Dear Carolyn: My mom refuses to acknowledge the upside of her marriage to my dad. He was not the best husband or father, I’ll be the first to admit that. He was wrapped up in his work and left everything else to her.
But now that I’ve entered the same branch of science he was in, I get it. It had to be that way for him to make the breakthroughs he did.
My mom divorced him two years ago, and he hasn’t really gotten over it. He asks me when I see him whether she misses him, and I don’t know what to say. I’m not saying she can’t be happy, but she makes it all too clear that she doesn’t miss him and talks endlessly about this guy she’s dating like he’s Mr. Wonderful.
I know my dad can’t see it, but it’s kind of sickening that my sister and I can, though my sister says my mom is entitled to be happy. I’m not saying she isn’t, but tone it down a little, you know?
I tried talking to her about it, presenting the good of her 23-year marriage, saying she played a part in my father’s work; she enabled him to do that research and write those papers, and she can be happy and proud of that. She said that, because of her children, she wasn’t sorry she married my dad, but that she wasn’t sorry she divorced him, either. It’s like she didn’t even listen to me. So frustrating.
Should I try another way to get through to her or just let it go? — Frustrated
Frustrated: Here are some things to say when your dad asks you whether your mom misses him:
• I am sorry you are hurting. Asking me to be your go-between will not make things better and is not fair to me.
• Please stop trying to put me in the middle.
• You will have to ask her that yourself.
• I am not your carrier pigeon.
• Dad, stop. (Change subject.)
• Dad, stop.
Here is why I opened my answer that way:
The things you are looking for are not yours to have. Your mother’s feelings about your dad and her former marriage are entirely her own to have. It’s not appropriate to try to influence her feelings to make yourself feel better. She “didn’t even listen to me” because you crossed into subjects that were very distinctly not your business.
It’s easy to see how you might believe they are your business. Your parents’ divorce obviously affected you in all kinds of ways. But if you try to make sense of what happened and how you feel about it without clear, logical boundaries in place, then you’re going to end up frustrated and confused.
So draw lines where they belong. Your feelings are your business, your dad’s are your dad’s, your mom’s are your mom’s, and your sister’s are your sister’s. How you interact with your dad is your business. How you interact with your mom is your business. How your mom and dad interact with each other is not your business. How your mom interacts with her new love interest is not your business, unless and until it crosses some kind of line in your presence. If you’re uncomfortable around them, then it is your place to speak up and/or leave the room.
Gaining new perspective on your dad from a career angle is interesting and valuable, but it doesn’t redraw any of those lines or make your mom retroactively any less lonely.
It may seem complicated, but it’s actually a simple system for navigating human complexity. You do you. That’s it. As well as you can.
