Half a Home: Finding Myself in the Space Between My Parents

Growing Up in a Home That Was Falling Apart

As a child, I believed home would always be somewhere I felt safe. I slowly learned otherwise.

I couldn't understand why my father was hurting my mother. I only knew that something was wrong at home. And that I could do nothing to stop it. When the arguments began, I would keep to myself and wait for them to end. At night, I would lie awake, wondering whether another argument would begin.

I couldn't explain what was happening. I only knew that something about home no longer felt safe. After my parents separated and my father left, I was left with questions I didn’t know how to answer:

Living With What Was Left Behind

I remember how my mother kept our little home going with whatever life gave us.

Our 120-square-foot rented room had a makeshift kitchen and basic facilities. What once felt ordinary slowly revealed the care and effort behind it.

When rainwater came inside, we moved our belongings around and made space wherever we could. I began noticing how carefully my mother managed everything we had.

At that age, I didn't question much about our life. I only accepted things as they were; it was much later that I understood how much those years had affected me.

When Divorce Followed Me Outside the Home

I believed everything happening at home would remain there, but I soon realized it affected how I felt outside those walls too.

Questions about my father often made me uncomfortable at school. During PTMs, I saw other children with their parents, while I struggled to explain why mine was not there. I started feeling different without really knowing why.

Even in my neighborhood, I could feel that difference. Children sometimes refused to let me join their cricket games. Some friends' parents told their children not to play with me. I could not understand what I had done to deserve that. I remember going home puzzled, thinking, “Maine kya kiya hai?” (What have I done?)

Then came the comments about my mother. People would say, “Bechari, kitna kuch sehna pada.” (Poor woman, she’s been through so much.) I knew they were trying to show sympathy, but I hated the taras (pity).

My mother was never someone I pitied. She was simply my mother, and I wished others could see her beyond her circumstances.

I began to see how the separation had changed people’s perception of our family, and I had to learn to live with their judgment.

The Years I Spent Growing Up Too Soon

After my father left, my mother worked hard to support us - cooking, washing dishes, sewing clothes, and taking on odd jobs to pay my school fees and provide for me. Seeing all what she was doing, I began looking for ways to ease her burden.

I started selling newspapers before school and later worked at iron casting factories to earn more. I kept some of this work from my mother because I knew it would hurt her to know I was working nights while studying.

After school, I moved to the city for college to continue my education. I took odd jobs, including call-center night shifts, to earn money and ease my mother’s burden.

I had to grow up early, but those years changed how I saw my circumstances. I began to understand that where I started did not have to decide where my life would go.

When I Started Seeing the Impact on My Mother’s Health

My mother’s health began to deteriorate noticeably around five or six years ago, when I was already an adult. By then, I had begun to see the weight my mother had carried for years.

The divorce and everything that followed- the taunts, judgment, humiliation, and painful memories- stayed with her for years.

She remains unwell, but treatment and support are slowly helping her improve. Some of what she went through continues to affect her.

I may never fully understand everything she carries. And I cannot undo the past, but I can stand by her now and help with her treatment and care.

Over the years, I have come to terms with much of what I went through. And stopped allowing other people’s opinions to shape how I saw myself.

Today, one of the things I value most is being able to care for my mother and give something back to her.

What I Realized About Everything I Had Been Carrying

As I grew older, I began to understand my childhood differently. Back then, I dealt with each problem as it came without thinking much beyond it. I did not stop to think about how one difficult experience could add to another. I was simply trying to get through school, help my mother, and keep moving.

Only later did I begin to see that these experiences were connected.

Research also suggests that when parental separation happens may matter. A 2025 longitudinal study found an association between experiencing parental separation early in life and poorer mental health during adolescence, although the association was not the same across ages and genders.

For me, the realization came more quietly. I had been carrying things I did not have the words for, without fully understanding how they were affecting me.

How I Slowly Stopped Letting My Past Define Me

Understanding where I had come from helped me see more clearly where I wanted to go.

I found that moving forward meant learning to:

• Keep growing: I kept looking for ways to build a life beyond the circumstances I had grown up in.
• Take responsibility: I learned to make choices based on the future I wanted, not just the circumstances I had grown up in.
• Change my environment: A new environment helped me focus on what came next.
• Know my identity: I learned that my parents’ relationship was not who I was.
• Reject the shame: I stopped treating society’s judgment of my mother as something our family should feel ashamed of.
• Understand my mother: When she became unwell, I could see her struggles differently and support her instead of feeling helpless.
• Face the past: I learned to acknowledge difficult experiences instead of keeping everything buried.

I did not have to forget my past to move forward. I learned to carry it differently and build a life that was my own.

What I Would Tell a Child Living Through Divorce Today

Today, I would want the child I once was to know that he was never meant to carry all of this alone. His parents’ problems belonged to the adults, and other people’s judgments did not define his family. He did not have to carry the shame that society placed on his mother, either.

I would want him to know that the things people said about our family were never a measure of his worth. The experiences he went through would stay part of his story. But they would not have to decide the person he became. There was still a life ahead of him. His experiences could shape him without defining him.