relieving way, I’m actually glad that they are not together anymore, like fire and ice. My initial perceptions of the situation were that I could not imagine a life without my parents living under one roof. My parents separating was one of the most difficult times I experienced when I was younger. I remember I did not understand the situation, other than my my ‘mommy...

Words: 589 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Great Gatsby Research Paper

...story of Romeo and Juliet is one of the most notorious plays, despite its appalling ending. Authors have made it a point to sell tragedy in order to make money. However, my perspective on that opinion has been changed. I read The Great Gatsby during my sophomore year in high school as a part of an American literature class. By the end of the book, I realized that no matter what happens in life, it will still keep going and I should only have to look at the optimistic part of it. For some reason, I felt sympathy for Gatsby,...

Words: 2292 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

Life Span Development

...Significant Lifespan Factors Impacting Personal Coping Skills Catherine Manning Liberty University Abstract Human beings develop throughout their lifespan, as they make good choices to meet their physical, spiritual and emotional needs. While development is not sequential, it is progressive as the story of life molds and shapes the beliefs and choices of the future. When humans are compared and evaluated, what is it that influences one person to make good choices and another to make bad choices? The ability to adapt and handle times of crisis is a good indicator of a healthy, well-balanced life. It is an indicator that affects almost everyone. It takes skills that mature and develop over time. Are there life experiences that contribute to the positive handling of the stressors of a crisis? Personal experience and pertinent research points to three themes offering positive influence upon crisis adapting skills. First, a religious and spiritual foundation provides the context through which the crisis can be understood, analyzed and managed. Second, a positive, stable family situation allows for the development of the positive self-esteem necessary through which the impact of the crisis upon the individual can be managed. Finally, the satisfaction found in a career or a job can determine perspective and motivation in dealing with problems outside the workplace. Significant Lifespan Factors Impacting Personal Coping Skills Lifespan developmental psychology...

Words: 2835 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

Life Span Development

...emotional needs. While development is not sequential, it is progressive as the story of life molds and shapes the beliefs and choices of the future. When humans are compared and evaluated, what is it that influences one person to make good choices and another to make bad choices? The ability to adapt and handle times of crisis is a good indicator of a healthy, well-balanced life. It is an indicator that affects almost everyone. It takes skills that mature and develop over time. Are there life experiences that contribute to the positive handling of the stressors of a crisis? Personal experience and pertinent research points to three themes offering positive influence upon crisis adapting skills. First, a religious and spiritual foundation provides the context through which the crisis can be understood, analyzed and managed. Second, a positive, stable family situation allows for the development of the positive self-esteem necessary through which the impact of the crisis upon the individual can be managed. Finally, the satisfaction found in a career or a job can determine perspective and motivation in dealing with problems outside the workplace. Significant Lifespan Factors Impacting Personal Coping Skills Lifespan developmental psychology (LP) is involved in the study of the individual’s development from conception or birth into old age. One of the assumptions of LP is that significant life events shape and transform the personality, thinking process and behavior of the individual...

Words: 2729 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Personal Narrative

...PERSONAL NARRATIVE 1 When taking a look at how my life has changed over the past five years I can truly and honestly say that I would never have expected the things that have happened. Back in June 2007 I was separated from my husband and moved into my own apartment. I was in the United States Navy for six and a half years at that time. My divorce was finalized in January 2008 and I deployed to Afghanistan in March 2008, for eight months. After coming home from a long deployment, I had orders to move to Lemoore, California. This area is nothing but farm lands and I did not like that at all. I was born and raised in Southern California and enjoyed the fast-paced life that I was living. It is amazing how things have changed. In July 2011 I was honorably discharged from the United States Navy and I moved back in with my mother and two younger sister. Growing up we lived in a condo in Diamond Bar, California, but that all changed over time. The same time that I got out of the military, myself, my sisters and my mother had to move out of our condo and into a two bedroom apartment. Talk about a huge change in life. This move has not been easy for any of us. There is no privacy and we all have to share the living space. I share a bed with my middle sister and my mother shares a bed with my youngest sister. I never thought that I would be unemployed for this long, but it has been over a year since I got discharged. It seems like nobody is hiring right now...

