Reply to Divorced parents late in life drama

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Divorced parents late in life drama"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I suspect this is the issue. My mother has never been one to deal with difficulty head on. Her parents are still alive and she's never had any loss on her side of the family. And by all accounts, including her own, her life was great. She enjoyed parenting, raising kids, worked part-time and lived a pretty great life with my father in terms of the day to day. They got along, they worked well together as parents.

By my mother's own account, the wheels fell off in her marriage because she wanted a different, more active retirement lifestyle than my father. She wanted to travel, go out more, be active in activities, etc. I actually thought their divorce (pre-my father's sickness) was very amicable. Everyone was happy. My mother traveled, my father puttered around his place and I had a good relationship with both of them. No strife, they jointly attended holidays at our houses, etc.

My mother's detachment during the crisis might have been a self-preservation tool in some ways. She was in denial until the end about how sick my father was and she didn't see (and actively avoided) the strain his illness put on myself and my sister. I think if she would have engaged, it would have forced her to face reality, which honestly isn't her strong point. She has a narrative about her life ("it's great and full of endless adventures and isn't it great to get to start this next chapter, etc.") that would be impacted by the truth of things, which is life has been hard and difficult and sad. 
[b]
I actually called my EAP at work[/b] and vented to a therapist. And the result is I am going to therapy next week to think through things. I don't know how or if I can trust my mother. That's how let down I feel.[/quote]

:shock: [/quote]

Not OP. Is there something wrong with an employee assistance program?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics