In-law divorce

[radiantquest]

It isn''t official yet, but it seems as though my in-laws are going to get a divorce. I am not sure how to handle this. I don''t even know what to think. She said that this isn''t something that just happened that it has been going on for a long time and that the love is not there anymore. She said that they are roommates. I am not sure exactly what happened, but for some reason he is no longer happy with the arrangement and told her that she needs to act like a wife or get out. I find this troubling because I don''t know how to be there for my husband. How does a grown man feel when his parents divorce? Is this something that he will be upset about? I am sure that it will be on his mind, but he is grown, it can''t be like it is when you are a kid, right?

I just don''t know, and I want to be supportive for him.

 

[Haven]

I''m so sorry your in-laws are divorcing.

I can give you the perspective of an adult woman whose parents split two months after her own wedding.

I don''t know what it''s like to have divorced parents as a child, but as an adult it has been very difficult at times. I''ll share the specific things that have been hard to deal with, and the ways DH has been there for me that have really helped.

- Splitting up time and holidays with the family. This has been tough, especially since DH and I do a lot of entertaining. Regardless of what we''ve decided regarding who is and isn''t attending the events, my husband has always supported my decisions and assured me that whatever I felt about who I wanted to spend the time with was right and okay. I''ve faced a lot of pressure from certain individuals to include or exclude one parent or another, and my husband has consistently been there to help me work out how I''d feel making either decision, and he''s always supported my decision and defended it when necessary.

- Dealing with boundary issues regarding what each parent says about the other, and feeling pressure to take sides or agree with their complaints and assertions. I think parents of adult children sometimes have a hard time distinguishing what they should or shouldn''t share with the children, especially when they have a close relationship. I want to support my parents, and they sometimes have a hard time not confiding in me as a friend and telling me negative things about the other. I''ve had to draw the line myself, and make it clear that I cannot be expected to take sides because, unlike my parents, I cannot divorce this family, as they will be my parents forever. In this case, my husband has just listened to a lot of venting and helped me work out how to draw healthy boundaries.

- Fear about my own marriage being doomed. I don''t know if everyone will have this, but I did. It probably didn''t help that my father''s parents divorced after over 50 years of marriage, and then my parents were divorcing after 30, and I had only been married for eight weeks.
My poor husband went out of town for work the weekend after my father left my mom, and he received the following phone call from me, his wife of only two months:
Haven: I don''t think I can do this. You don''t want to do this, you need to get out while you can. I''m doomed, I have horrible role models, I don''t want to end up like my parents divorced after 30 years of marriage. My grandparents divorced after 50 years, my parents after 30, WE''RE DOOMED!!!!
Mr. Haven: Honey, settle down. We are not your parents. I love you, we will be fine. We can learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them . . . I''m going to catch the next flight home. Do you want me to come home?
Haven: NO! I''m the worst wife, I have a horrible family history. Save yourself!!!!
Mr. Haven: Honey, calm down. (etc. etc. etc.)
He stayed on the phone with me until the sobbing subsided, and he''s been nothing but supportive ever since.

The best thing my husband does to support me is to continue to be a wonderful, supportive, loving husband. I feel like I can conquer anything with him by my side, and I know that he''ll be there to scrape me off the floor when I''m really having a bad day.

 

[cara]

Haven's list is really good and her three big points are right on. My parents also divorced when I was an adult and it was/is really hard. But in a longer, stretched out way that doesn't impact your day-to-day life as it would if your were a minor. Instead its something you think about often, have to deal with during a lot of what should be happy times (holidays, weddings, vacations, other milestones), causes you to look back and reevaluate things that happened in the past and even your supposedly "happy" childhood, and affects your relationships with your parents going forward.

I'll just reiterate Haven's middle point which was my biggest mistake. Try really hard not to take sides, not to ask for the nitty gritty details, not to let the parents *share* nitty gritty details as much as they might want to or you might want to listen. My father was really despondent when my mother left and I was worried for him, so felt that I had to listen to him vent as a friend would. This turned into a campaign to get me to take his side and hate my mother that went on for years and eventually ruined our relationship. My siblings that cut him off early and repeatedly over the years have managed to maintain better boundaries and thus a functional relationship. Its really hard to watch your parents turn into children or into worse versions of themselves - and divorce is a stressful event that doesn't always leave people for the better.

And yes, being there for your husband as he evaluates and reevaluates his parents and tries to support them during their difficulties (without being sucked down the worm hole) is a valuable task. As is reassuring him that he is not either of his parents, your marriage is not his parents marriage, and he is not doomed to follow in their footsteps...

 

[Lilac]

My parents got divorced when I was only two years old, so it''s a different situation and I can''t really give advice on how your husband is feeling right now as they begin their divorce. However, I do want to say I think Haven gave a great list of things that adults with divorced parents have to deal with.

