“What’s really bothering you?” I asked, putting an arm around the sobbing bundle before me. “I want my daddy… I want to go to his house now… I want my mommy to come,” she said, tears and words pouring out in equal measure. I started to feel my own throat ache. I clutched her closer as I debated whether to let her see my own tears.

Sarah (not her real name) is struggling to come to terms with her parents’ failing marriage. The fact that her dad recently moved out would be foreboding to any child, 4 or 40. I should know. Nearly three years ago my father moved out of our family home. Now my parents are divorced after 35 years of marriage. Their split was not a total surprise; they had been growing apart for years. Still, I had always held out hope, childish as it might have been, that somehow Mom and Dad would find a way back to one another. The fact that they never will has been a hard reality to swallow, even as a seasoned, married 34-year-old.

Contrary to popular belief, divorce isn’t any easier or less painful when you are an adult child. The only difference between Sarah and me is that I can try and sort through what has happened to my family on an intellectual as well as emotional level. Sarah is left holding a bag of emotions she’s not quite sure what to do with. So she throws tantrums and fights with her friends. I’ve been there.

During the past three years I’ve lashed out at my own husband and kids over seemingly minor infractions, like an unwillingness to pick up clothes or toys. I have even cried over spilled milk.

I often find myself at a loss to explain how empty my parents’ breakup has left me. This is coming from someone who writes for a living. I can only imagine the pent-up emotions a young child like Sarah harbors inside.

The sad thing is that the two people I often want to turn to for comfort–my mother and my father–cannot be good listeners in this circumstance. My pain incites their frustration, guilt and anger over the situation. Somehow the conversation comes back to them and their suffering.

Grandparents and other relatives, I have found, are not always objective listeners. And much as I’d like to pour my heart out to my little sister, I won’t. She needs a listener too.

My husband tries to be a sounding board, but he has no clue what it is like to be the kid of divorced parents. He comes from an unusually functional family. He can’t fathom the sorrow and betrayal I feel when looking at a portrait of my mom, my dad, my sister and I when we were still young and hopeful about our future together. He can’t understand the awkwardness of being invited to a party by a longtime family friend who has opted not to invite my mother but my father and his fiancee instead. Nor can he grasp the unwarranted shame I feel when someone asks me if my parents are still married.

No child wants to see his or her parents unhappy. I know I didn’t. For me, understanding the necessity of the divorce was never the problem; it was learning how to deal with the consequences of it.

Even though good things do come out of divorce–often-happier parents, fractured but more peaceful family gatherings–the loss of that original family unit and the hope tied to it is often irreplaceable for a child. I’m convinced that even after my parents’ financial settlement is final, I’ll never manage to fill the void that’s been created. It’s like mourning the death of someone I loved and now miss terribly. In its place I have a series of separate, compartmentalized relationships.

My parents will be my parents forever, no matter what they think of one another or whom they might marry. After all, I didn’t divorce them. With that in mind, I have no choice but to divide my time and emotions between the two. I am hardly alone. More than a million kids go through this exercise each year.

Yet, routine as divorce may be, to a child of any age it is a unique event of cataclysmic proportions. I don’t know if there’s any way to make divorce a less grueling process for a kid. I do know that a little understanding goes a long way. My parents came to see that what I was struggling with was not so much their living apart but what their living apart would mean for me. Now, finally, we’re piecing together a new family picture that doesn’t feel hopelessly fractured.