How did you deal with your parents' divorce?

My parents divorced when I was five years old. The fighting and attorneys and arguments lasted until I was around 13. I am now in my twenties and occasionally it still upsets me, but I’ve been noticing it more and more recently. I have a wonderful stepdad, who actually is more my father than my actual dad, and I have a good relationship with both my parents – it isn’t anything to do with that that bothers me. I wouldn’t want to change the fact that my stepdad is in my life, either.

I have found that the older I get, the more it affects me. I suppose the fact that the only memories I can recall from my childhood are unhappy ones, and when I do think of the fleeting happy moments I feel even more upset because they feel so intangible and I almost do not recognize them. Christmas upsets me, mainly because I can’t remember a Christmas where we all decorated the tree together. I can’t remember a Thanksgiving either. I feel upset for things it will affect in the future as well, for example if I have children they will never get to spend time with their grandparents together. I do not feel like the whole ordeal was my fault, I guess the most upsetting thing is that I couldn’t do anything to fix it.

The most frustrating part is that I had never felt this way about it when it was all actually occurring. Now that I actually have a life of my own, and no reasons to feel unhappy, I’m feeling exactly how terrible it was.

Have any of you had to deal with the affects of a particularly traumatic experience with your parents? How did you deal with how you felt about it?