The Divorced Support Thread

[BillieJean84]

Okay its been 5 years since my parents divorced. I am 100% okay with it because they both hated each others guts. That said, for some unknown reason, my mother "hates" my dad still so much, don't ask me why. I don't know how 1 person can hold a grudge for so long but if its anyone who can, its my mother.

Second, I don't see my dad as much because 1. hes not allowed at the house and 2. I don't have the car that often to see him. My mother, does not want me to be a part of his life. I am 26 years old, I can make my own decisions etc. My mother seems to think my dad doesn't want to be a part of my life anymore and I know thats not true but there is no talking to her, no convinving her otherwise.

Anyway, I don't quite know what my point here is but this is the thread for other people whose parents are divorced & if 1 of them is still grieving. I really am dumbfounded that my mother would be 'greiving' still - she hated his guts anyway but ... thats beyond me.

Please post here to make some sense out of this.

 

[suzynyc]

My parents divorced when I was around 2 years old and I'm 47 now, lol. She never remarried and remained single all these years. I grew up without my deadbeat father. It's just all part of my life.

 

[CarleyMJ]

Parents divorced when I was 19. They still talk to each other

 

[Severus Snape]

My parents divorced when I was a year old. My mother's hated my father for as long as I've been alive, and I've hated both of them for about as long.~

 

[iluv2drem]

This thread really hits home for me because my parents divorced 2 years ago but most people don't understand it's just as hard when your parents were together all your life, all 21 years. Long story short my parents should have divorced much sooner and I have a black and white relationship with my Dad, I either love or hate him. He emotionally abused all of us with name calling, misogonyst remarks to his daughters and wife, bullying but a very Dr. Jekyll side where he could be loving and fun. He thought since we were grown it was okay to talk crap about our mother and try to turn us against her during the divorce, that only made me especially side with her more. @Billijean84, thank you for posting this, I love that we can share more of what we have in common and comfort each other, Michael would want that for us as fans.

 

[BillieJean84]

@Ilv2drem:Your most welcome. I am happ they are finaly divorced but still do not understand after 5, 6 years my mother says she still "hates" him... wtf? why? they have not seen / spoken to each other in years so why waste your time with your hate???

 

[rainny]

@Ilv2drem:Your most welcome. I am happ they are finaly divorced but still do not understand after 5, 6 years my mother says she still "hates" him... wtf? why? they have not seen / spoken to each other in years so why waste your time with your hate???

Maybe she was just hurt so much that ' hating him' became the easiest way to deal

with it.

?

My 2 cents

 

[LindavG]

My parents got divorced about 6 years ago. I'm not upset about it at all, as a matter of fact my sister and I had been begging my parents for years to get a divorce. My father was very abusive; he once hit my sister's face so hard her contact lens broke and she had a nose bleed. He also busted my lip once and purposely pulled my arm after it had just recovered from a fracture. He would tell us to go upstairs for absolutely nothing (he was not only addicted to alcohol, but to computer games too and would go crazy if he couldn't hear it, so if my sister and I were laughing or talking a bit too loud we'd have to go to our rooms) and if we refused, he would throw us against the stairs and kick our legs until we were upstairs. Often when he got angry he would throw stuff at us, and one time it got so out of control that he pushed my then 14-year-old sister down on the couch, sat on top of her and tried to choke her. So it was really a horrible time for us. My sister and I ran away several times and stayed away for hours until midnight, hoping that they would get worried and realize this couldn't go on. It didn't help much though. My mother was the typical enabler: she would stand by and yell "Please stop!" but she wouldn't do anything. Oh wait, that's not completely true, she did arrange family counceling for us :smilerolleyes: But only after my sister and I secretly went to the police station to file charges against my father for child abuse during school (which my mother then forced us to withdraw because it would embarrass the family) but the police did notify child protective services and they ordered my mother to do something. Therapy was the best she could come up with. Not just for my father though, for us too because we had to learn not to 'challenge' our father according to her. Anyway, therapy was completely useless because they would simply lie about how things were going and say everything was fine now, we'd deny it and it basically became us vs. them. Then my sister got placed out of home when she was 15 and didn't have any contact with my parents for several years. Soon after that, my mother finally filed for divorce. Not because of what my father did to us though, but because my father started beating my 5-year-old brother too.

