Carolyn Hax: My divorced mother refuses to see the upside of marriage to my dad

[cereta]

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.

Comments

[oursin]

The 'Upside' was all his, and that's what he's missing. Not, we suspect, his former wife as a person: 'she enabled him to do that research and write those papers'. UGH.

[lethe1]

This.

[conuly]

Yup.

[lethe1]

I'm wondering if LW is a man who would expect his (future) partner to make the same sacrifices his mother did so he can be wrapped up in his work and not care about anything else.

[minoanmiss]

I would not bet against this.

[jadelennox]

My theory after

It had to be that way for him to make the breakthroughs he did. [...] 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.

was that either the LW was fictional or that the letter's by the father, but the more I think about it, the more I think straight up fiction. Nobody who thinks this way is going to write to a female advice columnist, especially not to Carolyn Hax.

[dissectionist]

IDK, both my different-sex partner and I think of our contributions this way and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. During our first decade, I contributed to our success by staying home with the kids alone when they were young so that he could travel to work; his accomplishments are _our_ accomplishments because he couldn’t have done that without my support. And now in our second decade and beyond, him working from home and doing a big part of parenting the kids has enabled me to take a cancer-research position where I get to contribute to the health of humankind. The advances I’m able to help my team make wouldn’t have been possible without his support, so my successes are _our_ successes.

While I agree that the “women are just the success of their husband” mindset is a dinosaur that needs to die, I don’t think “you can claim a part in the good done, because it couldn’t have been done without you” is the same as that. And there’s nothing wrong with an individual _choosing_ to celebrate that they’re a part of the successes of their mate, including when that individual is a woman.

That being said, in this specific case, LW’s mom has already claimed what she wants from the relationship: the value of having gotten her kids. LW’s mom isn’t interested in salvaging anything beyond that, and LW needs to back the hell off and stop trying to force it on her. To LW’s mom, the research accomplishments aren’t the silver lining that LW wants them to be; they’re simply a reminder of two decades spent lonely and miserable.

[cereta]

See, I'm wondering if LW is either in a relationship, starting one, or thinking about their own future, and is preemptively making excuses for being a less-than-perfect spouse or parent.

[melannen]

That was my thought.

LW, to the extent any of this is your business, what you need to be doing is not trying to come up with reasons why your dad's behavior was OK and convince your mom of them, but to think really hard about how it *wasn't* OK, and how you can have the career you want and the relationship you want without hurting someone as badly as your father hurt your mother (and without ending up as lost and lonely as your father is!)

[cimorene]

Oh, boy, LW, yikes. Please get therapy.

[lilysea]

Dear LW: I don't care if your father developed polio vaccine or penicillin or something equally valuable,

that doesn't make him a good husband if he was otherwise a terrible husband!

[kellyblah]

Sounds like a terrible father as well, not only by LW's admission, but also by LW's attitude. Whenever I see questions about staying in a bad relationship "for the children", I am compelled to remind people that the children are learning what a relationship looks like from what they grow up with. This is a perfect example of that.

[minoanmiss]

Dear LW: you awful little wretch. Your mother is a full human being, not an adjunct to your father the 'real' person. And what's "sickening" about her new happiness is the way you talk about it. She deserves better from you.

[cora]

Yeah, that part of the letter was super bizarre. "It's so sickening that my mom is so happy!" ...why? An ex spouse is still an ex. People move on from exes and find happiness with the next relationship all the time. That doesn't change after they become parents or get married.

[conuly]

LW, please... just... get therapy? Or something? I don't know what, but do whatever it takes to stop doing this to your mom.

[cora]

As someone who is incredibly selfish with their time...LW's dad sounds like the kind of spouse I'd be - absent and neglectful of their significant other and family. He did not have malicious intentions, he just did not prioritize his time with them. He wanted to make breakthroughs in his field, and he did. At the expense of having a wife. That's...pretty accurate, yup. Breakthroughs require a ton of time and energy to accomplish. You know what else also requires a ton of time and energy to accomplish? Long-lasting, successful marriages.

It sucks, and I am sorry he is broken hearted now, but relationships require both partners being willing to spend time with each other. It's obvious on how LW writes about him, he did not see or understand the need to spend time with his family. Perhaps quality time is not his love language, perhaps he had a lower need for quality time. Either way, he was unable or unwilling to try to compromise to meet his wife's needs, and so they divorced in order to ensure their needs are met.

Divorces take a while. I imagine LW's mom already repeatedly explained she needed her husband to spend time with her/the kids. Repeatedly. Eventually she got fed up and the relationship went the divorce route. LW's dad has his answer. He just does not agree with It or like it.

Like agony aunt said, either way, it's not up to the daughter to be the go between, and dad really shouldn't be putting LW in that position.

[conuly]

This kept on ringing a bell, and finally I remembered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKpJkplwoU

[lethe1]

Great lyrics!

[sathari]

That is fucking genius, especially the last lines.

[firecat]

This person and their dad need to learn how to apply circle of grief / ring theory / comfort in dump out. I hope they have friends despite their profession eating all their time and energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_theory_(psychology)

[shirou]

Carolyn's advice for LW is good. Their parents' former marriage is none of their business. Opening with how LW should respond to their father did throw me for a loop because most of the letter focuses on LW's interaction with their mother, and I think LW is expressing their own opinion, not just channeling their father.

As for the marriage itself, I see it as an issue of communication and consent.

LW is right that research science is a demanding occupation, similar to law, finance or medicine. People in such careers often struggle to achieve balance, both for themselves and for their family members. Sometimes they marry people with similarly demanding schedules and choose not to have kids or outsource a lot of childcare. Sometimes they marry someone who takes on the bulk of the home responsibilities, as LW's mother did.

The key to any of these arrangements is communication. Both partners, and eventually any children, need to be able to express their own needs and expectations. It is fine for one partner to volunteer to be the stay-at-home parent with the understanding that the other partner will focus on their career. It is not fair for one partner to get forced into that position without a discussion, as probably happened with LW's mother. LW is wrong to push his mother to frame her marriage in terms of how she enabled LW's father to achieve breakthroughs in his field. She has her own needs and gets to decide what she wants out of a marriage. She has the freedom to give, not give, or withdraw consent to be the career-enabling partner.

[sathari]

LW, definitely get therapy. Definitely take Carolyn's advice and set boundaries with both your parents about what you can and can't hear about the breakup of their marriage. Also definitely listen to that Garfunkel and Oates song that conuly linked above, on repeat, until it sinks in, especially if you're thinking about partnering, much less procreating, with another human. (I am morally certain that there are in fact people in the world who are looking for the sort of trophy spouse whose achievements they can brag about and who will contribute the necessary half of the DNA for offspring that they will then allow the other partner to raise as they see fit on their paycheck and who will not bother them with annoying partnered activities beyond that.)

Also, it sounds like there is absolutely nothing for your mother to miss about your father, since she didn't actually have him in her life when they were married. She had someone taking up the husband-shaped space so that she couldn't find someone to be an actual partner to her, and who apparently contributed half the DNA to children that she's glad of having, but that's it. She didn't have him, so there is nothing for her to miss about not having him, and a lot for her to enjoy about having a partner who wants to be with her as an active part of his life. Also, be really glad that she's glad she had you and your sister, instead of resenting that she had kids and couldn't leave.