Dear Carolyn,
I am 19 and living at college. My mother has confided in me that next fall, after my youngest brother goes to college, she is leaving my father. My father is a good man but he is not the warm and fuzzy type. He works very hard, and when he comes home from work he is content to drink a beer and watch TV. However, I know he loves her and will be devastated.
I am angry with my mother for burdening me with this. I’ve tried to talk to her and she keeps saying it will be easier this way. I think she is being a coward and isn’t giving my dad an opportunity to change. I also know if she does this she will lose everything, including her already strained relationships with my siblings. What am I supposed to do?
Way Too Much Info in Baltimore
Dear Too Much,
I agree, your mom should never have put you in the position of having to, essentially, lie to Dad for a year.
You say you tried to talk to your mom, but have you listened? The same facts could also support an alternate view of her actions. Have you considered how you would feel if your lifelong companion left the best of himself at work? Didn’t even notice you were unhappy, lonely, trying hard not to scream? Would you be eager for more years of that?
Whether this describes how your mom is feeling, I don’t know–I’d have to ask her to find out. But so would you, and I don’t get the sense that you have. I suspect you have been the one talking, challenging her decision to leave.
Yes, he’s your father and you love him; Mom still might. But he’s also her husband, and that’s a private bond. Maybe she did try to strengthen it and he simply didn’t see, and that’s why he’ll be blindsided.
I’m suggesting only that you get to know your mother, and your father, and their marriage, in as objective a way as you can before you go taking sides.
———-
E-mail tellme@washpost.com; fax: 202-334-5669. For more, chicagotribune.com/advice.