Words: 834 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

None

...Psychoanalytic Psychology 2004, Vol. 21, No. 3, 353–370 Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 0736-9735/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0736-9735.21.3.353 THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF DIVORCE Report of a 25-Year Study Judith S. Wallerstein, PhD Judith Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition and University of California, Berkeley Julia M. Lewis, PhD San Francisco State University This follow-up study of 131 children, who were 3–18 years old when their parents divorced in the early 1970s, marks the culmination of 25 years of research. The use of extensive clinical interviews allowed for exploration in great depth of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they negotiated childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. At the 25-year follow-up, a comparison group of their peers from the same community was added. Described in rich clinical detail, the findings highlight the unexpected gulf between growing up in intact versus divorced families, and the difficulties children of divorce encounter in achieving love, sexual intimacy, and commitment to marriage and parenthood. These findings have significant implications for new clinical and educational interventions. The study we report here begins with the first no-fault divorce legislation in the nation and tracks a group of 131 California children whose parents divorced in the early 1970s. They were seen at regular intervals over the 25-year span that followed. When we first met our ...

Words: 10773 - Pages: 44

Premium Essay

Charles Dickens Divorce Law Analysis

...Dickens wants to convey us that in his time there was almost a divorce law but it only supports aristocrats, and the lower rungs or poor men suffers from it and they could not give divorce to their wives. How much they are in pain in their married lives, how much they are frustrated in married lives, how much they are in dilemma, because of the constraints of the Divorce law they could not free their selves from it. The best example in this novel is Stephen Blackpool, who in other aspects is good and honest man, who bear moral scruples but still his life is in vain as he is bound to the Victorian Divorce Law. He could not get rid of his drunkard wife because he is too poor who hardly meets his basic needs and by any means he could not be estranged...

Words: 955 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Crossing with the Virgin

...of mental abuse? Crossing the Mexican border is a journey and new beginning for many undocumented workers. In their eyes it’s a path for many privileges and opportunities. They feel as if all the hardship and struggles they face will just fade away. The narratives of Crossing with the Virgin portray conflicts that occur for undocumented workers crossing the Mexican border. For many illegal immigrants I personally feel that finding a stable job will be difficult, they will be taken advantage of, and eventually they will either be incarcerated or be deported back to their country. Dago is a man that lives in the city of Mexico with his wife and two daughters. Both he and his wife Elena own two beautiful houses. Dago works at a Levi Strauss’s Mexico division as an executive while his wife is a manager of a computer equipment company. Dago and his wife enjoyed the life they were living and were satisfied with everything that has happened in their lives. But, one day Dago was informed by his boss that the company he was working for was closing. Life for Dago went completely downhill from this point on. Dago was forced to move to his other house and eventually had to sell that house due to financial problems. His wife wanted a divorce and Dago had no choice but to cross the border. Dago arrived in Nebraska and expected an enhanced lifestyle but, things just got worse for Dago day by day struggling to find a job and survive. When Dago arrived there he received a U.S. ID and papers in...

Words: 937 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

About Me

...starting a new life by herself. The book is separated in three parts: Divorce Epistles, Breaking up the House, and Late Wife, and each section shows Claudia dealing with a new problem. The separation of the poems made it easy to identify the theme patterns found in the collection. For every chapter there was theme to be centered around, it also helped that collection was in chronological order and in narrative writing, for the book starts by retelling the sadness on her mind when she was going through her divorce, then she makes a quick summary of her single life, and ends it with the struggle of being the second wife of a man who recently lost his wife. At the end, she admits that she finds happiness, but that her journey to be happy was rough yet worth it. The first section is “Divorce Epistles” and the theme of it is divorce. This chapter starts by showing the reader some flashbacks of how her marriage was like before the divorce and then it ends by showing what she did right afterwards. The first poem is “Aftermath” (5) and it is her reflection of her divorce she admits that she knew it was going to happen eventually. In these lines, “I confess that last house was the coldest I kept. In it, I became formless as fog, crossing / the walls, formless as your breath as it rose” (8), she was being ignored by her husband, but she did not acknowledge it as being a problem. After the first poem, Claudia gives a set of important flashbacks that could have led to her divorce and also what...

