Our Stories... Divorce and what it is... My family has quite a complicated history. We all love each other very much but there are a lot of things which happened before and after I was born which changed what sort of a family I would grow up in. I will be protecting all of the identities of people in this story by changing their names. When my Dad was quite young, he fell in love with a woman named Debra. They got married when they were very young as  they thought that this was the right thing to do. Within about four years they had had two daughters called Liz and Rachel. They all seemed very happy but things started to change around the time that Rachel was born. There were no real arguments, Dad and Debra just realised that they weren’t right for each other and soon after this realisation they decided to split. When they split, Liz and Rachel stayed with Debra while the divorce was being sorted out. Before the divorce happened, about a year and a half after they split, Debra decided that she would give custody of Liz and Rachel to my Dad. He was obviously happy about this and while he was working the kids would live with their grandmother. Soon after the split my Dad met someone at work called Heather. They didn’t initially get together as Heather thought that although my Dad was a trusted colleague he was big headed and selfish. Soon though my Dad plucked up the courage to ask her out. It wasn’t just asking her out though, he told her he loved her and that he wanted to marry her  even before they started dating. She agreed to go out with him (but not to marry him) but only if he stopped smoking (My Dad did actually stop smoking because he wanted to go out with Heather so much!) It was obvious that Heather’s view of my Dad had changed quite rapidly and after a while of dating, my Dad asked Heather to marry him. He proposed in the middle of the bandstand at the local park which I think is quite romantic especially for my Dad. Heather said yes and all the arrangements for the marriage started to happen. After they were engaged, my Dad decided to introduce Heather to Liz and Rachel. Heather was very nervous but they all seemed to get on really well. In July of 1981, my Dad and Heather got married with Liz and Rachel as the bridesmaids. Two years later in July 1983 I was born. Two years after that in April 1985 my little brother Harry was born. We have always known that Liz and Rachel are only our half sisters but we have always loved them as real sisters and they have always loved us as a real sister and brother. There are loads of stories that have been told where I have wanted something and one of my elder sisters will always go and get it for me. All I had to do was ask or point and to a certain extent it is still like that although now I don’t see them as much as they now have their own families. Even with my nephew and niece (whose mother is Liz) they don’t seem like a half nephew and niece, they seem just like a real nephew and niece. There have been problems with the whole step daughter thing for my Mum. They have always called her Mum but when they were both teenagers they picked up on the fact that she wasn’t their real Mum and being teenagers they both, Liz especially, used it against my Mum. She was a difficult teenager anyway and it was a very difficult time for my parents. After she left school, got married and had kids she calmed down and realised that she had caused a lot of hassle for my parents. As Rachel was the youngest, she found the div orce very difficult and she had a lot of illness problems. This made it very difficult for my Mum to cope with as she had no idea what to do as these kids were suddenly hers and she had no idea what was wrong. Rachel also had a hearing problem and Liz was often the only person who could understand what she was saying which again made things difficult for Mum especially when Dad was at work. Still, they got through it and are still very close. They still call her Mum and see her more often than their real Mum. We may not be a normal family by a long shot but even though we have had our problems we all still love each other very much. I know that sounds like something from a Disney film but it is true that despite the difficult years, we all get on like a real family.
-Josie
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