Hello. I am currently at a breaking point with my living situation. I’m a full time student, as well as a part time employee. My sibling also has a full time job and already graduated college. We both live with our parents, but it has become nearly impossible to live with them now.
Since I was a child, my father was emotionally abusive towards my mother, but she always tolerated it, forgiving him and keeping him in the home. After my grandmother passed, my mom fell into a deep depression that my father was extremely insensitive about and basically told her to “get over it.” That was the last straw for her and she kicked him out.
Every day I would receive phone calls from him boasting about how he was doing well and talking to other women WHICH IS COMPLETELY NOT MY BUSINESS. Come to find out, he was sleeping in his car (he’s retired and his SS check is the bare minimum $850). I obviously felt extremely bad for him because he’s in his late 70s and has absolutely NO ONE to care for him. Begged my mom to let him come back to our apartment and have him sleep in the living room, since we didn’t have space.
The problem is, my father acts like all is forgiven and speaks to my mom as if he was never abusive in their marriage. This obviously irritates my mom, so they fight a lot. I’ve had several conversations with him to please give her space and keep himself busy with other things. I have no other living option for him.
My mom got into a lot of debt after my grandmother's funeral and she can’t afford her own place. My dad is retired and I fear if he lives in senior housing, his quality of life will go downhill. He has no hobbies and 5 other kids from a previous marriage, none of which tolerate him.
My sibling and I try to find activities to do with him once a week like going fishing or to a sports game. Additionally, we split the responsibility of taking him to his doctor appointments (he’s hard of hearing), even though we rarely have time to take ourselves for a check-up. Activities at the community center are not an option for him, because he claims they’re “boring” (he’s never had patience).
My sibling and I don’t see an option for us to move yet because we keep thinking, where will they live?! I’m in law school, but my mental health has deteriorated so immensely that I am losing hair and I’m only in my mid-twenties.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do to keep my sanity?
Your family is not going to change. Nor will you change so long as you stay with them. Currently your becoming an attorney may need to be put on hold while you find a way to move out and into school housing, shared housing, or some other dynamic to support yourself in living.
I would suggest therapy. Your situation was a lifetime in the making, and no Forum of strangers can do much for you but to tell you that we are very sorry. I often teasingly tell people that the best place for a grown child is 1,000 miles from their parents. And in your case, I truly mean this.
I wish you the best. Law school in the very BEST of circumstances is grueling and difficult. But you CAN accomplish this. It took me a long time to work from CNA to RN, and I didn't make it until my early 40s, so busy was I dealing with divorce and supporting a household, raising a child. Delays happen as life happens. But right now the answer is to literally save your life. Then on you go.
By the way, no online therapy. It's trash. You need a REAL LIVE COGNITIVE therapist to set you on a new life course so you can accomplish your goals.
Check into whether you can get some financial aid to enable you to move out -- but only if it's actual aid, not loans which you will cause you additional stress down the road. If you and your sibling can afford to pool your resources and get a place together now, DO IT! Your parents can apply for assistance. You could contact APS and ask for a check on your parents if necessary.
At home, just tune out their discord. They are who they are. They may be addicted to the squabbling. It's not on you to find them housing or keep them entertained. You and your sibling need to focus on getting yourselves launched into your independent adult lives. Let us know how it goes.
theres a lot more to the story I haven’t mentioned. my sister and I have felt responsibility over him because of how my mother & maternal grandmother raised us to empathize and disregard his behavior, claiming that my sis and I are the only ones he has and we can’t abandon him. we had to empathize because he had an awful childhood (alcoholic mother and physically abusive father). I acknowledge that his difficult childhood does not excuse his behavior. It’s just the GUILT that makes it difficult to let go. I agree that I need to seek therapy. I love my mother, and she knows that it’s not easy to let him go, but for our own sake it’s just something we will have to do.
Um, what makes you think this? It is not always the case. And he sounds like a miserable, ungrateful, mooching individual. His quality of life will go downhill no matter where he is because of his toxic attitude.
I don’t understand why his care is so important to you and by default your mom. He’s running the show here.
Think long and hard WHY you think you must ruin you and your mom’s life. Mom doesn’t deserve to be around him. Haven’t you both suffered enough?
What about the 3 other women in the apt? What about your Mom's quality of life? Why on earth did you convince her to let you bring this deadbeat looser into your happy setup?
Get him out of there and cut him off. Stop trying to entertain him with activities. He has a terrible attitude, as if he's too good to go to a Senior center? Nobody needs to take him to Dr. appts. for being hard of hearing. He can drive himself. I can bet he doesn't contribute financially to the household either.
Stop kissing up to such a toxic, deadbeat abuser. You have impacted your own (and 2 others) stability and happiness bringing him into the mix.
His "quality of life" is not your problem. Report Dad to APS, they will help him get a place and he can mooch off the county. Otherwise you and sister will have to get out and put Mom in a worse bind. All 3 of you need to have a united front against him and get him out. Tell him the Landlord found out he moved in, and said he has to go, it's too crowded in the unit.
