The Secret Wish
Post written by a retired family law solicitor advocate
I originally wrote this post on 9 November 2006
https://divorcesolicitor.blogspot.com/2006/11/secret-wish.html
I know a young boy who attended his father's wedding recently. In the joviality of events he was asked to make three wishes by a passing drunken adult.
OK he said:
Number 1 - I want to be a famous footballer
Number 2 - I want my mum to stop being mean to me.
Number 3 - I want my mum and dad to get back together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This not so secret wish is shared by all children of divorced parents. Be aware that regardless of how bad your marriage and home life are, your children would prefer things to carry on rather than have one of you leave. Helping your children accept that their wish will not come true is a parenting challenge that should help distract you from your own problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nearly twenty years later, that moment still stays with me. Not because it was unusual, but because it was painfully ordinary. Children rarely articulate it so clearly, but the wish is almost always there. It sits beneath the surface, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, and often for years.
From a child’s perspective, separation is not a solution.
It is a loss.
They lose the idea of family as they understood it.
They lose certainty.
They lose the hope that tomorrow might simply be like yesterday, only better.
Adults divorce because relationships break down.
Children experience divorce as something that happens to them, not for them.
This is where many parents struggle. They assume that because the marriage was unhappy, the child must have felt it too in the same way. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not. Children can live quite comfortably alongside tension, distance, or unhappiness if it means both parents are still there.
That does not mean parents should stay together at all costs. It does mean that children’s emotional reality needs to be acknowledged honestly, not dismissed with adult logic.
I have seen parents become defensive when their child expresses the wish for reconciliation.
They hear it as criticism or rejection. I
t is neither.
It is grief.
Children are not asking you to be happy together.
They are asking for the world they knew to be put back together.
That is why reassurance matters so much. Children need to hear, repeatedly and consistently, that the separation is not their fault. That it is not something they caused or could have prevented. That loving both parents is allowed, not disloyal.
One of the most damaging things parents can do is compete for emotional loyalty. Asking a child to choose sides, even subtly, puts an unbearable weight on them.
Silence,
eye-rolling,
loaded comments,
or sharing adult grievances all have the same effect.
Children should not be your confidants.
They should not be your therapists.
And they should never be asked to carry the emotional consequences of adult decisions.
Helping children accept that their wish will not come true is not about blunt truth.
It is about stability,
predictability,
and kindness.
Routine helps.
Clear arrangements help.
Calm communication helps.
Conflict does not.
What children cope with best is not the fact of separation, but how it is handled.
I have seen children thrive after divorce where parents worked hard to co-parent respectfully, kept boundaries clear, and allowed space for sadness without trying to fix it.
I have also seen children struggle deeply where parents remained locked in hostility long after the relationship ended.
The secret wish may never entirely disappear.
Even adult children of divorce sometimes hold it quietly.
That does not mean you have failed.
It means your child loved their family.
As parents, your task is not to fulfil that wish, but to help your children feel safe, loved, and secure in a new reality they did not choose.
That is not easy work.
But it is important work.
And if you focus on that, rather than on winning,
justifying,
or defending your decision, y
ou are far more likely to help your children find their footing again.
The wish may be secret. The responsibility is not.
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