Personal Narrative: Life After Divorce

“That’s weird. You’re parents are married but your dad doesn’t live with you?” I can

remember these words from over a decade ago. As a child, it never occurred to me that a father

was supposed to live in the same country as his child, let alone in the same household.

In the Asian culture, many families look down upon divorce. My mom, coming from a

traditional Burmese family, and my dad, coming from a conservative Singaporean background,

found a loophole. Separated but not divorced. This allowed my parents to keep their honor but

also prevented them from being stuck in a marriage out of obligation. I was never given “the

talk” about why my parents decided to separate, or how my life was about to change drastically.

All I knew

I didn’t see my dad again for another year. Seeing my dad for the first time after his long

absence was strange. I didn’t know what to feel anymore: happy to see my dad again, or angry

that he had left in the first place. I felt as if I didn’t even know him anymore. Two weeks later,

my dad packed his bags and went back to his native country, Singapore. This pattern continued

and I began to resent my father. Whenever it was time for his yearly visits, I wouldn’t get

excited, but my older sister, Sharon would. He was just a tall strange man with familiar brown

eyes that I would try to avoid.

My mom always said that raising two daughters alone made her exceptionally strong.

This made me realize that I need to be strong as well: strong for my sister, strong for my mom,

and strong for myself. This has taught me to keep my guard up and be resilient, which led my

father to believe that I didn’t love him. As the years went by, the negative feelings toward my

father grew stronger. I felt abandoned, and hurt. When the opportunity arose for me to visit my

father in Singapore, in 2012, I immediately rejected the idea. I couldn’t even stand my father,

and my mom wanted me to spend two months with him in a foreign country? Being only 14