A divorced mom of one was surprised to discover her parents still keep her old wedding photos in pride of place, and she told Newsweek why her mom and dad cling to the “happy memories.”
Meghan McTavish, 39, from the Gold Coast in Australia and her now-ex-husband got married in 2014 before going on to divorce last year.
Despite the split, McTavish says she has remained “friendly” with her ex, and they co-parent their seven-year-old son.
“It was difficult, but having our son as our primary focus helped us stay relatively friendly because we wanted to limit any kind of emotional stress for him,” McTavish told Newsweek. “We still do family dinners occasionally and my parents often see us FaceTiming our son when he’s with each parent.”
There’s no denying the fact that co-parenting is more common today. According to the Pew Research Center, in 1960, around nine in 10 children in the U.S. lived with married parents. By 2008 that proportion had dropped to seven in 10.
McTavish said that her parents were “sad but supportive” when she first told them she planned to divorce. “They had seen how much my ex and I had both tried to make it work but we had just grown too different from each other,” she said.
She also said that they have maintained a good relationship with her ex-husband. “They still really love my ex and my mum emails him on his birthday. He has the same birthday as my dad—thank you universe.”
@MeghanMcTavish
However, it only recently dawned on McTavish, during a stay at her parents’ house, that they appear to be having some trouble entirely accepting that he is every much her ex-husband, with an emphasis on the ex.
“I was lying in the guest room and they have basically an entire mural of weddings on one side of the bed,” she said. “I looked up and there it was—my wedding photos, my sister’s wedding photos … and a photo of me kissing my ex on the mantle.”
In a video posted to her TikTok account, @MeghanMcTavish, she was able to capture the moment she realized, in real-time, “how much they don’t want to let the dream go.”
“The thing is it’s right there as soon as you wake up, your life choices—framed,” McTavish said. “It can cause you to have a lot of extra existential thoughts at 6 a.m. You have questions like “am I only worth hanging up if I’m married?’, ‘What if I never get remarried?’, ‘Should I get married?’ and ‘Will they replace the photos if I’m remarried?'”
A caption accompanying the video reads: “Your parents understand that all their kids are divorced but the wedding photos—they are forever.” Both McTavish and her sister have divorced, and she believes there is a clear generational difference at play.
“Our parents used to always say when we were growing up ‘the best thing your father and I could’ve done is stay together,’ as though that saved us from emotional damage, which, as you can imagine, is not true,” McTavish said. “They can’t really say that any more because they’ve seen firsthand how my son has thrived with two happy divorced parents as opposed to two people stuck in resentment.”
Regardless of their views on divorce, McTavish said her parents do not have any plans to take the pictures down, telling her “they’re happy family memories.”
It’s a stance she empathizes with. “I get it. They were raised in a culture where the major milestones that were socially accepted by their generation were births, 21sts, weddings, funerals,” she said.
“These days we have so many milestones: births, 21sts, gap years if you’re lucky, graduation, first job, first side hustle, first time you realize that job isn’t your passion, quitting that job, finding a new career, maybe buying a house if you have the same savings habits as a monk, realizing avocado toast was probably worth it, getting a plant and desperately trying to keep it alive, discovering therapy, becoming a proud dog parent, and finally—mastering the art of unsubscribing from emails like a true adult.”