(19F) my dad is leaving and i feel utterly helpless. how do i handle this transition, and how much am i allowed to grieve before my friends get tired of me?
my parents (together for 26 years) have always been perceived by everyone (including me) as the absolute perfect marriage - our family is relatively popular in our specific niche community in our small town. they own a small business together, and things had been stable for the vast majority of my life. in fact, i've had a very close relationship with both of my parents as long as i can remember; i have always been genuinely good friends with them.
important things to note:
- my mom (46) has severe CPTSD, which causes her to be very emotional and insecure - this can cause her to be controlling. naturally, our relationship has always been slightly more strained than the one i have with my dad, as i have been a teenage girl for the past six years
- my dad's family has a strange obsession with him and has always hated me and my mom, which he does not realize or acknowledge
- i still live at home
some time last year, my dad (43) started going through a midlife crisis. he started excessively working out, wanting to change his career (though decided against it because of the booming business they've established), and vastly changing his appearance. i knew their marriage was sort of rocky at this point, but didn't think it was too bad.
then yesterday morning (may 13), i wake up to a text from my mom giving me a heads-up that my dad was divorcing her. this is all of the information she told me:
in january, my mom found out he was apparently having an "emotional affair over text," and my dad confessed that he doesn't even know if he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. the obvious solution to this was couple's therapy, along with individual. it went well for a few weeks until he stopped talking to her at all other than the therapy sessions; it was clear that he was already emotionally checked out. nevertheless, she kept trying to fix things and make him as happy as possible.
in this time period, my dad would go on almost daily 3-hour walks in which he would call his own father (who has had 5 wives and cheated on all of them) and talk about their marriage, to which he pushed for him to leave. he would also talk to his good friend, who suggested the same, saying that he shouldn't be "tied down" anymore (even though he is married with a young son himself).
as i mentioned earlier, my dad's family has been hoping this day would come for many years, and has not been good at hiding it. his mother convinced him to go on this "spiritual journey retreat" with her best friend (who my dad has known his whole life). he reluctantly agreed, and he was given drugs to "open his mind." according to him, his body has been under so much stress that the drugs "didn't work properly" but he still just talked and talked to her for 10 hours. she decided that my mom has BPD and he needs to leave her (and consequently me) immediately.
then yesterday morning, he told her he doesn't love her anymore and has been pretending to be in love with her for years; that his love for her was more familial, like a parent to a child. she begged and pleaded for him to keep trying until the end of the year, but he refused. he said he never wanted this life, and never wanted to be responsible for anyone.
since he didn't know i knew at this point, i left the house and just drove aimlessly and wept. eventually i came home so i could "find out," and it went about as poorly as you can imagine. he doesn't know where he's gonna go, but he's leaving both my mom and i behind in our house. he assured me that we won't struggle financially, which i guess is a win, but that's not what i'm concerned with right now. it was a terrible experience because my mom was obviously breaking down on one side of the room, while my dad seemed very nonchalant and just annoyed by this whole thing.
i've been trying to be out of the house or otherwise physically isolated from both of them as much as i can, but they've both been texting me a bunch about how sorry they are. somehow that makes it worse - if you're so sorry, why are you abandoning me? what do you mean i'm not gonna hang out with my dad every day because he doesn't want to be responsible for me anymore? i know this whole thing isn't my fault, and that is painful in itself because i can't do anything. i just won't have a dad anymore - at least, not in the way i've had one for 19 years. :(
i think my mom and i are gonna sell this house and move across the country to be with her extended family. she said it's up to me, and i don't think i could handle being in this house and this town any longer than i need to be.
my mom has only allowed me to tell two people: my boyfriend and my best friend. of course, this is better than nothing, but since it's only two people, i worry that i'm being too much of a downer all the time. it's been like 40 hours since i found out, but i just don't want them to leave me too. how long and how sad should i be to them before they'll get sick of me?
anyway, this is gonna be a logistical nightmare with the business, prior commitments, the house, etc. how do i survive these next several months as this transition happens? how did you handle it?