Divorcing parents are fragile creatures. But when the emotional weight of ending a marriage begins to fall on the children, the consequences can be far more complicated than either parent realizes.
Even when the decision to end a marriage is mutual, the experience can leave two otherwise capable adults feeling frightened, rejected, angry, or profoundly alone. A marriage may be ending, but the need for connection, reassurance, and emotional security doesn't simply disappear with it.
When the person who has been their primary source of emotional support is no longer available in the same way, a struggling spouse may feel desperate for intimate connection.
And sometimes, in the midst of that upheaval, a parent begins looking to the children to fill the void.
After 25 years of working with divorcing couples, I've observed that the temptation to lean on children for emotional support is unfortunately more common than one might expect.
When I first decided to create Go Divorce Clinic in 2008, children were front and center in my thinking. I had seen how easily they could get lost in the process of a contested divorce. I wanted parents to have a safe place to navigate that passage so their children might benefit as well.
Much of what I had hoped for materialized. But even in an uncontested divorce, I found that a desperate divorcing spouse can become an emotionally clingy parent.
The children may find themselves managing a parent's loneliness, affirming their grievances, or feeling responsible for keeping that parent emotionally intact.
The parent may understand this as love, closeness, or an unusually strong bond with the children.
The children may be having a different experience.
Some Parents Explode. Others Implode.
I have witnessed that some parents can explode during divorce. Others can implode.
The explosive parent may openly recruit the children into the conflict, while the imploding parent may quietly draw them in by inviting the children to feel responsible for their emotional survival. One demands loyalty; the other may evoke it through helplessness.
Neither necessarily intends to harm the children, but both can place them in the impossible position of having to manage an adult's emotional world.
The explosive parent is often easier to recognize. There may be angry accusations about the other spouse, arguments over parenting time, or repeated attempts to persuade the children that one parent is responsible for the family's unhappiness.
The imploding parent can be much harder to identify.
This parent may not raise their voice or make overt demands. They may appear wounded, accommodating, even exceptionally devoted to the children. But beneath that apparent gentleness can be an intense fear of being left alone.
A child who senses this fear may begin to make accommodations.
Perhaps they stop expressing excitement about visiting the other parent. Perhaps they feel guilty leaving the house to spend time with friends. Perhaps they learn to conceal their own happiness because it seems to deepen the parent's sadness.
Nobody necessarily instructs the child to do these things.
The child simply begins to understand that their independence has emotional consequences for someone they love.
And that is an extraordinary responsibility to place on a young person.
When the Boundaries Begin to Blur
Parents naturally seek closeness with their children, particularly during periods of family upheaval. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about offering extra affection, reassurance, or time together during a divorce. But that is not what I am referring to here.
A parent who fears emotional or physical separation may become unusually distressed when the children leave for the other household. Ordinary transitions can take on the emotional weight of abandonment.
The child may be told, directly or indirectly, how lonely the house feels without them, how difficult the evenings have become, or how much the parent depends on their company.
None of these statements necessarily sounds malicious. But when a parent's sadness becomes something the child feels obliged to remedy, the child may begin to organize their choices around the parent's emotional needs.
When Custody Becomes a Source of Emotional Security
Physical custody is another area where a parent's distress can become entangled with the needs of the children.
There are many legitimate reasons why one parent may have more parenting time than the other. Work schedules, geography, a child's developmental needs, and genuine safety concerns can all influence a parenting arrangement.
But I have also witnessed how a parent's fear of losing the marriage can intensify a fear of losing the children.
The desire for more custody may not be entirely about the practical demands of raising them. It may also be about preserving companionship, maintaining a sense of purpose, or avoiding the emptiness of a household that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
The children become, in a sense, the last remaining pieces of family affection.
This can make negotiations over parenting time unusually charged.
A proposal that would otherwise seem reasonable may be experienced as a threat to the parent's emotional survival. The other spouse's request for time with the children may feel less like an ordinary parenting matter and more like another devastating loss.
The distinction matters.
Children should not have to surrender meaningful relationships with either parent merely to protect one parent from the loneliness of divorce.
And the desire to keep children close, however understandable, should not be confused with determining what arrangement actually serves them.
