Feeling different about my parent's divorce now as an adult....

[Anonymous]

When I was 6 years old, my mother divorced my father because he had a drinking problem. She was a stay at home mom and left with my siblings and I to live with her parents in a small town 2 hours away from the city we lived in. When the divorce was finalized, my mother was able to stay in her childhood town with us, and my father had to stay in the city 2 hours away for his job. He did not have any work opportunities in the small town. We saw him every other weekend, 1 week over the summer, and at other random times when he'd visit us in the small town for school events and sport tournaments. He was a good father and many of my favorite childhood memories are with him. He stopped drinking after the divorce, and tried hard to continue to be a part of our lives. As far as I know, he never drank or was drunk around us kids. I know he struggled with depression, and as we got older and couldn't see him as much due to school and sport obligations, he started drinking again.

Up until now, I always supported what my mother did. She told me at the time of the divorce that he was an alcoholic and that is why we left him. She has always complained about how much hell he put her through during the divorce. He tried so hard to stop her from moving away with us, and she said he did it because he was just trying to control her and didn't want to pay as much in child support. As we got older, she also encouraged us to try and get him to pay for as much as possible on top of the child support. Looking back, I can now see how anxious this made me and how much she damaged my relationship with him.

I'm now in my early 30s and I'm starting to resent her for taking us away from him. I don't blame her for leaving him, but if we had stayed in the city, we would have seen him so much more, especially as we got older and school and sports took so much of our time. He never remarried, and for the longest time I think he had hopes that he and my mother would get back together. When I was in high school, he started drinking pretty heavily again and he died from cirrhosis in my early 20's. I gave him a hard time, even when I knew he was probably getting close to the end. I guess I have just been missing him a lot lately, and it's like all of a sudden I can see and understand his side of things. I just want to tell him that I see now how much he struggled and that I love him and don't blame him. I feel so guilty about how I handled his final years, I know he was depressed and that in the end he stopped taking his meds and just gave up and let himself die.

I don't blame my mom for my dad's drinking problem, and again I understand why she divorced him and I am not upset about that. I also know that he was far from the perfect parent. I guess I am just wondering if my newfound resentment of my mother is warranted, or do you guys think she did what she had to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was 6 years old, my mother divorced my father because he had a drinking problem. She was a stay at home mom and left with my siblings and I to live with her parents in a small town 2 hours away from the city we lived in. When the divorce was finalized, my mother was able to stay in her childhood town with us, and my father had to stay in the city 2 hours away for his job. He did not have any work opportunities in the small town. We saw him every other weekend, 1 week over the summer, and at other random times when he'd visit us in the small town for school events and sport tournaments. He was a good father and many of my favorite childhood memories are with him. He stopped drinking after the divorce, and tried hard to continue to be a part of our lives. As far as I know, he never drank or was drunk around us kids. I know he struggled with depression, and as we got older and couldn't see him as much due to school and sport obligations, he started drinking again.

Up until now, I always supported what my mother did. She told me at the time of the divorce that he was an alcoholic and that is why we left him. She has always complained about how much hell he put her through during the divorce. He tried so hard to stop her from moving away with us, and she said he did it because he was just trying to control her and didn't want to pay as much in child support. As we got older, she also encouraged us to try and get him to pay for as much as possible on top of the child support. Looking back, I can now see how anxious this made me and how much she damaged my relationship with him.

I'm now in my early 30s and I'm starting to resent her for taking us away from him. I don't blame her for leaving him, but if we had stayed in the city, we would have seen him so much more, especially as we got older and school and sports took so much of our time. He never remarried, and for the longest time I think he had hopes that he and my mother would get back together. When I was in high school, he started drinking pretty heavily again and he died from cirrhosis in my early 20's. I gave him a hard time, even when I knew he was probably getting close to the end. I guess I have just been missing him a lot lately, and it's like all of a sudden I can see and understand his side of things. I just want to tell him that I see now how much he struggled and that I love him and don't blame him. I feel so guilty about how I handled his final years, I know he was depressed and that in the end he stopped taking his meds and just gave up and let himself die.

