#20: She Told Me Things a Child Shouldn't Hear

When you're an adult but you feel like a kid. And vice versa.

Moments after I finished writing this week’s newsletter. So glamorous!

Hello Hayes,

I am 25-years-old. My family has always been extremely close. Seemingly out of nowhere, after 30 years of marriage, my dad wants to leave my mom — my parents are in their early 60s. This was initially shocking and devastating for me, as my family had always been so close, but that is not what I am writing about. What I am struggling with is if, and how, I should maintain independent relationships with each of my parents. 

My parents splitting is completely one sided. My mom is absolutely devastated, heartbroken, and terrified at the thought of having to essentially start her life over again at 62-years-old. She would do anything to get my dad to stay. She was a stay at home mom and has been incredibly supportive and truly instrumental to my dad's career and the building of his very successful business. I think not having a career makes this transition especially hard for her — she says she doesn’t have a purpose anymore. 

Prior to my dad officially leaving, he treated my mom terribly. He would disappear for days at a time without warning, and without telling anyone where he was or answering his phone. This is so drastically different from the man I knew growing up, who was a kind, thoughtful and devoted husband. I don't know what has happened, he seems to be really going through something. I want to be supportive to my mom as she is in really bad shape — crying for hours and hours, unable to get out of bed. But she kind of expects me to “take her side,” though she doesn’t use these words. She says my sister and I need to call my dad out for his terrible behavior and ice him out, and gets very upset when I talk to him or express any sympathy for him.

My dad and I have not talked much during his time. He has made almost no effort to communicate with me. On one hand, this makes me angry that my dad is just walking away, not communicating, and basically dumping his wife on his children to take care of, which has felt like a huge burden. On the other hand, my dad says he wants to keep my sister and I out of this, which I really appreciate. I don’t want to hear about the details of my parents' marital disputes, nor do I think it's appropriate, and I resent my mom for crossing boundaries and sharing things with me a child shouldn’t have to hear. 

Do I think it's fair that my mom is getting left after being by all accounts a perfect wife and mother? No. But do I think my dad has the right to leave if he can't be happy in his marriage? Yes. I am disappointed in my dad, the way he is treating my mom is terrible, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have a relationship with my own father. How do I approach this? How do I support my mom, while maintaining a relationship with my dad, and maintaining my own boundaries? Is it wrong to want to have a relationship with my dad when he is acting this way? 

I am so lost, overwhelmed and don’t know what to do. 

With love, 

Stuck in the Middle 

Dear Stuck in the Middle, 

My parents separated when I was in seventh grade and divorced shortly after. I was twelve but I felt much older. Aged by the experience of seeing my parents as real people. Childhood shifts when your parents are not just parents, but whole humans who are fragile and flawed and doing their best just like everyone else. Divorce will do this, but so does death and loss and depression and despair. The fun stuff.

The benefit of experiencing divorce when you’re young is that the community rallies around you — or at least they’re expected to. For the parents involved, there are rules about how you’re supposed to engage with your children: don’t talk shit about each other in front of them, be positive, they can come out of this unscathed if you just behave yourself. Not all parents oblige, but the fact that they’re supposed to means something. 

When parents of grown children get divorced however, all bets are off. There’s less sympathy, less leeway for the adult children, and I believe it’s because you’re expected to behave and react like an adult that you begin to feel like a child again. 

Did you notice that you referred to yourself as a child in your letter? “I resent my mom for sharing things a child shouldn’t have to hear.” Factually, yes, you are your mother’s child, but you are also an adult, your prefrontal cortex in its final stage of maturation. You’re thinking of yourself as a child, because in most of the core memories you have with your parents as a happy, married couple, you were. How confusing this must feel, Stuck in the Middle. I can imagine it makes you question every moment that mattered, every fact you assumed to be true in your household. 

You say your shock and devastation is not the point of your letter, but I think it is. At least, it’s an essential point. Your grief matters, my love. It matters! Your parents divorce is going to change your life just as it's changing theirs. They are not the same parents you knew when you were young, and if you’re feeling the grief of a child right now, you need to allow her to feel it. You are grown but you are also small, in the same way that our parents are ours but they are also their own. 

It is not wrong that you want to maintain a relationship with your dad. He’s your dad. 

I don’t know if anyone ever stops wanting to have a relationship with their father, even the people for whom that truly is not possible. For you, it’s possible. But as I said, your relationship with him is shifting into a new season. You’ve known him as your dad, your mom’s husband, but now he’s your dad, a man. He’ll always be your father and you have every right to love him and accept him even if you wish he acted differently. You are not betraying your mother by holding onto that relationship. It is yours and it is precious and I think you must protect it. I believe that deep down your mom knows that too. When she asks you to ice him out, she is speaking from a place of deep shock and hurt and fear. I believe she will come around. Until she does, you must communicate your boundaries for how you can support her. Be direct about them. 

Do you know how you can support her? Of what pain of hers you can stand to hear? Are you able to sit with her on the phone while she cries, or listen to her fears for the future? If it’s too much right now, then I think, for the sake and longevity of your relationship, that you can tell her so. Or, perhaps your boundaries are more focused on how you’ll interact with your father on her behalf. I hear that you don’t want to disown or reject him, that you don’t want to be put in the middle. Tell her this — explicitly. It might sound something like: 

“Mom. I love you. This is hard for all of us in different ways. We’re navigating a new situation for the first time. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I want to support you as best as I can, but I cannot speak to dad on your behalf, and I will not shut him out of my life. I’m angry with him too, but I need to navigate my relationship with him as his daughter.” 

And then you must hold your boundary, which is the real test. You cannot control their behavior. You might set this boundary with your mom and she might get defensive, she might still ask you to intervene from time to time. You can hug her and love her and tell her no. You can decide not to pick up the phone if she calls you in the middle of the workday. You can tell your father you need some space from him because you’re angry. You can say I love you but I don’t like you right now. You can do whatever you need to do. Because while your emotions might feel like a child’s, while you might want to be soothed like you were when you were a kid, you are grown. And grown people don’t always do what their parents tell them. 

Yours, 

Hayes 

Send me your advice letters at alexandrahayesrobinson@protonmail.com