When my parents divorced, no one asked me what I wanted.They asked the lawyers.They asked the grandparents.They asked each other — mostly through anger.

But no one asked the thirteen-year-old girl standing in the hallway, pretending not to listen.

Divorce is often described as something that happens between two adults. But that’s not entirely true. It spreads. It leaks. It settles into the walls of a house and into the bones of a child.

I became the bridge between two broken lands.

At first, the fights were loud and explosive. Accusations flew like shattered glass.

You never cared about this family!You controlled everything!”
“You ruined my life!”

I used to press a pillow over my ears, but voices still found a way through. Words like “failure,” “regret,” and “lawyer” became part of my vocabulary before I fully understood them.

Then one day, the fighting stopped.

Not because things got better.

But because they gave up.

The silence after a marriage dies is colder than any argument.

My father moved out on a rainy afternoon. I remember the sound of the door closing — not slammed, just firmly shut. It echoed longer than it should have.

My mother didn’t cry in front of me. She stood straight, arms crossed, as if holding herself together by force.

Everything will be fine,” she said.

That was the first lie we both agreed to believe.

After the divorce, life became divided into schedules.

Monday to Friday with Mom.Every other weekend with Dad.Holidays negotiated like business contracts.

I learned to pack a small suitcase efficiently — clothes, homework, charger, toothbrush. I became good at remembering what I left behind in each house.

But no one prepares you for packing your emotions.

When I was with my mother, she would sigh heavily while cooking.

Your father never appreciated what I did,” she would mutter.

She didn’t directly ask me to take her side. She didn’t need to. The pain in her voice was enough.

When I was with my father, he would shake his head quietly.

I tried my best. She was never satisfied.”

Again, no direct request. Just wounded pride wrapped in sadness.

And there I was — sitting at two different dining tables, absorbing two different versions of the same story.

At thirteen, I became a therapist without training.

I learned to nod sympathetically.I learned to say, “I understand.I learned to adjust my expressions depending on whose house I was in.

If I showed too much affection toward my father in front of my mother, her smile would tighten.If I mentioned something fun I did with my mother while at my father’s house, he would go quiet.

So I edited my life carefully.

I became a master of selective storytelling.

School trips? Mentioned differently.Achievements? Announced cautiously.Problems? Hidden completely.

Because the last thing I wanted was to add more weight to their already heavy hearts.

But carrying two emotional worlds started to exhaust me.

One night, after listening to my mother vent for over an hour about court expenses and unfair settlements, I went to my room and stared at the ceiling.

I realized something terrifying.

I didn’t feel like a child anymore.

I felt responsible.

Responsible for her happiness.Responsible for his loneliness.Responsible for keeping peace that was never mine to manage.

My grades started slipping. Not dramatically — just enough for teachers to notice.

You seem distracted lately,” my homeroom teacher said gently.

I wanted to tell her that my life felt like a courtroom drama and I was both witness and evidence.

Instead, I shrugged. “Just tired.”

Tired became my constant state.

On my fourteenth birthday, my parents both showed up.

Separately, of course.

My mother arrived first, placing a neatly wrapped gift on the table. Thirty minutes later, my father walked in with a cake.

The air grew thick.

They were polite. Too polite.

How have you been?”
“Fine.”
“Work okay?”
“Busy.”

I sat between them, feeling like a fragile object placed between two magnets pushing away from each other.

At one point, they both reached to adjust the candles on the cake and their hands almost touched. They froze.

In that tiny moment, I saw it — not hatred, but unresolved pain.

And suddenly, I didn’t want them to get back together.

I just wanted them to heal separately.

But that kind of clarity didn’t come until much later.

During my teenage years, resentment began to bloom inside me — not loud, but persistent.

I resented my father for leaving.I resented my mother for confiding in me too much. I resented both of them for making me choose sides without saying the words.

The breaking point came when I was sixteen.

My father had started dating someone new. He told me gently, almost nervously.

I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else,” he said.

I nodded, pretending maturity.

When I told my mother, she went silent. Later that night, I heard her crying in the bathroom.

The next morning, she asked casually, “So, is she younger?”

That was it.

I snapped.

“Why are you asking me?” I shouted. “I’m not your messenger!”

The room went still.

My mother looked stunned. “I’m just asking.”

“No, you’re not,” I said, tears spilling over. “You’re making me choose again.”

For the first time, I said what had been suffocating me for years.

“I’m tired of being in the middle. I’m your daughter. Not your friend. Not your therapist. Not your spy.”

Her face crumpled.

And instantly, guilt flooded me. Because even when I was finally honest, I still felt like I had done something wrong.

That’s the curse of children in broken families. We confuse self-protection with betrayal.

That night, my mother knocked on my door.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t realize I was putting you in that position.”

It wasn’t a dramatic apology. It didn’t fix everything overnight. But it was the first time she acknowledged my burden.

Things changed slowly after that.

She started talking to her friends instead of unloading everything onto me. She began therapy. I could see the shift — subtle but real.

My father, too, began respecting boundaries. He stopped asking detailed questions about my mother’s life. He focused on building a relationship with me that wasn’t dependent on her.

But the scars didn’t vanish.

For a long time, I struggled with relationships. Whenever two friends argued, I felt anxious. Whenever someone raised their voice, my chest tightened.

Conflict felt like a threat to stability.

I either avoided it completely or tried to fix it obsessively.

It took years — and therapy of my own — to understand that their divorce was not my responsibility.

Children often internalize separation as failure.

If I had behaved better…
If I had been more lovable…
If I had noticed earlier…

But marriages are complex ecosystems. They collapse for reasons far beyond a child’s influence.

Today, I’m twenty-six.

My parents are both remarried. They’re civil with each other — distant but respectful.

When we gather for important events, like my university graduation, they sit at opposite ends of the room. They don’t laugh together. But they don’t wound each other either.

And I no longer sit in the middle.

I sit at my own table.

Looking back, I realize something important: I lost a version of childhood too early. I learned emotional negotiation before I learned algebra properly. I learned how to comfort adults before I understood my own sadness.

But I also gained something.

Empathy.

Resilience.

The ability to see multiple perspectives at once.

I no longer see my parents as villains in each other’s stories. I see two imperfect humans who loved each other once, failed each other painfully, and tried — in their flawed ways — to still love me.

Divorce fractured our family structure.

But it also forced us to rebuild it more honestly.

If I could speak to my thirteen-year-old self standing in that hallway, I would tell her this:

You are not responsible for holding broken pieces together.
You are allowed to be a child.
You are allowed to love both of them without guilt.

Being in the middle taught me one final truth:

Sometimes, the healthiest thing a child can do is step out of the battlefield and refuse to carry weapons that were never theirs.

I am no longer the bridge between two broken lands.

I am my own ground now.

And that ground, finally, feels steady.