Anyway, my father completely changed after the divorce. He continued therapy to control his anger and is no longer addicted to anything. He is much calmer now, I can't possibly imagine that this is the same man who used to beat me all these years. I don't really see him a lot, maybe once a month, but I feel closer to him than to my mother (who really is a tragic figure, but I won't get into that. Too much drama already lol). And just this summer, my little brother moved in with him because he couldn't stand living with my mother anymore now that I moved out. So it's a lot better now, and my parents are on speaking terms again too (though not always friendly lol) This whole thing has had one positive effect: my brother, sister and I are incredibly close, we are like best friends. Despite my mother's jealous attemps to break us up lol, she won't ever succeed

 

[spoonie]

I can kind of relate to this. My mum and dad never actually divorced, although they split up when I was 22. I was in a lot of ways relieved that they had (although I had already left their house when I was 17). When I was a kid I wished that they would split up for 2 reasons, 1. My dad was having affairs which my mum was in denial about but it obviously affected her as she was extremely despondent with us. 2. My dad was abusive and I wanted him to go so I wouldn't get hurt anymore which my mum did nothing to stop.

When he finally left though my mum had a kind of breakdown and became suicidal. I didn't see a lot of either of them at this point as I had left home due to their behaviour, but all of a sudden my dad wanted to build bridges and make amends with me which I agreed to do. My mum made this extremely difficult and would regularly guilt trip me about it, remind me how terrible he was etc (despite defending him before) and even went as far to say my dad was only using me because my brother had stopped talking to him. It did become more difficult to have a relationship with my dad when I discovered the woman he was seeing was my exes mums best friend (I was hiding from my ex at the time) and it seemed he was relaying information about me to her and it was getting passed along to my ex.

What I didn't like was being used as a pawn (by my dad) and guilt tripped (by my mum). They're back together now and my dad has stopped bothering with me and once again my mum is back to her old ways of denial.

The long and short of it is, they should not have attempted to make me take sides, and your parents shouldn't do that either so I completely sympathise with you on this one; it's tough being in the middle!

 

[LindavG]

I can kind of relate to this. My mum and dad never actually divorced, although they split up when I was 22. I was in a lot of ways relieved that they had (although I had already left their house when I was 17). When I was a kid I wished that they would split up for 2 reasons, 1. My dad was having affairs which my mum was in denial about but it obviously affected her as she was extremely despondent with us. 2. My dad was abusive and I wanted him to go so I wouldn't get hurt anymore which my mum did nothing to stop.

When he finally left though my mum had a kind of breakdown and became suicidal. I didn't see a lot of either of them at this point as I had left home due to their behaviour, but all of a sudden my dad wanted to build bridges and make amends with me which I agreed to do. My mum made this extremely difficult and would regularly guilt trip me about it, remind me how terrible he was etc (despite defending him before) and even went as far to say my dad was only using me because my brother had stopped talking to him. It did become more difficult to have a relationship with my dad when I discovered the woman he was seeing was my exes mums best friend (I was hiding from my ex at the time) and it seemed he was relaying information about me to her and it was getting passed along to my ex.

What I didn't like was being used as a pawn (by my dad) and guilt tripped (by my mum). They're back together now and my dad has stopped bothering with me and once again my mum is back to her old ways of denial.

The long and short of it is, they should not have attempted to make me take sides, and your parents shouldn't do that either so I completely sympathise with you on this one; it's tough being in the middle!

Oh I know exactly what you mean, my mother does this too. Whenever I talk to my father on the phone or w/e she goes "I don't understand why you like him so much [never said I did, this is just her assumption from me talking to him] don't you remember what he did?" And now that my brother has moved in with him, she's constantly implying that my father loves him more than me and my sister (which is probably true, but still) by saying stuff like "See, he gives your brother pocket money. He never gave you anything". And every time I get mad at her for something, she always brings up my father. Like when I say "you shouldn't smoke so much" (she was having lung problems) she goes "yeah, well your father smokes more, you should be mad at him!" like that has to do with anything :smilerolleyes:

This thread is actually quite good to release my frustrations lol

 

[BillieJean84]

yes! my mothers the same way- she hates when I hang out iwht my dad. WTF!? Your divorce had nothing to do with me...

 

[xMichellex]

What I found hardest about my parents seperating - and I had already left the family home several years before they did - is the way they started to use MY children to get at each other. My mother is constantly trying far too hard to be the perfect grandparent to the point that it is just overbearing all because she is worried my fathers new girlfriend will become close to the children. My father however knows this and delights in winding my mother up over it. They are like a couple of competitive kids themselves.