The Search for an Ally
Another pattern emerges when a parent begins seeking psychological affirmation from the children.
Divorce often leaves people with competing accounts of what happened in their marriage. Each spouse may have spent years developing a private understanding of who was responsible for what, who sacrificed more, and who ultimately caused the relationship to fail.
Adults are entitled to their perspectives.
The trouble begins when they seek confirmation of those perspectives from their children.
A parent may share intimate details about the marriage, recount grievances, or repeatedly explain why the divorce became necessary. They may ask questions that appear innocent but invite the child to validate their position.
You understand why I couldn't stay, don't you?
You saw how your father treated me.
You know I've always been the one who was there for you.
A child may respond sympathetically because they love the parent, because they want to stop the sadness, or because disagreeing feels dangerous to the relationship.
The parent receives the reassurance they were seeking.
The child, meanwhile, has been recruited into adult emotional terrain they are not equipped to manage.
What makes this particularly difficult is that children may genuinely agree with some of what a parent says. They may have witnessed arguments or experienced the effects of a troubled marriage firsthand.
But having their own observations is different from being asked to serve as a parent's witness, confidant, or emotional ally.
Children need the freedom to form their own understanding of their family without being responsible for validating either parent's version of events.
Making the Other Parent the Villain
Perhaps the most recognizable form of involving children in divorce is the demonization of the other parent.
An angry spouse may speak disparagingly about the other parent's character, motives, parenting, or conduct during the marriage.
Sometimes the criticism is direct. Sometimes it arrives disguised as concern, disappointment, or reluctant disclosure.
The effect can be to make affection for the other parent feel like disloyalty.
A child may begin to believe that enjoying time with one parent will hurt the other. They may conceal conversations, minimize positive experiences, or feel pressured to take sides in disputes they did not create.
And when one parent is emotionally fragile, the pressure may become especially powerful.
The child is no longer simply navigating two households. They are navigating two competing emotional loyalties, with the added fear that loving one parent might wound or alienate the other.
Being exposed to a parent's need to establish moral superiority over a former spouse can place a heavy burden on children. That is different from giving children truthful, age-appropriate information they need for their safety.
The Quiet Burden of Keeping a Parent Together
We notice the angry parent, the accusations, the refusal to cooperate, the obvious attempts to turn children against the other spouse. But a less obvious form of emotional dependency can hide in the parenting shadows.
Experience has taught me that emotional coercion can be quiet.
It can appear as sadness that the child feels compelled to relieve. As loneliness the child feels guilty for leaving behind. As a parent's apparent helplessness that makes the child's independence seem cruel.
The parent may never explicitly demand loyalty.
The child may nevertheless feel that loyalty is required.
This is why the absence of open conflict does not necessarily mean that children are free from the emotional burdens placed upon them in divorce.
A parent can be cooperative with a former spouse while still depending too heavily on the children for reassurance, companionship, or emotional stability.
And a child can appear exceptionally mature, caring, and attentive while privately carrying responsibilities that do not belong to them.
Let the Adults Carry the Divorce
There is a familiar piece of advice given to divorcing parents: don't use your children to carry messages about adult matters between households.
It's good advice.
Children shouldn't be responsible for communicating scheduling changes, financial requests, grievances, or negotiations between their parents. Those are adult responsibilities, and the adults should find a way to manage them.
But the messenger problem goes considerably deeper than passing information back and forth.
A child may have no idea that something inappropriate is being asked of them. They simply know that a parent is hurting and that they appear to have the power, at least temporarily, to make things better by assuming some kind of middleman role.
The truth is that there is a difference between allowing children to see that a parent is managing sadness and making them responsible for alleviating that sadness.
In an uncontested divorce, two people have the opportunity to make decisions about their children without turning those decisions into a contest over loyalty, affection, or moral standing.
A child should be free to love both parents, enjoy both households, and grow into an independent person.
The marriage may belong to the parents.
The burden of ending it should not belong to the children.
A Clearer Path Through Divorce
When two people are willing to cooperate, divorce does not have to become a contest. Go Divorce Clinic provides a structured, shared online process for California couples completing an uncontested divorce themselves. Make your decisions together, prepare your paperwork, and move forward at your own pace.
Get Started with the GDC Portal