Or be big girls and tell Dad he needs to go by X date. It isn't working out for the 3 of you, and he needs to go, period.
There’s a lesson in there. Stop trying to run other people’s lives for them, and get on with your own. You say “my sibling and I don’t see an option for us to move yet because we keep thinking, where will they live?!?" Let them work out how to put their own lives first, while you manage yours! At least their mistakes will be their own.
You are quite right that “a difficult childhood does not excuse his behavior”. No if’s and but’s. He is middle aged, time to get over it.
It sounds as though you are probably in your twenties. Deal with this NOW or you can write off the next 40 years!
His living situation is not your concern or your responsibility. Look at how your bidding to get him back into your house has turned out.
Your parents are fully formed adults and their choices are theirs to make.
Please see if your school offers free counseling, You need some boundaries.
Seek ongoing counseling. Read Boundaries by Townsend and Cloud. You need to stay out of their relationship. You would all have been better off had he stayed out of the house and not come back.
Regardless of your father's upbringing he is a grown man responsible for himself. He has had the opportunity to grow/change and hasn't. That doesn't make you his babysitter. You are hooked on fixing things so start rescuing yourself from this dysfunctional way of living and get your head on straight so you make better choices in life going forward.
Would you advise your friends to tolerate this kind of behavior from their spouses?
If the answer is no, then stop interfering in your parents' lives. Ask them to go to marriage counselling to resolve their issues and stop being in the middle of their relationship issues. Develop adult child-parent relationships with each of your parents.
If either of your parents are mentally incompetent, as declared by a medical doctor after evaluation, then check with your doctor about who decides on care. Each state/country has their own rules. If the spouse gets to decide, then help the competent parent create a plan of care for the incompetent one. If the adult children get to decide, then get a meeting of all siblings to discuss the matter and come up with a plan all can agree on.
Get your own place. This is a dysfunctional sink hole and is swallowing you. Advise both parents to get on a senior subsidized housing list and then RUN like your life depends on it (because it does).
I'm hoping you see that this isn't the kind of man you'd want to marry. You don't tolerate it, you walk away from it!
im saddened to hear your good deeds amounted to nothing
your father was given a lifeline
- one he prob. Didn’t deserve
and he abused it.
the time has come for him to leave
find out care options.
unfortunately if he wanted a better quality of life he would have amended his ways - time for him to move out . your mother was serving her sentence
- got reprieved like a jail sentence- and then The nightmare returns. Thats not right !
you have gone out of your way to try and make things nice for father-
But it has been at your mothers expense and now yours
his influence has created a toxic environment where everyone feeling ill .
get details in order and once they are - update the arrangement isn’t working out, so he has to move out.
the guilt is on him for being given a lifeline and abusing it.
Your father will adapt to his new surroundings. Either way that’s for him to work on not you.
sacrifices have been made
No guilt - you’ve done your best
whatever happens is down to your father for not changing his ways
—
I Would normally have offered alternative give him an ultimation- this is the behaviour we expect from you if you want to stay here but I really don’t think he’ll change and if he does not fir long term
Personally, I was raised by strong, independent parents who believed every adult is responsible for taking care of themselves.
I question how long you and/or your sibling can continue to support your parents in this manner. You say you fear your father's quality of life will go downhill living in senior housing. I don't think that is the case. I think he would find other seniors to spend time with. And, if he doesn't, and if his quality of life does indeed suffer, it is not your responsibility to fix it. You can't fix everything.
He is living the life which he created for himself.
And your mother may choose to live in a senior living with him. Or not.
She, too, made her life choices which brought her to this point.
There are affordable senior housing options, with rents based on income, which they can apply for, though there is often a waiting list.
It sounds like you could maybe find it acceptable to have your mother living with you, if your dad was out of the house. Especially if she is totally dependent on her husband for support, and you feel obligated to provide for her.
I cringe when I read that you are trying to keep them from fighting.
This is too much stress for ALL of You! You must find a way to live in peace and harmony, even if that means separating the family.
You are not responsible for your dad, or for entertaining him. He is a grown man.
You should be focusing on completing your education and taking care of yourself!
It has nothing to do with how the OP was raised. The father is an abusive, entitled, ingrate who thinks he can disrespect the charity Athena00 and the mother have shown him.
They need to drop his sorry a$$ at one of his other kids' houses or at a homeless shelter.
Then you TELL your mother (not ask her) to have zero contact with him. Let her know that you refuse to be part of any games she may be playing with your father.
As for his poor, deprived childhood, "Parents make the child, but the child makes the man". My dad and his brother threw their dad out when they were in their teens. They grew up with poverty and abuse, but made great choices. Both had loving families and successful careers. Your dad made and continues to make bad choices. HE should feel guilty for destroying the lives of the only people who ever cared about him! His choice, his life, his guilt.