r/ACOD

My (f19) parents just announced to me that they’re going to get divorced. This time it’s for real. I never seen my dad look so broken.

I feel like it’s my fault it’s actually happening this time. Three weeks ago, I started having mental breakdowns screaming and telling them I wish I could get away from them and live elsewhere. I resent my mom, but don’t know the biggest factor is that I live really close to the same person/regular contact with the person who SA’d me. However even then, my parents would stare into the ground and the think “wow our family really is a failure”. My parents already always fought and resented each other, my brother is a high school dropout NEET bum, and now I who was supposed to be functioning , declares she hates living at home. I think I was the final straw and I hate myself so much for it.

I wish I sought out therapy earlier for my traumas, and didn’t have outburst like that. I meant a lot of what I said, but I didn’t meant to let it to explode or even let my family know. I knew it was irrational but I bursted. My outburst caused them to realize there really is no real sentiments of family, in our family.

I wish I could go back in time and take back all I said and brought it to therapy instead.

I don’t know what to do. My parents are under the same roof right now, I want to talk to them.

My parents are getting divorced now that I’m 26, and I’m not really sure how I should deal with my relationships with everyone in the family afterward.

My dad isn’t my biological father. He married my mom when I was around four or five years old. But I do genuinely consider both of them my parents.

The family situation is a little complicated. When I was six, I was sent to live with my maternal grandparents in the countryside, and I stayed with them until I was 25. It was only last year that I finally moved to the big city and started living with my parents.

My mom and stepdad have been married for about 20 years, and I have three younger siblings: a 19-year-old sister, a 13-year-old sister, and a 12-year-old brother.

My mom recently told me that after the divorce, my 13-year-old sister will live with her, while my 19-year-old sister and 12-year-old brother will stay with my dad.

If I’m being truthful, I don’t think I’ve ever really felt much love or warmth from my family. At the same time, I still don’t want my parents to get divorced.

The strange thing is that now that it’s actually happening, I don’t really feel much of anything. I’m not devastated or extremely sad. I just feel... kind of numb or indifferent about it.

What I’m struggling with is figuring out what my relationships with all of them are supposed to look like after the divorce.

For example, what about my dad?

He isn’t biologically related to me. Once he and my mom are divorced, technically there won’t really be anything connecting the two of us anymore. But at the same time, he has been my dad since I was four or five years old. He has occupied that role in my life for about 20 years, even though I didn’t actually grow up living with him for most of that time.

So am I supposed to continue treating him as my father? Would it be strange to keep calling him Dad and staying in contact with him after he and my mom are divorced? Or should I accept that our relationship may naturally come to an end?

And then there are my younger siblings.

Some of them will be living with my mom, while the others will be living with my dad. How should I handle my relationships with them? Should I try to stay equally involved with all three of them regardless of which parent they live with?

I know I’m already 26 and technically an adult, so my parents’ divorce doesn’t affect me in the same way it would affect a young child. But I feel like the family structure I’ve known for most of my life is suddenly disappearing, and I don’t really know where I fit anymore.

For anyone who has experienced something similar, especially having parents divorce when you were already an adult or having a stepparent who raised you: how did you handle these relationships afterward?

I’d really appreciate any advice.

I am a 33yr old male. I was dating my girlfriend for 5 years. I planned to marry her next year. She met my mother recently for the 1st time and my mother completely ripped into her.

My mother will not allow me to marry her and i disagree with her reasons. The biggest issue my mum has is that my ex does not want to drop everything to relocate with me to my country as a housewife. I am expected to move back to my country to be the heir to the family business.

My ex suggested to me different ways we could meet halfway to make it work without her giving up everything. I was onboard with it (with a few details to be ironed out) but my mother disagrees with anything that is not full relocation. My mother also does not like that she is orthodox and not pentecostal. She says she does not like that my ex comes from a single parent family (she lost her father this year). This really hurt my ex.

I have tried to talk to her and explain that i love my woman. I don’t know that i will get someone like her. She truly was the love of my life. I am struggling and feeling at a loss. I feel like i will be looking for her in every woman going forward. I lost my bestfriend but I cannot choose her at the expense of family. Does it get better? The feeling of loss? How do i stop looking for her in every woman? I hate feeling like i will never find another.

Hi all,
I'm going to try and summarise this as best as I can, but in essence I would like your opinion as to whether my mother is crossing the line or if I'm not being a supportive daugther (30 F). We recently had a massive fight (that I will get into), where my husband was also present, and as an overthinker I tend to try and analyze all sides of the story and also see if I may be potentially the one who is seeing things incorrectly or behaving incorrectly.

Background info: my parents have been through a long and messy divorce process (as in years of discussion and lawyers) that finally came to a settlement a few months ago. To be fair, my father has been the more vocal one and shared shit that maybe my brother (26M) and I weren't supposed to know, which unconsciously might have made us initially be more receptive towards him than my mother. My mother is the type of person who keeps things to herself, but recently she's been trying to express her feelings about how things are unfair, and things that hurt her, etc.

A few years back both my brother and I explicitly told our parents that we did not want to get involved, or take sides, or know of their crap because in the end we both love our parents equally and it's not fair for us to hear them talk about "unjustices" they have received from one another. If they need to cope with their emotions, they need to do that with their therapists.

I'm getting to my point shortly but it's also important for you to know:

My husband and I got married recently and just planning the wedding was stressful because of family dynamics. We sat down with both of my parents and told them that we expected them to behave and get along for a few hours, and that we wanted no drama. (My parents DO behave and they're not the type to throw plates at each other, but still, I wanted it to be clear that it's OUR wedding day and that I didn't want to SEE, FEEL, or HEAR any tension whatsoever.)

