Brilliant! I wish only that I had thought of it! What a great comparison of the Church as our family and how unity is essential. Cafeteria Catholics try to pull this all the time…

That could be true for many situations. Many dissenters would claim that they haven’t abandoned the Church, but their participation at Mass on Sunday shouldn’t be confused with Communion with Rome. It doesn’t matter how many diocesan committees they participate in if they’re not in Communion with the Holy See.

My family situation was cracked and broken long before my Father left the home. Alcohol was his mistress. To even know what an intact family experience was, I turned to God, and to my husband’s family. Even now, I see the repercussions of that broken home; my husband and I will celebrate 40 years of marriage in a week. Our marriage has been strengthen in prayer, coming from a origin of hope colored with disillusionment, Love colored with violence, and Patience colored with anger. It took about 25 years for my psyche to mend and start growing healthily. Thank God for my husband, he is the miracle God has blessed me with all these years.

I couldn’t agree more. Often I have heard people speak of a “good divorce”. The assumption is made that as long as the absent parent makes an effort to “stay involved” with his or her children then all is well. This is far from the truth of it.
In fact, I would argue that even an in tact marriage where emotional abandonement is present on the part of one or both of the spouses, does in fact leave the children abandoned as well. I speak philosophically on this point, but I have experienced it personally as well. For example if a father continues to stay married to his wife and the mother of his children but is emotionally “detached” from her, then he subsequently emotionally detaches from his children as well. He may love his children very much. But the bond between husband and wife is so essential to the parent child dynamics that without it the child feels abandoned or lost despite having both parents physically present under one roof.
Obviously this scenerio is a better choice than divorce because it allows for the potential of husband wife reconciliation and repair of that damaged bond. It is better to have children see that an attempt is being made to maintain that connection rather than deal with the complete severing of it.
It is a difficult concept for most to grasp in laymen’s terms so to speak. I have discussed it with others who have been too “brainwashed” by the culture to even give this any consideration. Yet, I have also discussed this with those who do feel similarly but cannot articulate it into understandable language.
My own parents had a terrible period in their marriage. This occured when I was in my early twenties and still in college. My older sister was in college as well. I suppose my father felt it was “good timing” for him to finally leave since, in his own words, “we didn’t need him anymore”. I can only describe that time in my life as being filled with constant self-doubt.
This is how I try to explain what divorce/emotional abandonement of a wife/spouse does to the children despite the parent’s best of intentions. My father said he was not giving up on my sister and I but he was giving up on my mother. Where did that leave me?
It left me feeling I no longer had an identity. I felt like a nobody. I had become in an instant, with the words “I’m leaving your mother”, a big zero. “Who am I then?” I would ask myself. If my mother and father came together and in marriage. Joined together to become one, and this oneness produced me, then to undo this oneness does that not then undo me? These are the thoughts that filled me and colored all my emotions at the time. Here I was 21 years old and without an identity to speak of and yet the whole world couldn’t understand my agony. “What’s the big deal? Don’t you want your dad to be happy?” Or “What do you care anymore you’re on your own now anyway. It’s not like you’re a little kid in the midst of a custody battle.”
But it did hurt. In fact it devastated me. My parents ended up “working it out”. My mom did a LOT of praying (and crying) and my dad had a conversion and began to pray as well. Ultimately they are back together now ten years. Their marriage is not an ideal one. They are still not “one body” but just the fact that they are trying to be or at least “pretending” to be is in itself a huge comfort to myself, my sister, and the whole family (two son-in-laws, and 8 grandchildren). We may not be perfect but we know WHO we are. We are a family. There’s only one way to be that - and that’s together. (that’s my layman’s approach to it all)