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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

NP. Best advice I’ve seen ever on this site. Thank you.

NP. I had the exact same thought. The wording and everything is perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your father was an adult who could have made an attempt to build a relationship with you if he truly wanted to. He was probably choosing alcohol over you for the majority of his life, but yet you are blaming your mother?

I remember reading a part about how he did prioritize them but living hours away and having the other parent disparage you is an almost insurmountable hill to climb. I’ve lived this experience personally and it didn’t really work out well for anyone no matter how much effort was expended.

[Anonymous]

OP: Was your mother good to you and to your siblings ?

OP: Do you drink alcohol ?

My best guess is that your mother did what she had to do to protect her children and herself.

OP: Did you father ever seek treatment or help for his addiction ?

OP: Did your father place a higher value on his relationship with alcohol or on his relationships with you and your siblings and with your mother ?

OP: Did your mother ever abandon or neglect you due to an addiction ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your father was an adult who could have made an attempt to build a relationship with you if he truly wanted to. He was probably choosing alcohol over you for the majority of his life, but yet you are blaming your mother?

I remember reading a part about how he did prioritize them but living hours away and having the other parent disparage you is an almost insurmountable hill to climb. I’ve lived this experience personally and it didn’t really work out well for anyone no matter how much effort was expended.

When something's important to you, you find a way. If it's not you, find an excuse.

[Anonymous]

Your parents were two imperfect people, as are we all. Your mother made a mistake if she trash talked him and poisoned your relationship. HOWEVER, yes if you are focusing your resentment on her and not him, that is mis placed.

She is the one who stepped up and parented you. If he wanted to be physically closer, he could have. He could have called, written, taken you out to dinner, whatever.

I think it's easier to blame your mom than to accept that your dad didn't got the extra mile to be close to you.

That said, the best thing you can do is accept they did they best they could at the time and forgive them for their shortcomings.

[Anonymous]

Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

[Anonymous]

OP, please be gentle with yourself. Others have recommended a grief counselor, you should consider it. Spend some time with a counselor working through how you're feeling. This is not easy, and one internet stranger is thinking of you and praying for you. Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

What? She stole a relationship from her daughter and her daughter now feels that ache. That's trauma. And to cause it for fear of seeing her dad drinking beer? That's truly WTF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

NP here and child of an alcoholic. Go take your BS somewhere else. Being an alcoholic IS being abusive. STFU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

What? She stole a relationship from her daughter and her daughter now feels that ache. That's trauma. And to cause it for fear of seeing her dad drinking beer? That's truly WTF.

Says the alcoholic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

NP here and child of an alcoholic. Go take your BS somewhere else. Being an alcoholic IS being abusive. STFU.

NP and I get what the PP is saying. Just labeling the dad an “alcoholic” - especially in the context of a divorce - doesn’t necessarily mean he was this terrible person. My dad meets the criteria of an alcoholic but he is incredibly high functioning. Ran marathons. Was the CEO of a company. Got up every day at 630 am and worked. But at the end of the day, starting at 530 or 6 pm, he had to drink. He’d typically drink a dozen beers a night, begin to ramble and go to bed. Never raised his voice, never abused his family. So I’m not sure I’d agree that having an alcoholic father necessarily equals abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't outright resent her but she was wrong to complain about those things to you.

I think we have the benefit of 40+ years of, for lack of a better term, divorce culture in knowing it was wrong for her to complain. There is so much advice out there now on the internet, in books etc, about how to handle a divorce most appropriately when there are children involved. OP’s mom probably didn’t have a Parenting - Special Concerns forum to consult on how to do it right. I find that when I am frustrated with how my parents handled things, I sometimes can give them a little more grace when I remember that they didn’t have a world of information literally in their pocket like we do now to help them with things that seem so obvious to me.

+1

NP. And this perspective helps me too. I think there were a lot of people from our parents generation who just sort of muddled through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your parents were two imperfect people, as are we all. Your mother made a mistake if she trash talked him and poisoned your relationship. HOWEVER, yes if you are focusing your resentment on her and not him, that is mis placed.

She is the one who stepped up and parented you. If he wanted to be physically closer, he could have. He could have called, written, taken you out to dinner, whatever.

I think it's easier to blame your mom than to accept that your dad didn't got the extra mile to be close to you.

That said, the best thing you can do is accept they did they best they could at the time and forgive them for their shortcomings.

The truth. It’s safer for you to resent your mother than to accept that your father could have done more. Allowing yourself to feel the latter would force you to deal with the feelings of rejection you felt during your childhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your mom was a POS. An alcoholic parent is 99% of the time completely overblown and exaggerated. You prove this by showing that he never once abused you.

NP here and child of an alcoholic. Go take your BS somewhere else. Being an alcoholic IS being abusive. STFU.

NP and I get what the PP is saying. Just labeling the dad an “alcoholic” - especially in the context of a divorce - doesn’t necessarily mean he was this terrible person. My dad meets the criteria of an alcoholic but he is incredibly high functioning. Ran marathons. Was the CEO of a company. Got up every day at 630 am and worked. But at the end of the day, starting at 530 or 6 pm, he had to drink. He’d typically drink a dozen beers a night, begin to ramble and go to bed. Never raised his voice, never abused his family. So I’m not sure I’d agree that having an alcoholic father necessarily equals abuse.

Sure. But this scenario also seems far less likely to lead to divorce. I would also say it not modeling appropriate alcohol consumption for kids growing up in that circumstance.