I've been trying to actively rebuild the relationship with my mom since the divorce because it's just a little more strained or difficult than with my father. I've been actively doing things with her and do more of the mother/daughter bonding stuff that we did prior to their divorce. What bothers me is that many times she is not aware, but she will pull faces or do mini sighs or other non-verbal tics when for example I say that i will spend some days with my dad (after her asking me what I would be up to on the weekend). So through action-reaction I've learned to not disclose any information of my plans or anything regarding time or life that I spend with my father because it always brings out faces I can't deal with.

Anyways, now that you have context- on to the massive fight:

A few weeks after my wedding my mother politely asked me that when I had the time, that she wanted to discuss some dynamics that had happened with my father's family during the wedding. I declined and told her I wasn't ready to discuss any matter regarding that because neither my husband or I had properly processed the wedding yet and we wanted to savour our moment without any other people's emotions tainting our experience.

Yesterday she brought it up again and said that she wanted to share her hurt about how my father's family treated her unjustly, and that she needed to know why they treated her the way they did, and also that she needed to get if off her chest because according to her therapist, in order to get closure and rebuild the relationship properly with me, she needed to share her wounds and express her feelings in order to move forward.
My husband interjected (to protect me) and said that he didn't see how my father's family's actions had anything to do with me/us. On one hand because we weren't even aware (because obviously we were enjoying our day). and on another hand because these emotions and questions as to why they are treating her the way they did should be directed at my father or my father's family, and not at me. I can't respond for the actions of others.

My husband has a lot of patience but because he has seen me suffer with my mother's behavior he sort of started to get worked up and told my mother that I had repeatedly insisted that I did not want to know about shit that may or may not have happened at our wedding, and that she was repeatedly trying to bring it up and not respect my wishes.

She lashed out and said that she also has the right to her express her emotions, that she is not a "machine" but a human being, and that she just wants some empathy. I told her I understood, but that these emotions should be spoken with a therapist, and not unloaded on me or my brother. Anyway, the conversation got heated because my husband told her she was not seeing how bringing these things up is

1. not my burden to bear (and less so if I already set a boundary) and

2. that she is not seeing the pain that she is inflicting on me and my brother and she would eventually come to see it.

My husband sort of stormed off because we had been discussing for a while now and he had lost his patience. (again, he has a lot of patientce. like a lot. but when he loses it, he loses it and leaves).

I gave my mom two kisses on the cheek and told her this conversation was not being productive and I left as well. Obviously neither my husband or I slept that night.

Fast forward a day later- I received a long audio on my phone from my mother where she was apologizing for how things had gone and how she had lost her cool, but at the same time I feel like she wasn't really apologizing because she was reiterating her point of view from yesterday's discussion. At the same time, she shared even more details of her experience at our wedding and she also told me she expected an apology from my husband because he had crossed a line in family matters and that he had made the discussion worse by just storming off and "threatening her" with the comment that she would eventually see the pain she was inflicting.

I disagree with my mom and actually think she is the one who should apologize because she has overstepped several times what we asked for us to be a boundary. And although it is something having to do with MY family, the events happened at OUR wedding, hence my husband also as the right to not have his experience/his day tainted by my family's shit.
Personally I don't want to get caught up with the idea of anybody think anybody apologizing one to another because no one has really wronged anybody else - what I want to get to is a sort of mutual understanding as to boundaries and wishes regarding expressing feelings.

Now here comes the question: I understand that my mother has the right to express her feelings and share things from the past to try and get closure and move forward with her life and for us tu rebuild our relationship.

At the same time, I also have the right to not get involved with my parent's shit and their emotional garbage because honestly, both me and my bro have heard and dealt with too much at this point.

One part of me empathizes with my mother and questions if I am being harsh with her by not wanting to listen to "her side of the story" or her wounds. But the other side of me really wants to move on and shut this chapter for good in my life and not have things brought up by her every time we meet up because it makes me want to spend less and less time with her. In fact when I spend time with her I'm always a little on edge because I never know if she's going to bring something up or not.

Any advice or POV? I know there's not a "one person is right and one person is wrong"- there's always truth to both sides of the story, but after the massive blowout yesterday I feel like if she can't get a move on and make peace and not unload shit every time, then I'll likely start cutting ties...
I also feel llike she has a warpped view and like she manipulates or changes the words regarding the discussion we had. I feel like sometimes she plays the victim - for example in now demanding an apology from my husband...

Help, please. Thank you for reading me this far,

Hi everyone,

My parents divorced over twenty years ago, when I was a young adult. The divorce was acrimonious and they do not have a relationship of any kind (my mom would be willing, but dad refuses). They are cordial at big events like weddings, but will not see each other or speak otherwise.

What really drives me nuts is how curious they are about each other. Every time I see either of them, they want to know details about each other's lives. Not to re-litigate anything - just nosiness. My mom for example will ask what time my dad eats dinner, what kind of food he eats, what friends he still keeps in touch with, what hobbies he has, etc. My dad is slightly less curious but will still ask stuff, and my stepmom is about as curious as my mom, always wanting to know what her life is like.

It's hard to express why I find this so annoying, since they aren't badmouthing each other. I just don't want to go over the details of their lives constantly with another person. Like, if you're so curious, give them a call!

Does anyone else experience this, and do you find it as irritating as I do? Just wanting to commiserate a little. Thank you!