Personal Post: Sins of My Parents
It's no secret that I've been vocal about the abuse I've suffered in the past. As I may or may not have indicated here before, though my mother was the primary instigator, my dad has had his fair lot to apologize for, and has. That's the main reason he and I were able to grow close when I became a teenager.
Before he told anyone else, he told me that he would be leaving my mother. In his words and actions, he changed before my eyes. No longer my mother's accomplice, I began to see what 25 years of marriage to her had done to him. He'd lost his health, his vitality, and any real desire to keep on living. Despite the certainty that he'd be leaving some stability behind, he nevertheless pulled the trigger on their union and returned to the man that everyone told me he had been before.
My mother has never recovered from the divorce. She remains an angry, embittered woman. Tragically, she credits the divorce with destroying our relationship (which is ridiculous because we had no relationship before the divorce) and there's no arguing with how the divorce wiped us all out, financially. My mother has lived in three houses since then, each one smaller than the last. Her quality of life, her expectations have unquestionably changed, been minimized, and suffered. For his part, Dad has never re-achieved that status.
I try not to think of these things too much. There's a certain entrenching despair to it, because I can't change their fortune. And they are in those roles because of the decisions that they made yesterday and last year and 30 years before now, and likely would have made regardless of if I had made all the same decisions through out my teenage years that I did or more closely mirrored my super-star older brother.
All I can do in the present is try to learn from their mistakes. The fact I left my own marriage so shortly after it began when I realized I had made a huge mistake and wasn't invested enough in my partner to try and address it, well, better six months that 26 years, I suppose.
In my role as a daughter, all I can do is try to likewise help my parents in learning from the mistakes that destroyed their own marriage. It goes without saying I'm not happy with the relationships either of my parents are in right now, and that's not a comfortable place for me to be in.
To begin with, my mother is married to an abusive man, whom I never really believed she loved. She's tried to leave him a few times but always gone back, due in no small part to her fear of having to be self-reliant. When she and my father ended their marriage, my mother had to get a job for the first time in roughly 20 years. Her skills are limited and in the jobs she's held since, I don't think she's ever made more than eight an hour. But she stays with Brad, unwilling to change her own behavior, the receiver of abuse instead of the giver. And despite talking a good game about wanting to leave, she remains.
Dad's relationship is considerably more complex, and private because, well, he's my father and his partner is someone I genuinely love. That hasn't stopped me from ultimately concluding that they need a break for reasons I've been keeping primarily to myself, but it was something Dad himself acknowledged. So far, his failure to do so has impacted our communication ability because I get overwhelmed with my anger and disappointment. I'm not comfortable being in a state of anger and disappointment with my father, but neither can I remain silent while I see him repeating an incredibly destructive mistake.
It makes me feel like my parents ultimately didn't learn anything from the experience that ripped our family apart a decade ago.
Before he told anyone else, he told me that he would be leaving my mother. In his words and actions, he changed before my eyes. No longer my mother's accomplice, I began to see what 25 years of marriage to her had done to him. He'd lost his health, his vitality, and any real desire to keep on living. Despite the certainty that he'd be leaving some stability behind, he nevertheless pulled the trigger on their union and returned to the man that everyone told me he had been before.
My mother has never recovered from the divorce. She remains an angry, embittered woman. Tragically, she credits the divorce with destroying our relationship (which is ridiculous because we had no relationship before the divorce) and there's no arguing with how the divorce wiped us all out, financially. My mother has lived in three houses since then, each one smaller than the last. Her quality of life, her expectations have unquestionably changed, been minimized, and suffered. For his part, Dad has never re-achieved that status.
I try not to think of these things too much. There's a certain entrenching despair to it, because I can't change their fortune. And they are in those roles because of the decisions that they made yesterday and last year and 30 years before now, and likely would have made regardless of if I had made all the same decisions through out my teenage years that I did or more closely mirrored my super-star older brother.
All I can do in the present is try to learn from their mistakes. The fact I left my own marriage so shortly after it began when I realized I had made a huge mistake and wasn't invested enough in my partner to try and address it, well, better six months that 26 years, I suppose.
In my role as a daughter, all I can do is try to likewise help my parents in learning from the mistakes that destroyed their own marriage. It goes without saying I'm not happy with the relationships either of my parents are in right now, and that's not a comfortable place for me to be in.
To begin with, my mother is married to an abusive man, whom I never really believed she loved. She's tried to leave him a few times but always gone back, due in no small part to her fear of having to be self-reliant. When she and my father ended their marriage, my mother had to get a job for the first time in roughly 20 years. Her skills are limited and in the jobs she's held since, I don't think she's ever made more than eight an hour. But she stays with Brad, unwilling to change her own behavior, the receiver of abuse instead of the giver. And despite talking a good game about wanting to leave, she remains.
Dad's relationship is considerably more complex, and private because, well, he's my father and his partner is someone I genuinely love. That hasn't stopped me from ultimately concluding that they need a break for reasons I've been keeping primarily to myself, but it was something Dad himself acknowledged. So far, his failure to do so has impacted our communication ability because I get overwhelmed with my anger and disappointment. I'm not comfortable being in a state of anger and disappointment with my father, but neither can I remain silent while I see him repeating an incredibly destructive mistake.
It makes me feel like my parents ultimately didn't learn anything from the experience that ripped our family apart a decade ago.