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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here, and you guys are right, it was a hard time and my mom did the best she could. She needed the support of my grandparents and the lower cost of living. It was just the anniversary of my dad's death and I was having a bad day. I'll look into grief therapy. It's been 9 years and usually I'm fine, but sometimes the memories and emotions hit me like a ton of bricks.

I have talked to my mom about the divorce in the past and she did try really hard to convince my dad to get help before she decided to leave him. Like I said in the OP, I completely understand why she divorced him and do not blame her in any way for doing that. I just wish my dad could have somehow been a part of our lives more on a day to day basis. As some here have said though, he probably could have put forth more of an effort. He had a lot of issues and unfortunately he never got the proper help for his disease.

Thank you for everyone's comments. Many of you did put things into perspective.   [/quote]

I'm glad you're feeling a little better OP. These things are hard. I think when we become adults we see the choices our parents made much more clearly. And we realize how narrow our view as children really was, and how shaped by their narratives. Parents are just people, imperfect people. In a divorce the best thing for the kids is for the parents to be neutral towards one another, but that is actually really hard for people to do in a divorce. And parents somehow I think don't always realize just how completely they can affect their child's perceptions and feelings, how they can inflict stress and anxiety with such ease. And in just being imperfect people can so deeply hurt the children that they also love.

Like other posters have said, this sounds really really complicated. It sounds like your dad was someone who wasn't a bad person, but who struggled greatly. And your mom had to build her life back up when he let her down. Neither is the hero, neither is the victim, both just people. And you are the innocent person in the middle that all their respective choices affected. Definitely see someone, and let yourself feel anger towards both of them, love towards both of them, compassion towards both of them. You'll never know exactly what the true situation was with your dad, but you can work to forgive yourself, because you didn't do anything wrong. You were also just an imperfect person trying to do the best they could. And there were likely times you did more than you had to and times you did less than you should have. But these things are rarely so clear in the moment, so give yourself a lot of grace. You were the kid, doing the best with the life they build for you. Appreciate it, and don't let your life become too colored by regret, I'm sure your dad, who by all accounts loved you a lot, wouldn't want that. [/quote]

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