Words: 2039 - Pages: 9

Free Essay

The Impact of Divorce on Children Under the Age of Eighteen

...The Impact of Divorce on Children Under the Age Of Eighteen Benjamin D. Hinely Liberty University Online PSYC 210 – D29 Abstract Divorce is the act of separating two married individuals legally and absolves both parties of marital obligation. It is, by its nature, destructive and stressful. Pulling a family apart rarely happens along clean lines and children can often be left confused and permanently effected emotionally and mentally. Depression is a major result in children. As are self esteem issues regarding self worth in relation to possible future marriage partners. In addition, there are other general relational problems. Children previously affected by divorce are more likely to see it as an option in their own relationships. Problems with relating to others and a lack of ability to trust implicitly are common as well. Academics are often negatively affected (ie. lower grades, in class disturbances, concentration conflicts) by these factors. It isn’t universal, however, that divorce always is a negative influence. There are those who go on to have good relationships and marriages. It is then not an exact thing to say divorce is always harmful to children. But the possibilities do exist and should then be accounted for. . Research The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines divorce as “the action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage and or separation and severance.” In more practical and real terms it is where two people split up their lives and divide...

Words: 1932 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Malcom Turnbull Analysis

...On the 16th of September Malcom Turnbull was successful in taking the leadership of the Liberal party due to his majority vote during the spill motion. There has been a mixed reaction from the Australian public and the media to his recent elevation to Prime Minister. As this issue creates passionate polarised opinions within Australia, this article trivialises these views. Fairfax journalists usually write articles of a conservative nature although, in this piece, written by Georgina Connery, Malcom Turnbull is constructed as the instigator of homophobia and responsible for a blockade of civil rights within parliamentary processes. This article fabricates a personal conflict between Turnbull and equity campaigners although there is no such battle of ideologies. The demographic of this article have been exposed to a specific landscape of sophistry to create news for the mainstream readership out of a unsubstantiated conflict....

Words: 1390 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Axia College Psy 230 Final Paper

...Personal Narrative Your NAme Here PSY 230 August 26, 2010 Axia College of the University of Phoenix The past five years of my life is easiest explained by the humanistic theory of psychology, in particular that of Abraham Maslow’s “psychology of being” (McAdams, 2006, pp. 268, ¶ 3). Prior to five years ago I was striving towards self actualization, having all my basic requirements of physiological, safety, belongingness, and love needs as described in Maslow’s needs hierarchy in place, my self-esteem was high. I have proven myself as successful in achieving my goals and was regularly rewarded with recognition that afforded me with a certain prestige and status at work as well as among my social group. The reason I have chosen Maslow’s needs hierarchy to describe the past five years of my life is simply because I believe his explanation is fluid, mimicking life’s ups, and downs. I systematically lost many of my esteem needs through divorce (belongingness and love needs), illness, injury (safety needs) and the loss of my job (achievement) as described in Maslow’s need hierarchy (McAdams, 2006). The last five years have been used to regain what I lost, and I now have a new direction to pursue. I have returned to school to receive the education I need to achieve my goals in my redirected meaning of my purpose and meaning in life, which are to again achieve the confidence, status, prestige, and self-esteem I had lost. Peak experiences of my past such as marrying, taking care...

Words: 1074 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Mental Health Counseling: Gendered Expectations Of Young Women

...and vocations of young women also affect their ability to actualize their potential quality of life. That is, the strains of gendered expectations are injurious to the mental welfare of women. In the past, the psychiatric community has unethically––and yet perhaps unconsciously––used mental diagnoses to prune women into their gender roles and punish deviation from the norm, again referencing the historically sexist conventions of psychology [Source B]. The Journal of Mental Health Counseling continues to attest that “girls who defy gender roles are more often rejected by peers and have a higher risk for experiencing significant psychological...

Words: 1237 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Memories of Partition: Shiv K. Kumar’s - a River with Three Banks

...molestation of women in the novel. Communal hatred that engulfs the city of Delhi has been presented in all its ugliness through incidents described in the novel. The death and destruction that is perpetrated by both the communities on each other is a grotesque reminder of the folly of man who cannot feel the pain and misery of another. The writer, however, concludes the narrative on a subtle note of hope and promise. Creative writers, unless they chose like Raja Rao to completely ignore Partition, have been writing about it ever since 1947. The heat and dust raised by the catastrophe did not settle down for a long time. The unnaturalness of communal strife that gripped the country at that time is still beyond human understanding. Kumar has used the backdrop of Partition in his novel as “a gift of British diplomacy which thrived on the political ambition and the resultant myopia of the seekers of power who chose the trauma for glory.”1. What is different about the novel is that here the writer does not give the picture of different communities living peacefully. Partition has already drifted them apart as the narrative begins. For Kumar Partition is an experience that he lived and felt as he himself migrated from Lahore to Delhi in August 1947. Thus, in A River With Three Banks he looks back at the event after a gap of...

Words: 4533 - Pages: 19