I've spoken to a couple of people who are recently separated but in a new relationship and their parents have turned on them.
If anything, you always hope that your parents support any decision that you make, but in most cases, they just want you to do the 'traditional' thing when it comes to family values - get married, have a family and live happily ever after. Or maybe they are just jealous, because they wanted to get out of their marriage and didn't have the courage to do so, so they take it out on you. Here are their stories...
One, who was in a long distance interstate relationship with someone they met on-line. He had sole-custody of his children and wanted to go away for a weekend with their new beau without his kids and asked his parents to look after his children for the weekend. His parents blatantly said 'No' because they felt that he should have closed the door on his separated relationship with all his finances, child custody issues, etc before he moved onto a new life with someone else. He was shocked, that for so many years his parents had seen him in such an unhappy relationship, but now they wanted him to be restrained by that relationship until he had completely closed that chapter. Did they think that he was cheating in his other relationship before the divorce went through? Or were they just enjoying seeing him unhappy? He asked his parents, 'Don't you think I deserve to have someone who keeps me happy, gives me support, someone I can trust and enjoy their company while I go through all this turmoil finalising my divorce?' They were speechless, but still refused to help.
Another, I mentioned recently was a friend who found her long-lost love and renewed that relationship, breaking it off amicably with her husband, only for her parents to turn on her, inviting her husband around for dinner because they felt sorry for him.
The third case, was a friend's sister who separated from her husband raising her own three children, fell in love with a man who had sole custody of his four kids, became the Brady Bunch, bought her parents house to fit them all in, but somehow her mum has felt sorry for her ex-husband and keeps him around for company now that her own husband has died, which has strained the relationship she has with her mum.
Another friend has had her mum turn on her as she doesn't agree with the way she is raising her teenage daughter. She has been through an extraordinary divorce that's involved domestic violence, the media, unpaid child support, slander, a new husband who has lost his job because of the ex-husband and a new baby on the way. So her teenage daughter is now rebelling and mixing with the wrong crowd, not coming home and is desperately trying to seek attention from someone, and her mother is suggesting she needs to be 'disciplined' with violence and a grounding. My friend would prefer to involve a psychologist, school counsellors, family counsellors due to the rapidly changing family dynamic and to talk it out to help her daughter, so her mum has decided not to talk to her anymore.
What is it with parents and their loyalty to their own children? Who knows... it just makes you know, as a single parent, you will support your kids in any decision they make, (as long as it's legal) and help them get through all the tough times, the loving times, the hurtful times and the things that try them, because as a single parent, we are more in tune with what to look out for, because no one knows how painful and hurtful life is until they've gone through a divorce or separation when there are kids involved.
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