(no subject)

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: Several years ago, my parents betrayed my son and me. They took in and supported my ex-husband, who walked out on us for a coworker he was cheating with. My son and I lost our home, our car and the life we knew without support from any family. My son was still in high school, and it was a dark time in both of our lives.

My parents are both older and have been diagnosed with life-threatening conditions. They are now reaching out to us. To say the least, I am apprehensive. Having to go through what I did with only the support of my friends and son made me stronger, and I (literally and figuratively) have moved on.

I don't know if I should reconsider a relationship with my parents. Losing my father's support was harder than losing my husband, and I don't want to experience that pain again. Can you advise? -- BURNED IN TENNESSEE

DEAR BURNED: You did not desert your parents; your parents deserted you when you needed them most. To you and your son's credit, you moved forward and created a chosen family from the people who showed they cared about you.

Your parents chose your husband and his lady friend. Have they ever apologized or tried to make amends? You stated that you have "literally and figuratively" moved on. If your parents haven't done that, my advice would be for you to continue moving on.

https://www.uexpress.com/life/dearabby/2022/04/24

Comments

[conuly]

I gotta ask - are the parents reaching out because they want LW's love and forgiveness, or are they reaching out because they've realized their daughter is more likely to care for them than her ex is?

[ashbet]

Yep. They want her to care for them, and they haven’t earned it.

[minoanmiss]

I don't know what happened to my first comment, but I agree.

[lilysea]

Yep, I heard "we want daughter to provide care to us in our old age" too...

[castiron]

I'm trying to think of a situation where I would support my kid's ex-spouse over my kid and minor grandkid. The only ones I can think of are where my kid is acting so horribly that I should be trying to get grandkid away from them too, and in that case I certainly wouldn't be reaching out to them if I had a life-threatening condition!

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, I started working on a hypothetical, and by the time I had come up with a scenario it read like a VC Andrews novel.

[adrian_turtle]

Here's a simple explanation that fits all the information given:
Parents are religious. Their daughter married a man of the same religion but later ceased to be religious. Their son-in-law abandoned his wife and son, but stayed within in the church or on the derech or whatever. LW's parents refused to support their daughter unless she repented and returned to the religion, which she thought of as refusing to support her. She doesn't phrase it this way because she doesn't want to get into religious arguments.

[torachan]

Religious fanatics aren't usually down with cheating, though.

[conuly]

Oh, but they can always find some way to excuse the hypocrisy.

[minoanmiss]

At least in the US, and at least concerning fundamentalist Christians, many seem not to mind. I saw this as a kid in church and then writ large in the 2016 Presidential Election.

[adrian_turtle]

Cheating is wrong, certainly. But a man can repent and ask for divine forgiveness. He can walk away from that slut with whom he committed adultery and live chastely in the future. (Or he can start a second marriage with a religious woman. If that adulteress embraces the faith hard enough, and repents enough, he might even marry her.) It's a disturbing corollary to those bumper stickers, "Christians aren't perfect, only forgiven."

*

[minoanmiss]

Oh, well deduced. I feel kind of dumb for not having thought of this since this is the kind of thing my parents would do.

[lemonsharks]

Yeah, this letter is giving me big Jehovah's Witnesses vibes

[xenacryst]

There's a whole series of books of missing backstory here.

[tielan]

That was my thought, too!

[mommy]

I agree.

[raine]

Some of the commenters on that post suspect religion/culture at play. I can name a few where the husband's wishes reign over what the wife wants, and woe be the wife who escapes that hell, because her parents (who probably grew up in that society too) will come back, whining about how she should honor her parents in their old age.