Divorced parents late in life drama

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your father sounds selfish. You sound selfish. I know way too many women around your mom's age who put themselves LAST their whole lives, and stayed in bad marriages with selfish, rather miserable men, and put their children first. Maybe she's finally thinking of herself, now that she is free. There's a lot you don't know about what she went through and what she gave up, in staying with your father and putting all of you first all these years. Please don't begrudge her.

Your father is no longer her responsibility. It's very, very difficult dealing with an aging, sick parent. Don't put it on your mother. She's done her time.

And I agree that there's a lot of sexism involved in this attitude that women have to be the eternal caretakers.

This. I know at least four marriages over 20 years when they finally divorced the women were elated and the men were trying to find a girlfriend as soon as possible to avoid being alone. the stories I have heard were mind boggling, the emotional abuse, the gas lighting, the gambling habits--ALL of it hidden to some extend in front of the kids but the moms ate shit for years to keep their families together. Thats the difference between men and women. Women will sacrifice everything to keep their kids happy but dad usually said "My kids want ME to be happy so divorce is the best thing"-. OP I feel for you but its really not on your mom anymore.She could sympathize a bit but damn, she just got out prison and you wonder why she doesn't show up to visit anymore?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your father sounds selfish. You sound selfish. I know way too many women around your mom's age who put themselves LAST their whole lives, and stayed in bad marriages with selfish, rather miserable men, and put their children first. Maybe she's finally thinking of herself, now that she is free. There's a lot you don't know about what she went through and what she gave up, in staying with your father and putting all of you first all these years. Please don't begrudge her.

Your father is no longer her responsibility. It's very, very difficult dealing with an aging, sick parent. Don't put it on your mother. She's done her time.

And I agree that there's a lot of sexism involved in this attitude that women have to be the eternal caretakers.

This. I know at least four marriages over 20 years when they finally divorced the women were elated and the men were trying to find a girlfriend as soon as possible to avoid being alone. the stories I have heard were mind boggling, the emotional abuse, the gas lighting, the gambling habits--ALL of it hidden to some extend in front of the kids but the moms ate shit for years to keep their families together. Thats the difference between men and women. Women will sacrifice everything to keep their kids happy but dad usually said "My kids want ME to be happy so divorce is the best thing"-. OP I feel for you but its really not on your mom anymore.She could sympathize a bit but damn, she just got out prison and you wonder why she doesn't show up to visit anymore?

AMEN!!!!


My grandmother is in assisted living. There are several younger men living there who appear quite physically capable of caring for themselves as widows but they are lazy and we're treated as man children before their wife died.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Their marriage ended. Your mother is no longer responsible for your father and she doesn't owe it to you to take him on. Do what you can for your father to the extent you can, as his child. It's as if he was a widower. This doesn't have anything to do with you mother anymore.

Disagree. We are dealing with this too. My dad is off dating and the kids to deal with mom. I think he sensed the health stuff. What I regret is not spelling this stuff out before the split. Now the whole family is in chaos. My parents see in their seventies. They should have "finished the gig"--found a way to live separate but still together. Now it is too late but thought I would share. The kids should have sat down with the parents before. What I would do is talk to mom and ask for help. This is her spouse of many years. If she says no I would tell her to remember she may have medical stuff herself someday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My dad died a few days after Christmas. It was incredibly difficult, he was very, very sick and out of it (morphine), but I do have a sense of peace for him. His body is gone, but I can still feel him with me at times.

We've gone through the difficult stuff. Funeral. Cleaning out the house, selling his home (which just went under contract) and explaining things to the kids who are old enough to realize what's happened. My husband has been a rock during the ordeal, but I can see the toll on myself and my sister. I swear we've aged ten years in one and I've lost so much weight that I've begun drinking ensure (eating has been difficult). My dad was the youngest one of his side of the family, the last living of that generation, so it's weird for me and my sister to be it for that side of the family. It's all surreal.

My mother was unhelpful during this whole thing. After realizing that the man wouldn't likely see New Year's, she opted to take a cruise during Christmas with friends and went to South America. To give us our space in her words. I didn't need space. I needed my mother, but that's a whole another story.

I don't know where the future will go with us, me and her. She skipped the funeral and hasn't done anything, but simply say sorry for your loss when I informed her he passed. I'm angry, but I cannot tease out whether it's the loss of my father or the abandonment of my mother during the difficult times that is fueling it.

She wrote me a very, very long email about her desire to visit, to see the Cherry Blossoms and to do various things around DC. She's begun calling and leaving long messages in a sing-songy voice. She's pretending everything's fine. It's not. I haven't responded, but that's mostly because I don't know what to say...

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Wow I just saw this. Please ignore the talk to her post (that was me). I am being honest your mom is a narcissist. I do feel you are under no obligation to care for her. She is contacting you because you are now free and she wants to position that you will help her someday. I would ask her about solid retirement plans and end of life care while she is healthy. I would let her know this while thing was awful and you are not doing it again so she better have a plan. Good luck to you!!

[Anonymous]

I'm truly amazed by all the posters who are sympathetic to the mother in this scenario and willing to shrug off her appalling behavior. We're (mostly) all mothers in this thread. Imagine your grown children going through something horrendous. Would you really ignore their pain and refuse to support them through a difficult time just because they're adults? They're still your children! I don't care that she had a bad relationship with the father. The OP never expected her mother to lift a finger to help her father. But she needed emotional support from her mother during a hard time and her mother point blank refused to give it. Selfish. As a mother myself, I can't imagine doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their marriage ended. Your mother is no longer responsible for your father and she doesn't owe it to you to take him on. Do what you can for your father to the extent you can, as his child. It's as if he was a widower. This doesn't have anything to do with you mother anymore.