As Haven said, splitting time between the parents on the holidays is one of the most difficult things (it has been for me anyway). I don''t have any memories of spending time together with both my parents as a child, so this was always hard for me and I don''t think it''s something I will ever "get used to." The Jewish holidays are coming up now and DH and I have been spending so much time trying to figure out who to go to and when to go there and I always feel like it''s my responsibility to make sure THEY are happy instead of the other way around. I think if this ends up being difficult for your husband you just need to be there for him to reassure him that it isn''t up to HIM to make them happy. Unfortunately, in these situations someone will usually feel left out or like they are visited less, but you just have to do what''s right for you. I know that knowing my husband is always here for me and to support me (and be with me on these holidays now that we''re finally married) I have still felt that pressure to make everyone happy, but just knowing he is here for me all the time makes it easier.

As for the boundary issues regarding what each parent says about each other or taking sides... all I can say is that I really hope his parents don''t do this to him. Hopefully the fact that he is an adult means he can leave the room or hang up the phone or just simply assertively tell them not to do this in his presence. When I was a child I didn''t have that option and had to suffer through years of hearing insults thrown in between my parents and them venting to me about each other. As an adult it is still difficult for me to hear them do this (although it has gotten much better the last few years through my engagement and wedding) but I am now able to tell them not to do this anymore. If they ever start bad-mouthing each other to me, I leave the room or tell them I can''t listen to this and hang up the phone. I would strongly recommend your husband do this too - it will just hurt him much more to hear negative things thrown back and forth between them and he should try as best as he can to stay out of that aspect of it.

I think the last point Haven touched on about feeling like her own marriage is doomed is definitely something to consider when trying to help your husband deal with his parents'' divorce. I know for me, as much as I absolutely 100% completely trust my husband and have never once in our entire relationship doubted that he was the right one for me and we would be together forever.... sometimes I have my panicky breakdown moments where I cry hysterically and feel like I can''t breathe because I wonder how my parents ever fell out of love with each other when they obviously had been in love when they got married. I never fear I will fall out of love with my husband - I know that won''t happen. I do sometimes have these horrible anxiety moments where I am overcome with fear that one day he will stop loving ME. He does nothing to provoke these thoughts - he is the most wonderful, supportive, caring, and loving man and husband I could have ever asked for. It is purely fear from my childhood experiences and effects of my parents'' divorce. My husband has dealt with these crying episodes more times than I care to admit the last 5 years, and he is wonderful when it happens. He reassures me that we aren''t like them, we have a strong foundation for our relationship and marriage, we are best friends, he will always love me, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do to change that. My suggestion to you is to just be supportive of him and reassure him of your love and commitment to him. Reassure him that just because his parents'' marriage didn''t work out doesn''t mean in any way that his marriage will fail. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Show him and tell him how much you love him and are there for him.

Something that really helps me is that my husband always assures me he loves me even when we are fighting. He knows if we argue or fight the first thing that pops into my head (almost like a reflex in my mind) is that he will stop loving me - so even if he is upset with me, he still stops to tell me how much he still loves me even though we''re fighting. That little bit of reassurance helps more than I can describe and knowing that he takes the time to set aside the fight for a minute to tell me he loves me no matter what helps me relax and focus on getting through it all together instead of panicking about him not loving me anymore and ending up like my parents.

I''m so sorry this is happening - I know how difficult a parents'' divorce can be and I am sad for your husband.

 

[Kaleigh]

It''s going to be hard, won''t sugar coat it. Yes he''s grown, but there will still be all sorts of hurt involved, and lots of feelings. The pain of divorce is very real, no matter how old you are. I''d just be there for him, and support him as he processes all that will go along with the divorce.

As other''s mentioned, you''ll have to split holidays... Oh it stinks, but once you get things settled, it shouldn''t be too bad. Sounds like they are still friends, just grew apart from one another, or feel out of love...

Perhaps they would like to still have Holiday''s together?? You don''t know this yet? They might enjoy doing it together, some families do for the sake of the kids. This only works if they get along of course.


I think you need to see how it goes. You can plan from there.

Just be there for him and know, he will experience a wide range of emotions. And that''s ok, so normal....

Good luck, sending you a gentle hug. Ribs are still healing...

