Threaten the primal bond between mother and son at your peril: Bel Mooney lays bare the devastating impact of divorce on the teenage psyche
Hell hath no fury like an abandoned child. That was my first response when I read the terrible text message exchanges between disgraced former Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne and his student son Peter.
Such painful reading did they make that the sense of a family’s agony was almost intolerable.
Huhne’s message wishing his son a happy Christmas in 2010 was greeted with: ‘I hate you, so f*** off.’
Other replies from Peter included ‘Don’t text me you fat piece of s***,’ and ‘Don’t contact me again, you make me feel sick.’
Broken family: Peter Huhne and his parents. Peter's relationship with his father degenerated after he left his wife Vicky PryceOf course, this is only one case — and one which involves a high-profile couple, as well as a political career in tatters.
But the issues raised are wider and deeper, for each increase in the divorce statistics represents a national as well as an individual crisis.
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In my experience, it is quite normal, especially for a teenager (notwithstanding the hurt and bewilderment of younger children), to be full of unforgiving rage against the parent who has broken up the home.
Such grief, anger and disillusion need careful handling. Sadly, the wounds are usually left to fester while the parents tend to their own selfish needs.
Chris Huhne leaves Southwark Crown Court yesterday. He pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. His wife Vicky Pryce is currently on trialI’ve been writing an advice column for nearly eight years and that — together with personal experience — has left me in no doubt of two things.
First, that adults usually underestimate the long-term consequences of adultery and divorce.
And second, that if the ‘wronged’ spouse indulges a desire for revenge and so turns the children even more against the other parent, this can inflict as much long-term damage on the children as the original passion that led to the split.
The letters I’ve received from lonely, unforgiven fathers permanently estranged from their children are, in the end, just as sad as those from wives who have been abandoned.
One of America’s foremost experts on divorce, Dr Robert Emery, conducted a survey for his influential book, The Truth About Children And Divorce. He and his researchers tried to ‘quantify and measure the pain children feel about their parents’ divorce’.
They studied a group of university students, and found that even the most resilient reported a significant amount of emotional pain — even in cases when the split had happened years earlier.
Any cheating spouse who thinks their children — especially teenagers — can easily ‘get over it’, is wilfully blind to the damage such a betrayal can inflict.
Dr Emery’s research group discovered that nearly a third of children whose fathers had left wondered if they even loved them at all.
What’s so fascinating about these bitter messages from Peter Huhne is that they lay bare the almost uncontrollable fury that sons in particular can feel towards cheating fathers: more so, I would suggest, than is the case with daughters.
There is an almost primeval bond between mothers and sons, which means that sons feel viscerally protective of the woman who raises them. If they see that woman hurt and betrayed, their gut instinct is to lash out.
I’ve known daughters who are equally angry in this situation. Yet they have been able at the same time to adopt a protective role towards the erring father — unwilling to give up the role of ‘Daddy’s girl’.
Anybody shocked by the fact Peter Huhne’s emotions burn so furiously should consider that he found himself at home looking after an angry mother even as he felt so keenly the abandonment of his father. It must have been a cruel double burden.
Huhne, right, with lover Carina Trimingham, whom he left his wife for, as they arrive at court on MondayHow many betrayed mothers in such a situation bother to control their words? How many pour a tsunami of bitterness on the vulnerable head of a young person who is already dealing with all the normal problems of A-levels, hormones, friendships and the rest?
The answer is: all too many. To me, this is one of the outrages of modern life — that adults seem less and less able to control themselves for the greater good of their families.
So yes, the men (and it is they who break up homes in the majority of cases) are following their passions, with painful consequences. But it’s my conviction that, no matter how hurt she feels, the wife who is left must do everything she can to foster a good relationship between her children and her erring spouse.
This was my determined policy during my own separation and divorce. I don’t say it is easy; I say it is a duty.
Yet I once knew a man whose ex-wife would screech abuse at him down the garden path every Saturday when he came to pick up their little daughter for the day, repeating her disgusting performance when he returned the child.
There was another woman who actually drove her teenage son to his father’s new girlfriend’s house, so that he could yell obscene insults at her.
Vicky Pryce. the former wife of Geoff Huhne appearing at Southwark Crown court where she is charged with perverting the course of justice yesterdayAnd another abandoned wife who so comprehensively turned her sons against their father that one never spoke to him ever again, and the other suffered long-term mental harm.
Such behaviour is selfish and detestable — but all too common.
You may say each of the men in those cases brought the abuse on his own head by being unfaithful and ending the marriage.
That may or may not be the case; I don’t find such judgments quite so simple. Since the beginning of time, men and women have been turned into fools as well as angels by their unruly hearts.
Some first marriages end with blood on the floor, only to release both halves of the couple into new happiness.
Some second marriages are a disaster because the past looks rosier in retrospect (and this happens to be the subject of my advice column this coming Saturday).
But whatever the case, there will always be a price to be paid when children are involved.
Child psychologists discuss a condition they call Parental Alienation Syndrome. It was identified in 1985, as a result of the burgeoning number of child custody cases — figures that were unparalleled in history.
Experts noticed that in many disputes, a child would be turned by one parent against the other, ‘alienating’ him or her completely.
To quote author Penny Cross’s book Lost Children: ‘The alienated parent, who almost certainly enjoyed a good, normal and loving relationship with his child at the time of separation or divorce, is suddenly re-invented, almost overnight, into an object of venomous hatred and now becomes an object of unremitting, scornful abuse, about which the child feels no guilt.’
All of this has far-reaching implications when we consider the number of divorces taking place every year, and the vast numbers of children affected.
Of course, we cannot know what passed between Chris Huhne’s ex-wife Vicky Pryce and their son Peter after the politician walked out with his lover.
But the text exchanges between father and son remind us, sadly, that an errant father’s love is not always enough — and that he may go on being tormented by a child’s cries of hurt and rage for a very long time.