I don't blame my mom for my dad's drinking problem, and again I understand why she divorced him and I am not upset about that. I also know that he was far from the perfect parent. I guess I am just wondering if my newfound resentment of my mother is warranted, or do you guys think she did what she had to do?

Yeah that is super messed up. For sure. A parent should never, ever come between the child and the other parent. My mom used to do that to me and it's really disgusting.

But I don't know about moving. Could she have afforded to stay in the same place? And she shouldn't have said those things about trying to control her, but it might have been true. I don't think you can ever know whether or not she did what she had to do. But you can know that the way she turned you against your dad was absolutely not okay.

I used to ask my parents why they divorced, and obviously they gave me their own side of the story (although my dad was a bit more reasonable about his version of events). Eventually I came to the conclusion that they were both right, in that they were both wrong to do some of the things they did and their own contribution to the divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was 6 years old, my mother divorced my father because he had a drinking problem. She was a stay at home mom and left with my siblings and I to live with her parents in a small town 2 hours away from the city we lived in. When the divorce was finalized, my mother was able to stay in her childhood town with us, and my father had to stay in the city 2 hours away for his job. He did not have any work opportunities in the small town. We saw him every other weekend, 1 week over the summer, and at other random times when he'd visit us in the small town for school events and sport tournaments. He was a good father and many of my favorite childhood memories are with him. He stopped drinking after the divorce, and tried hard to continue to be a part of our lives. As far as I know, he never drank or was drunk around us kids. I know he struggled with depression, and as we got older and couldn't see him as much due to school and sport obligations, he started drinking again.

Up until now, I always supported what my mother did. She told me at the time of the divorce that he was an alcoholic and that is why we left him. She has always complained about how much hell he put her through during the divorce. He tried so hard to stop her from moving away with us, and she said he did it because he was just trying to control her and didn't want to pay as much in child support. As we got older, she also encouraged us to try and get him to pay for as much as possible on top of the child support. Looking back, I can now see how anxious this made me and how much she damaged my relationship with him.

I'm now in my early 30s and I'm starting to resent her for taking us away from him. I don't blame her for leaving him, but if we had stayed in the city, we would have seen him so much more, especially as we got older and school and sports took so much of our time. He never remarried, and for the longest time I think he had hopes that he and my mother would get back together. When I was in high school, he started drinking pretty heavily again and he died from cirrhosis in my early 20's. I gave him a hard time, even when I knew he was probably getting close to the end. I guess I have just been missing him a lot lately, and it's like all of a sudden I can see and understand his side of things. I just want to tell him that I see now how much he struggled and that I love him and don't blame him. I feel so guilty about how I handled his final years, I know he was depressed and that in the end he stopped taking his meds and just gave up and let himself die.

I don't blame my mom for my dad's drinking problem, and again I understand why she divorced him and I am not upset about that. I also know that he was far from the perfect parent. I guess I am just wondering if my newfound resentment of my mother is warranted, or do you guys think she did what she had to do?

Hugs, OP. That sounds so hard.

Gently, this is not something DCUM can answer. You will get jerks on both sides here who read your story and respond with their own biases, not really thinking about you. The reality is probably somewhere messy and hard and in between. Being married to an alcoholic with small kids and no job prospects is hard. Being far from kids you love is hard. You are grieving, and DCUM can’t answer your question.

Best wishes to you OP and take care.

[Anonymous]

I think you should see a grief therapist. Anger is one of the stages, and this seems like a classic deflection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you should see a grief therapist. Anger is one of the stages, and this seems like a classic deflection.

Correct.

