Yes he could have left her after you graduated.

Then she’d come to you for every need she had.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being an adult now, what do you wish your father would have chosen to do with your mom or the marriage back when you were a child?

I wish he divorced, sent her back to her parents (we all lived with his mom, not in the U.S.) and we would stay with him and grandma. Her parents didn’t want her though, I think (they were a crazy wife plus enabler themselves). So i understand it wasn’t very feasible.

what he could also do is leave her after both of us kids left the house. She inherited her parents’ house so she could go there or she could stay and he would go there.

Or, maybe he could stand up to some of her really crazy rituals and hoarding?

Not really sure. I realize it was hard to do something once he knew she was crazy.

Nice wish list, but impractical.

Talk with any divorce attorney and they’d tell you getting 100% legal and physical custody is impossible in all 50/50 coparenting states. Courts don’t care about mental illness or mental disordered parents.

In U.S. court system:
Parent rights and time >>> Children’s rights, health, safety, development

The dysfunctional parent will get the kids half time unless they legally, or in practice, give up their 50% custody time.

Surely you know this OP? Your father may have looked into it as well. Many times. Or he may have lived in a state and era where mothers got the kids no matter what. Then what Op?

What are you really angry about here? Your father had nothing but bad options. You marry an unwell person and have kids you are tethered for life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being an adult now, what do you wish your father would have chosen to do with your mom or the marriage back when you were a child?

I wish he divorced, sent her back to her parents (we all lived with his mom, not in the U.S.) and we would stay with him and grandma. Her parents didn’t want her though, I think (they were a crazy wife plus enabler themselves). So i understand it wasn’t very feasible.

what he could also do is leave her after both of us kids left the house. She inherited her parents’ house so she could go there or she could stay and he would go there.

Or, maybe he could stand up to some of her really crazy rituals and hoarding?

Not really sure. I realize it was hard to do something once he knew she was crazy.

You do understand that she was mentally ill and could not help herself? There's very little a spouse can do, except protect their kids. It's heart-wrenching, because a husband or wife does have a duty of care towards the other, especially if there's illness.

I have a borderline hoarder husband. I believe hoarding is rooted in anxiety, ADHD and autism: it means he cannot triage and sort his stuff, and instead of throwing all of it away (which would be one option), his anxiety and mental rigidity makes him hold on to a lot of it. I contain the mess to the basement and the agreement is that I'm allowed to throw away any hoarding that creeps out. The kids don't mind, because the rest of the house is fine - I clean it.

The rituals are OCD. OCD and hoarding are nearly impossible to treat. You can give anxiety meds to these patients, meds for the ADHD, but you can't medicate away the autism. Therapy is helpful only if they accept that they have a problem, and most of them don't.

One of my kids has OCD, ADHD and autism too. I hope he doesn't grow up to hoard like his father. I've tried to model how to triage and sort and throw stuff away. So far so good, but with the pressures of adult life, who knows what he'll become. Hoarders gets worse as they age.

I hope you can let go of the resentment, OP. Your father was up against something he couldn't fix or properly deal with. That's not entirely his fault. Now he's a pain to deal with, which has little to do with your childhood, but everything to do with elderly decline. Protect yourself by outsourcing as much as you can.