Back Then, Those Years
Since his parents divorced when he was a child, his personality became eccentric and extreme. His values, outlook on society, and perspective on life were all distorted. Having been unruly and undisci
When you hold this book in your hands, I wish to speak to those parents who have already divorced, or who have not yet parted ways. You may believe that marriage is a matter of personal freedom, a choice to be made and unmade at will—and perhaps you are not wrong. Yet, it may never occur to you that the failure of a marriage is, in fact, a kind of sin. Should the day come when your marriage ends, have you ever considered that your child will become the casualty of your choices? How will your child’s life be shaped by this?
Will your child’s character become warped?
How arduous will your child’s future be?
What emotions will linger between parent and child?
And what path will your child choose? Where will their life lead?
I am a child of divorce, growing up with a succession of stepmothers, left behind as a so-called “left-behind child,” enduring every imaginable hardship, descending into depths you would never dream of. For thirty-five years—eight of them behind bars, two spent begging, ten left to fend for myself, five years struggling to survive, and ten years hustling—I have tasted bitterness, difficulty, despair, rage, resignation, deformity, and perversion beyond your imagining.
I dare say that divorce is a sin, and the child carries this original sin. From the day you leave, this sin becomes unforgivable, irreparable. Your child will bear all the consequences, wounds that can never be healed, blood and tears that can neither be wiped away nor forgotten.
In May 1989, I was born in a remote northern mountain village, a small