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I want to stay out of my parents relationship but I can't because they keep forcing me to be a mediator. I'm tired. What do I do?

I [24M] want to stay out of my parents' [53M and 52F] constant fighting. Can't because they keep involving me, and one parent uses financial pressure to force their way.

I am tired of having to be the mediator between my parents. It took several self help books, and therapy, to unlearn a lot of their toxicity. I could write pages upon pages of how incredibly toxic their marriage has been to everyone and everything, but I'm trying to keep this short.

I want to stay out of it, but they keep trying to involve me. I have moved out of my home country to the US but I still feel like the cloud of my parents' marriage hangs over me. It's just something I'm sick of dealing with. And I can't ignore it because one parent uses financial pressure on the other one. How can I "stay neutral" when one of my parents is suffering financially? And I know the other one is the cause? I try to send them money but it's not enough, I just barely finished grad school and you know how grad student stipends are in the US. Imagine having to send money home from that.

Now they've put me in a really tight spot. I can't cut them off because I love them each, individually. One of my parents (the one using financial control) clearly wants dialogue because they're alone and realize how lonely it is, while the other parent is just completely done with them after suffering years and years of emotional abuse. I also can't stay neutral because both parties are guilty, though I personally think one is more guilty than the other.

How do I handle this? My siblings are all also looking up to me to lead the way here, and two of my siblings still somewhat live at home.

I'm lost and confused and tired. I'm not a relationship therapist but I'm being forced to be one.
REMsleep · 41-45, F Best Comment
Pretend that they are your friends instead of your parents for a moment. What would you do if 2 of your best friends kept involving you in their relationship drama?

If one friend was mistreating the other you would probably let them know but you wouldn't continually continually stay involved in that drama would you?

It is the job of every adult to be responsible for his or herself and ultimately you can't control what they do, what they don't do, or if they choose to stay engaged so if my friends did this I would let them know at a point that I just can't be involved in the drama. I have my own life and we all have to make our choices and I would stay out of it as much as possible even if it hurts me to see one of them kind of suffering there's really nothing I can personally do to fix it.

If one of them was being more problematic and more cruel to the other person I probably would let that person know how I felt by distancing myself a bit more from them.
I don't hang out with bad or mean people and for me that includes family.
somedude15 · 26-30, M
@REMsleep that's exactly what I think I'm going to do. I'll support my parent who's having financial difficulty the best I can, but completely stay out of their relationship otherwise. I sent them both a long message essentially telling them to fix their shit themselves or just elave everyone else alone.

Adrift · 61-69, F
Hand them the business card of a therapist, its really not your job to be their mediator nor is it fair to put you in the middle.
Adrift · 61-69, F
If they are the creators of thier own financial difficulties, than they need to be the ones to clean it up.

 
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