Divorced parents late in life drama

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would just like to say: mom is a grown adult, and divorced. She raised her kids, took care of the husband, she did her time already. She isn't obligated to stick around and keep wiping up messes at the expense of her own happiness anymore. You are all adults, you figure it out.

Well she can't take that attitude and then complain that the Op and her kids aren't spending enough time with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would just like to say: mom is a grown adult, and divorced. She raised her kids, took care of the husband, she did her time already. She isn't obligated to stick around and keep wiping up messes at the expense of her own happiness anymore. You are all adults, you figure it out.

And the consequence of her choice to divorce created a huge mess for her adult children and for her to ignore or pretend otherwise is incredibly selfish.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe anyone is taking the mother's side. Insanity! She sounds terribly selfish (the "grandmas don't babysit - they visit" tells you everything you need to know about her in a nutshell IMO). I'm sorry you're struggling OP. I'm glad for your sake that you have a supportive sister. Many people in your position don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe anyone is taking the mother's side. Insanity! She sounds terribly selfish (the "grandmas don't babysit - they visit" tells you everything you need to know about her in a nutshell IMO). I'm sorry you're struggling OP. I'm glad for your sake that you have a supportive sister. Many people in your position don't.

+1

I think there's a few vocal women on this thread who are divorced, would like to be divorced, or are planning a distant future divorce after the kids are grown. They themselves probably are cringing at the thought of their own adult child viewing them as selfish in a similar circumstance. Hence all the anger. Also, if you reversed the genders of everyone in the story (dad trapezing around with new girlfriend on cruise ships while his dutiful son took care of dying mother / dad lending no emotional or physical support to dutiful son and his spouse while expecting a red carpet rollout for himself to enjoy stress-free visits with grandkids) you'd have WAY different answers.

Next time, reverse the genders on this sort of post, OP.

OP, no matter what anyone else says, this isn't how family should treat one another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe anyone is taking the mother's side. Insanity! She sounds terribly selfish (the "grandmas don't babysit - they visit" tells you everything you need to know about her in a nutshell IMO). I'm sorry you're struggling OP. I'm glad for your sake that you have a supportive sister. Many people in your position don't.

14:33 here again and yes OP is lucky she is not fighting with her sister. I no longer live in my hometown but my two siblings do and they are now doing most of the caregiving. They are angry at me for supposedly not doing my share. At the moment none of us are really speaking to each other and we are all really burned out. My parents divorce and aging has pitted us against each other.

[Anonymous]

Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

[Anonymous]

I am shocked by these responses. The mom is acting very selfishly to not at least acknowledge the impact this is having on her adult children. And this is not sexist; I would say the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. Then again, I'm traditional and believe that marriage is for life barring abuse or similarly extreme circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

This. This. This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

This. This. This.

This is not how life works, sorry dears. If a person suddenly decides to become anti-social because they "earned it," then they find themselves alone. That's how life works. Sorry to burst your bubble. And this applies to everyone at any stage in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your mom is going to reap what she sows. She won't get the relationship with your, your sister, or her grandchildren, because you are all too effing busy taking care of your father. To Pp's who don't seem to get it--sure, mom has no obligation to her ex husband. She still has obligations to her children, FFS. Or not, but then don't complain when no one visits her when she's old and boyfriend has bailed.

Maybe the father is reaping what he sowed. When I am divorced, I won't give my husband a second thought. I tried for years to fix our marital problems (with no interest on his end of doing the same) and have now checked out completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

This. This. This.

This is not how life works, sorry dears. If a person suddenly decides to become anti-social because they "earned it," then they find themselves alone. That's how life works. Sorry to burst your bubble. And this applies to everyone at any stage in life.

+1. Nobody is asking the mom to care for the dad or to forego happiness.
But can't she acknowledge the reality that her daughter is providing end of life care and is under a lot of stress?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

Not once in any of her posts has OP said ANYTHING like this. You are projecting and imagining things that aren't there. All she wants is for her mother to say something comforting and sympathetic to her. Or, alternatively, to stop guilt tripping her about visiting during a very trying time in her life. She'd get more comfort talking this over with her next door neighbor!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents only exist to meet your needs, and it's inconsiderate and selfish of them to want lives of their own once they've finished raising you.

Mom loves you, knows you love Dad, and never will tell you all the many ways that Dad was a miserable excuse for a husband. You who get outraged and call for divorce in every thread where a woman complains about her husband, you leave out the part "unless you're my mom."

Now that you're grown and established, she'd hoped you'd be mature and generous enough to be okay with her finally putting herself first and finding some happiness. We only get one life.

Like many women and men, Mom found caretaking and domestic activities onerous and dull, but she worked hard through your first two decades doing everything she could to nurture you and make your home. She finds childcare exhausting and tedious, especially at her age, even though she loves your kids. She wishes you'd hire someone young to babysit them and let her enjoy them on her own terms. She's sad to see you going through the loss of your father, but you don't see her losses, and she'll probably never let you see it.

This. This. This.

This is not how life works, sorry dears. If a person suddenly decides to become anti-social because they "earned it," then they find themselves alone. That's how life works. Sorry to burst your bubble. And this applies to everyone at any stage in life.

+1. Nobody is asking the mom to care for the dad or to forego happiness.
But can't she acknowledge the reality that her daughter is providing end of life care and is under a lot of stress?

This This This

[Anonymous]

The mother is selfish because she expects the daughter to do the emotional labor of creating the illusion that all is well, so that the mother can have a fun visit and not have to help or even think abiut what her daughter is going through. She has every right to get divorced, but she can't demand that the daughter play along with her fantasy life in which everything is wonderful and divorce has no cnsequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would just like to say: mom is a grown adult, and divorced. She raised her kids, took care of the husband, she did her time already. She isn't obligated to stick around and keep wiping up messes at the expense of her own happiness anymore. You are all adults, you figure it out.

Well she can't take that attitude and then complain that the Op and her kids aren't spending enough time with her.

+1

Sounds like she divorced her children and grandchildren too. Oh well, it's her choice to die alone.