My parents had not slept in the same room since I was six years old and they only communicated when necessary. I was living in a pseudo-divorced home for as long as I can remember. My sister remembers a time when my parents were in love, but I never had that opportunity. All I saw was an industrious, self-employed architect, lacking the ability to express his emotions while demonstrating his love indirectly through money, food, and other material objects, and an overly-involved mother who lacked a romantic partner and who sought remedy by serving her children. A persistent triad was then formed, not among mother, father, and child; but rather, a subsystem was created among my mother, my sister, and I "a situation detrimental to any family structure (Minuchin 291). .
In the course of my adolescent years, I became immune to my parents' marital struggles caused by cultural disparities and conflicting child-rearing techniques, convincing myself that I was not the least bit bothered by their forthcoming separation. I was almost happy that they were on their way to find individual happiness apart from each other and that the conflict-ridden home I had known for so all my life was approaching extinction. Now I realize how deeply I have been affected and how much I long for that pseudo-divorced home where I had easy access to both my mother and father, even if they did not present a united front or communicate with one another "a situation that Rothbaum and Dyer-Tarquino claim to bear extreme negative consequences (Rothbaum and Dyer-Tarquino 7). My parents' stubbornness to adapt to one another's child-rearing style damaged their partnership and their conflicting views in life emerged when they were faced with the task of raising children. This summer they ultimately decided that they had fallen out of love and were no longer able to cooperate as partners, lovers, or parents. This year was the first Thanksgiving that my father was not present "it was a rude awakening to my once-secure world.