The fact that LW knows doesn’t necessarily mean the parents told LW. I knew a lot more about my parents’ sex life than this, but it was from hearing them complaining at each other during their fights; they weren’t directly telling me or using me as a confidante. The things mentioned here I can easily imagine being fight-fodder for LW’s parents.

There were also times when I’d ask one parent later about something the other had said to them during a fight. In this case, if LW said something like, “Dad yelled at you that you don’t love him because you won’t have sex anymore,” it would have been valid for the mom to respond from a parental-teaching perspective, “We don’t owe our bodies to anyone, including spouses, and I’m no longer comfortable sharing mine. Trying to coerce people into sex they don’t want is wrong, and if anyone ever does that to you, you need to get away from them.” Never use your kid as a counselor, but if they ask you direct questions and it’s age-appropriate and the answer can help them learn how to keep themselves safe, it can be fine to use your own experiences to share important lessons.

But regardless of whether one or both parents were using LW as a confidante in the first place (if either or both were, it’s wrong), LW’s dad is definitely blaming LW now for the breakup. I’m in full agreement with the columnist that that is abusive and manipulative.