I do not judge other people for what they do, because my marriage is a difficult one, and I have personal experience in abusive behavior and struggling to protect myself and my children. A parent should be close enough to their kids to be able to tell them at least some of the truth, even if that truth is hard to hear. I do not believe in hiding things just to "preserve the children's relationship with the other parent". That would be enabling a lie and could even prove dangerous for them, either with that parent or in the future, when dealing with similar people.
There are ways to telling the truth so that children understand that psychiatric or medical diagnoses can make well-intentioned people do terrible things. It's not "look at what your father did to me, he's a monster". It's "your father has X and Y diagnoses, and it makes him do A and B, and you should watch out for that, otherwise you will be hurt. Also in the future, if you see someone behave like that, maybe they have a similar diagnosis, and you have to be careful."

[Anonymous]

The moving is maybe something she had to do because she needed her parents’ help and support. But pumping you to try to get more money from him was abusive. Your decisions about how you treated him in your 20s were your own and you should not allow your guilt to make you blame her for that. Most of us were not that sensitive in our 20s. Come to peace with it all through therapy.

[Anonymous]

Your father could have seen you more if he wanted. Your mother did the right thing. Living with a drunk and parents in an unhappy marriage would have been hell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The moving is maybe something she had to do because she needed her parents’ help and support. But pumping you to try to get more money from him was abusive. Your decisions about how you treated him in your 20s were your own and you should not allow your guilt to make you blame her for that. Most of us were not that sensitive in our 20s. Come to peace with it all through therapy.

I think it's a tricky thing to decide whether or not OP's mother's decisions were to blame for OP's choices in her 20s. If her mother abused her, that's going to have impacts beyond the time of abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your father could have seen you more if he wanted. Your mother did the right thing. Living with a drunk and parents in an unhappy marriage would have been hell.

This.

You need therapy.

It’s a huge leap to blame your mom.

People get especially upset at the death of a terrible parent because they think if they just lived longer you would have had the chance at some fairy tale relationship. But it’s a lie you tell yourself.

[Anonymous]

Yea, OP. I get it. But the answer is therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your father could have seen you more if he wanted. Your mother did the right thing. Living with a drunk and parents in an unhappy marriage would have been hell.

This.

Your dad sounds like a mess and it was probably smart of your mom to keep full custody with visitation.

Also, it’s hard to know what actually happened when she tried to get you guys to get your dad to pay more. Was it, “mom, I want horse back riding lessons?” And she said, “I can’t afford that, but you could ask your father”? That’s more acceptable tha some other scenarios I can imagine.

[Anonymous]

I'm watching a friend of mine go through this right now, trying to be a single mom to 3 kids with no family nearby, and it's hell. Thankfully she has a support system in the neighborhood but it's really tough on her, and frankly I won't be surprised if she moves back to her hometown.

Divorce just brings out the worst in people.

My dad was terrible to my mom, but I just don't think about. There's no point in playing the blame game 35 years later.

If you're struggling to work through some things, you should definitely consider talking to someone.

[Anonymous]

Sending you hugs and echoing the suggestions to see a grief counselor. Grief can manifest in many different ways and you have a lot to process. You have to find a way to get through the guilt you feel. I was in a very different situation and my counselor recommended that I write a letter to my dad and read it out loud. Something like that might help you.

[Anonymous]

Grief counseling for you. Your father died from the very disease that prompted your mom to leave. Moving to her home town where she had support was likely the right choice. But it was a long time ago and she was young too, you know? I find it sad that you want to point out in your post that you don’t think that your dad was ever drunk around you as, I think, to somehow support your growing resentment of your mother. But your dad died of alcoholism. So please do accept that he was an alcoholic. I’m sure your mothers didn’t want to have to be a single mother of two kids, but living with an alcoholic and raising children in that environment is a risky business. I think you should talk to your mom. Not to blame her but to try and talk to her about everything she went through.

[Anonymous]

I think your own sense of guilt for how you treated your father before he died is driving this. Therapy for you to work though those feelings of shame and regret so that you can forgive yourself. And please know it’s ok to forgive yourself. You were young. Don’t undermine your relationship with your mother by trying to shift blame. I’m sure she made mistakes. All parents do.