At the age of 25 now, I've been struggling with the divorce of my parents for the past 3 years, when my mother first moved out. She decided that my father was not fulfilling her needs emotionally and she wanted time to "find herself" as she thought that she sacrificed many years of her life taking care of the kids (me and my brother), and wasn't able to pursue a career (although many times my father offered to put her through college). She said that she wasn't seeing anyone and just wanted to move out on her own. My brother and I were supportive at first because my dad always was very controlling when it came to money and spending, and we were both at the ages where we could see that not all relationships work out. However, within days of her moving out, she was already "entertaining" men at her new place. On Christmas day that first year she moved out, we didn't see her, she spent the day with some man, and when I called her later that night to ask her where she was, she hung up the phone on me and then shut her phone off. By March of the next year, she moved back in the house because her relationships weren't working out and she wasn't sure if she wanted to leave my dad. My dad still loved her and forgave her because he never wanted her to leave in the first place. He's very much an introvert and sometimes has difficulty showing his feelings. She stayed for about a month before moving back out again. This time, my brother didn't want to have anything to do with her. I tried to stay in touch, but there were still a lot of unresolved feelings. That year, she came over for Christmas in the morning and then left to spend the rest of the day with the boyfriend at the time. By 2004, my mother and I were starting to get along a lot better. I bought a fixer-upper house in September and she came over to help me with it, bringing that current boyfriend along. I liked him, but unfortunately, he was married and not quite ready to leave. Christmas 2004 and we had another civil gathering for Christmas (both my dad, mother, brother, and I). She started a new relationship at the beginning of 2005 and is still with this guy now. The first time I met him and I immediately disliked him because he was rude-acting and basically insinuated that I shouldn't have bought a fixer-upper house being a single female because that was for a man to do. I saw more of him and things weren't too bad, although he seemed somewhat judgmental and rude. Because my finances have been very tight due to the house, an out-of-state wedding for a family member caused me to accept my mother's invite to ride up with them and to share a hotel room with them. The invite was addressed to my mother and I only, but she chose to include her boyfriend. My father was also invited to the wedding because my parents were married young and so he practically group up with her family, they had been married for 30 years. The trip up was not the greatest, but I kept my mouth shut when her boyfriend commented that I was the reason that he didn't have kids. On the day of the wedding, their was a Lifetime movie on tv while we were getting ready. One scene had a grandmother wanting her granddaughter to go skinny dipping with her since she had a terminal illness and would be dying shortly. I declared that I would never go skinny dipping with a grandparent, that I didn't think that it was appropriate. Her boyfriend told me that I was a cruel, cruel person if I couldn't honor a person's dying request. My mother was basically agreeing with him. Then he said that he didn't know where I got it from because I didn't get it from my mother since she was such a warm, friendly person. He followed up with, he guessed he'd find out when he met my father for the first time that night. I was very upset, especially since my mother wouldn't tell him that it wasn't appropriate for him to speak to me like that. I ended up riding back home with my father and brother and haven't spoken on the phone with or seen my mother since. She has sent me e-mails here and there, but instead of apologizing, she just tells me that her boyfriend was abused as a child and that's why he is the way he is. I feel that this is a poor excuse. When we become adults, we choose how we want to act. I haven't spoken with my mother for over four months.
I am now at the point in my life where I'm considering marriage. My boyfriend and I have talked about it some, but I'm very scared because of how I saw what I had considered a "perfect marriage" disintegrate right before my eyes. He has been with me from the onset of my parents' separation. I can't imagine how my wedding would go, especially since I'm not talking to my mother and since my dad is still very bothered by my mother's leaving him and gets really sad when he's at weddings (and then starts drinking).
Am I acting like an irrational child - angry that I don't have my mother's attention anymore? Should I try renewing the relationship? I think that since she's not apologized for the awkward position I was put in with her boyfriend and that she's really made no attempt to get in touch with me, that I should just stay on my own. Is it right for a child to distance themselves from a parent if the parent never abused them?
