It's really a shame that divorce is so common these days. When my dad left home, around the time I was 14, it was a very big deal. I don't think I had one other friend at school who was the product of a broken marriage. This phenomenon has a nuclear effect on kids; those who think it doesn't are just kidding themselves. It changed my life in ways that are so profound that, all these years later, I still reel when I think about what might have been.
It did make me promise myself that when or if I ever got married, there would be no divorce. So far so good. But I can tell you, it's a lot of hard work.
When Tammy Wynette (born Virginia Wynette Pugh in Mississippi in 1942 - died April 6, 1998) came out with this song in December of 1967, it meant quite a lot to a whole slew of white trash parents. It was written by Bobby Braddock and Curley Putman.
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don't want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E
But the words we're hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me.
Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin' away
I love you both and it will be pure H-E-double-L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
(Second verse removed for © compliance.)