Disagree. We are dealing with this too. My dad is off dating and the kids to deal with mom. I think he sensed the health stuff. What I regret is not spelling this stuff out before the split. Now the whole family is in chaos. My parents see in their seventies. They should have "finished the gig"--found a way to live separate but still together. Now it is too late but thought I would share. The kids should have sat down with the parents before. What I would do is talk to mom and ask for help. This is her spouse of many years. If she says no I would tell her to remember she may have medical stuff herself someday.

You are mind-bogglingly entitled and selfish. You still believe, like a child, that your parents only exist to service your needs. Your parents can't possibly have real feelings like you do, and so must serve a life sentence together to make your life easier. Good luck in the future, when you or friends may consider divorce. Maybe you'll remember your callous "finish the gig" attitude and be rightly appalled.

[Anonymous]

I beg to disagree. When a spouse divorces later in life they are basically dumping all their problems on their kids. The only way it works is if end of life stuff is spelled out and decided as part of the split. I would never do this to my kids. In OPs case, her mom didn't want to deal with dad so took off and dumped dad on the kids. She could have easily stayed around (I mean something horrible about a longterm marriage and not have a cent of sympathy to someone you are married to 50 years) and helped with the kids even if she didn't want to see the father. My dad did the same thing. It is a mess. Until you live it you have no idea. I do suggest again to OP that she talk with mom about end of life stuff. I would spell out that given her attitude toward health/death that she should not expect OP to manage her. Actually the mom set the standard so not sure why PP would disagree.

[Anonymous]

LOL. "Until you live it." Guess what, until you live to become an older person you have no idea, and apparently you can't fathom that others and you will still have feelings and needs as strongly as you do now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your father sounds selfish. You sound selfish. I know way too many women around your mom's age who put themselves LAST their whole lives, and stayed in bad marriages with selfish, rather miserable men, and put their children first. Maybe she's finally thinking of herself, now that she is free. There's a lot you don't know about what she went through and what she gave up, in staying with your father and putting all of you first all these years. Please don't begrudge her.

Your father is no longer her responsibility. It's very, very difficult dealing with an aging, sick parent. Don't put it on your mother. She's done her time.

And I agree that there's a lot of sexism involved in this attitude that women have to be the eternal caretakers.

This. I know at least four marriages over 20 years when they finally divorced the women were elated and the men were trying to find a girlfriend as soon as possible to avoid being alone. the stories I have heard were mind boggling, the emotional abuse, the gas lighting, the gambling habits--ALL of it hidden to some extend in front of the kids but the moms ate shit for years to keep their families together. Thats the difference between men and women. Women will sacrifice everything to keep their kids happy but dad usually said "My kids want ME to be happy so divorce is the best thing"-. OP I feel for you but its really not on your mom anymore.She could sympathize a bit but damn, she just got out prison and you wonder why she doesn't show up to visit anymore?

I agree with that with previous generations but this attitude is now solidly 50/50 from my observations. Of course that is not scientific but as there are no scientific studies on this I'm guessing, neither is the assertion that way more men still have that attitude toward shitty marriages vs the women in them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL. "Until you live it." Guess what, until you live to become an older person you have no idea, and apparently you can't fathom that others and you will still have feelings and needs as strongly as you do now.

This has nothing to do with anything. If you are in your seventies and married 50 years just punting because you don't want to take care of a spouse is lame. This happens more than you think. I always think it is interesting that people go to the "abuse abuse abuse scenario." What if it truly is that spouse is really self centered and thinks hey my kids can take care of my partner since I want to date. I go back to if you are punting on a longterm marriage and I am not talking shorterm, I am talking when people are getting old, you need to agree to a plan if your plan is to go on vacations and leave you sick spouse. Again I would if I were OP and I have in my situation told my father that he definitely should have a plan in place as I am not doing it again on my own. Nor should OP. Mom has money for vacations to South American, so mom should have longterm care in place. If OP wants to visit to say hello then fine, just like her mom would call time to time. Putting myself out again, I don't think so. Usually the people who are angry are the ones who are living the selfish way. Luckily this nonsense is only happening in my family, my spouse family is responsible and normal. I would have no problems there.

[Anonymous]

It's crazy to me to see the amount of justification for horrible behavior. This woman basically blew her daughters off while they were dealing with a terminally ill parent. Who by all accounts apparently had a low-conflict marriage and divorced because of quite literally irreconcilable differences. And it's their MOTHER. I mean, if you can't rely on emotional support from her, who can you rely on.

What I find the most interesting is the justification that spending years in a horrible marriage is sufficient to justify such abhorrent behavior. Because they were victims of their own choices? I don't get it.

[Anonymous]

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

The way I see it, "I'm out" means I'm out. Not lingering around playing nice. Mother did her time. They are not married any more, so she owes nothing. She might have been nicer to the kids, but probably was afraid of getting sucked back in emotionally..

[Anonymous]

The parents need to protect children from the fallout of their divorce . The ex spouse has to manage the care for old age. Not the children . Children have their own problems .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way I see it, "I'm out" means I'm out. Not lingering around playing nice. Mother did her time. They are not married any more, so she owes nothing. She might have been nicer to the kids, but probably was afraid of getting sucked back in emotionally..

See, that's the thing that is so appalling about some of the responses in this thread. The mother didn't just divorce the husband, she abandoned her kids when they needed her emotional support. And then she had the gall to complain about not having a good relationship or visiting! It's the height of entitlement. My jaw dropped at some of the responses calling OP selfish. If anything, her mother has ruined her relationship with her adult children by being selfish. I don't see how they will ever have a meaningful relationship because she's shown who she is now. Someone who can't be trusted when you need them.

I don't know how or where these posters are coming from bashing OP. From my view, I couldn't imagine putting a child in this position divorced or not.