Dear Eric: I am a recent and recent university graduate whose parents have just passed a very unpleasant divorce. As much as I love them both, there is a “bad” in the whole situation, and it is clearly my mother. She is a prosperous doctor and has always been the main family support of our family, while my father was a home father.
After my brother and I went to university, my mother continued a series of extramarital affairs and finally left my father; She has now remarried her last adventure. They even attend the same church as we have gone since I was a child.
I went to see advisers who invite me not to choose the sides and to maintain a good relationship with my two parents, but it is difficult not to sympathize with my father (who until the date of the divorce said that he was not ready to forgive and forget, and to bring mom) on my mother, who simply says that she was not filled and wanted a “new sister”.
I told my mother that I didn't want to have anything to do with her at the time of divorce, and to this day, I have followed on this subject. But I received a lot of advice that invited me to forgive him and try to move on in a positive direction.
What do you advise? Am I wrong in it? I cannot overestimate how much I am disappointed in the choices of my mother who are completely in contradiction with everything she claimed to be, until a few years ago.
– Clarity search
Dear clarity: the emotions you feel about the divorce and the actions of your mother are probably extremely complex. So you have my empathy.
You have accumulated a lot of advice, and I doubt that I am the last word. And I'm not going to contradict everything you heard. But I think forgiveness is one or two steps beyond where you are right now.
It is important to remember that parents are human, that each marriage is unique and that each person has the capacity to give in to their worst instinct and that it does not make them unworthy of love. And I don't write this to defend your mother; I refer to both parents.
Try, if you can, get away from the choice of the sides. Instead, see your relationship with each parent and unique. Each relationship has its injuries which must be repaired. With your mother, you hang on to this disappointment concerning the dissolution of your family structure. It is a major injury. And I think you will continue to feel the injury of this injury for a long time, unless you have a conversation with it in which you are talking about your injury and you give it the opportunity to make amends. It is difficult to forgive when no excuse has been offered.
I don't think you can forgive him on behalf of your father. But by refocusing what is wrong with you, you can find a path to go. It should not be forgiveness. But I think you can live more peace.
Dear Eric: I wanted to add to your response to “Super Crush”, the editor of married letters who developed a crush on someone who works in her local grocery store. It was something that helped me enormously when I felt the same thing 25 years ago, as a young wife and mother who was totally in love with her husband. At the time, I was completely shocked by myself and I did not have any pleasure to my crush. I didn't want to, I knew that the person did not suit me, there was nothing explained.
After looking for it at the time, I found a book entitled “Anatomy of Love” by Helen Fisher. One of the things he explained was how a crushing of nowhere is a primitive experience in our brain which is caused by chemicals in his brain, not because we found our soul mate. The crush of this person probably has nothing to do with the employee of the grocery store, but everything to do with a rush of chemicals of the brain which occurred in their particular brain by coincidence at this time and in this space.
This helped me calm down at the time and allowed me to continue to meet him (a physiotherapist) to obtain the medical care I needed. I was able to remember that it was only a hyperactive production of dopamine that meant nothing, and that I did not have to act on it. It was not easy, but after a few months, the feeling faded.
– been there
Dear summer there: Dr. Fisher's book is a very interesting resource and, for your point, could calm the nerves of the writer. Sometimes a crush is just a crush.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas to eric@askinteric.com or Po Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Instagram and register for his weekly newsletter to Rercthomas.com.)
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