 

[drk]

Haven''s right on the ball with everything. Mine split when I was 17, just before I left for university, and my brother was at home for another 2 years. I was semi in denial, since all I had to deal with for the first few months was two separate phone calls a week. Then it was almost Christmas time, and all of a sudden my mother was demanding we have Christmas with her, while we didn''t want Dad to feel bad if we didn''t spend it with him. Even later on in my 20s, there was still always conflict about who we''d be with on Xmas day. Dad remarried and rarely has much to say about Mom. Mom is still single, and asks about "your father" in an aggressive kind of way, even over 15 years later. I also took 7.5 years of dating DH to decide that marriage was an option - I was just too chicken to make a bad choice given how my parent''s marriage turned out.
All I think you can do is be there for him. Let him vent. Encourage him to not let his parents make him take sides, whether it be listening to them talk about each other, or making him decide about vacations and visits. His parents should sort out how they see it working fairly between themselves, and check and see if that''ll work with you and him? My brother was better at the boundaries and decision-making than I was. I always wanted things to be totally fair, while he didn''t care so much, just did what he wanted to.
Sorry to hear the news though, that really sucks for your DH!

 

[cara]

I'll just offer a counterpoint to drk's holiday suggestion. My parents aren't capable of having a civil conversation about anything, so relying on them to work out a visiting schedule wouldn't work. (Its great if it would, but it wouldn't.) Sadly I think as the kid you ARE in the middle, as much as you don't want to be. Just treat it like splitting holidays between the inlaws and your own family - you get to decide your own schedule and make your own rules on fairness and make plans for certain days with one parent and certain days with the other and then check that they are OK with that schedule. Well, make sure they are available when you plan to visit them but give them as little detail as possible about your plans with their former other half. Don't get too bogged down in being exactly even (that is tedious and impossible) and most importantly you don't want to put the divorcing parents in a position where they can keep tabs and demand even splits on your time either.

Husband's parents have been divorced since he was a kid and we still have to count days and nights when we visit and make sure they are even or else there will be a fuss. If we randomly see one of them for an unexpected reason during the year, we usually don't mention it to the other or else we will need to reciprocate. When we first were dating and had to do this bean counting of time, I thought it was completely ridiculous and was so thankful we didn't have to do that for my 'easy' still-married parents. Sigh...

And we do have to defend our time with his father when we are staying in his hometown, as his mother will just ring up and try to schedule things with us during his days. Not maliciously, I don't think, but not really respecting our time with her ex. But after 25 years separated and with joint raising him, they are at least capable of having a scheduling conversation on the phone ala drk when necessary ('Can I take them out to a play on X night, and you get them for dinner on Y'), but a little managing and input by us kids is necessary to keep things from getting out of hand ('Well I wanted to have them on A B and C, and you can have them for half of D before they have to leave? Does that work for you?') Did I mention that watching your parents be like children was hard?

Oh, and yes, hubby and i waited a nice long while before getting married. Certainly the family track record isn't so good, but it does at least help that we both have some insight in that our parents were not ideally suited for one another. Fingers crossed, we'll stay good for each other.

 

[Haven]

This is how we split up holidays:

In the very beginning we spent the holiday and family dinners with one parent or the other.
My father left my mom in September, and I hosted Thanksgiving that November and invited only my mom. I called my dad and told him that''s what we were going to do, and he was okay with that. I knew he had another place to go, so I wasn''t worried about him spending the holiday alone.

We spent Sunday dinners with one parent and then the other for several months, but over time my dad just never seemed to be the one to call me and I realized I was the one making all the effort. When I stopped, he really didn''t seem to realize it or care, so we just ended up doing everything with my mom.

Now I invite both of them to our house for holidays and other events. I told both of them that I will not play the split shifts game when I am the one entertaining, so they need to learn to be civil to each other. They''ve both been here for several events, and it''s been fine, awkward at moments, but fine. (Great example of awkward: We threw an Inappropriately Funny T-shirt Party on the 4th of July and my mom had a shirt made that says "Wife goes on . . . " knowing that my dad would be there. It was hilarious, but totally awkward.)

It''s not always easy, but it does seem to work out with a bit of planning.

 

[Kaleigh]

Date: 9/15/2009 10:09:52 PM
Author: Haven
This is how we split up holidays:

In the very beginning we spent the holiday and family dinners with one parent or the other.
My father left my mom in September, and I hosted Thanksgiving that November and invited only my mom. I called my dad and told him that''s what we were going to do, and he was okay with that. I knew he had another place to go, so I wasn''t worried about him spending the holiday alone.

We spent Sunday dinners with one parent and then the other for several months, but over time my dad just never seemed to be the one to call me and I realized I was the one making all the effort. When I stopped, he really didn''t seem to realize it or care, so we just ended up doing everything with my mom.

Now I invite both of them to our house for holidays and other events. I told both of them that I will not play the split shifts game when I am the one entertaining, so they need to learn to be civil to each other. They''ve both been here for several events, and it''s been fine, awkward at moments, but fine. (Great example of awkward: We threw an Inappropriately Funny T-shirt Party on the 4th of July and my mom had a shirt made that says ''Wife goes on . . . '' knowing that my dad would be there. It was hilarious, but totally awkward.)

It''s not always easy, but it does seem to work out with a bit of planning.

That''s awesome Haven!!!