{"id":4802,"date":"2016-06-05T19:48:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4802"},"modified":"2016-06-05T19:48:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:18:59","slug":"benefits-parents-relationship-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4802","title":{"rendered":"What I Learnt from Watching My Parents\u2019 Relationship Fall Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI<\/span>wish you\u2019d died before fucking everything up!\u201d My mother\u2019s scream reverberated through the hall. That was the worst thing I\u2019ve heard anyone say to a person they supposedly love. Immediately, I rushed out of my room to check if everything was okay. It wasn\u2019t. My father was staring at her in disbelief, looking shocked, soaking in the blame. After a moment, he looked mom straight in the eye and said, \u201cNever talk to me again, I want nothing to do with you.\u201d I closed my door, slid down, and burst into tears. They were unhappy together. And the thought of them not being happy together broke by heart.\n\n<\/p>I used to look at my parents as a team that\u2019s in it to win it. They took care of things that seemed incomprehensible to me, possessing God-like powers to make anything I asked of them happen. I was happy in my bubble, enjoying the 19-season-long show called <\/span>The Parents are Alright<\/span><\/i> for so many years that I forgot another realm existed behind the scenes. And now when the show was over, and the actors tired of pretending, I finally saw the other side of the stage and no, my parents weren\u2019t alright. <\/span>\n\nWhen mum and dad first started quarrelling, a year ago, I would intervene and mediate their fights. I\u2019d try to be the grown-up who would suggest that they should talk about why they were hurting and remember the good times \u2014 just things I had picked up from books and movies. I\u2019d imagine they\u2019d slip into flashbacks of the time they fell in love and would kiss and make up. Reality, of course, is no rom-com. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nThe day my dad said that he needed to move out, I thought it was over. And I was mad that my mother was not doing anything to stop him. She had taken a vow of silence, looking visibly spaced out and only talking to me about my meals. <\/span>\n

Were my parents going to get a divorce? Would I have to navigate a tricky relationship with a step-parent in a few years? Aren\u2019t children of divorced parents messed up? How would I survive this?<\/blockquote>\nWhen dad left home, it felt strange to not have him around, but it was also necessary. I now call it necessary because after he left I saw this magical relief come over my mother the next day. And dad, I guess, must have got what he needed: A good night\u2019s sleep. <\/span>\n\nBut neither was I relieved nor was I sleeping. In fact, I was just angry at the unfairness of it all, hypothetical scenarios haunting my thoughts. Were my parents going to get a divorce? Would I have to navigate a tricky relationship with a step-parent in a few years? Aren\u2019t children of divorced parents messed up? How would I survive this? And how could I have let this happen?<\/span>\n\nAll along I kept thinking about myself and my bleak future, sparing little thought for my parents and how they were coping. In my version of the story, I was the only victim. I kept to myself, brooding and mourning, as if the loss was only mine, until my younger brother shook me up. \u00a0<\/span>\n\n\u201cWouldn\u2019t you rather see them be divorced but content, than watch them slowly die, a miserable couple forced to fulfill their marital duties?\u201d he asked me. I knew he was right. \u201cOf course, I want them to be happy,\u201d I said. But the truth was that I had not thought about mum and dad much. <\/span>\n\n\u201cI\u2019m sure you know that they stayed together all these years for us, right? You know that mom cries in her room when dad leaves for work, right? You know that dad\u2019s business is barely staying afloat, right?\u201d my teenage brother said, in a terrifying litany. Suddenly, I realised that all along I was being selfish; the empathy that I had reserved for myself was something that my parents deserved. <\/span>\n
I stopped blaming them for everything that was going wrong in my life, I stopped expecting them to fix it.<\/blockquote>\nMum and dad had spent days pretending that all was well in their marriage, so that my brother and I didn\u2019t have to bear the burden of a family falling apart. And now was the time for me to act \u2013 to look at their decision as something that would eventually benefit them. That\u2019s when I started seeing my parents with agency and not just flawed human beings. I decided to adult and give my mother and father a patient ear. I stopped blaming them for everything that was going wrong in my life, I stopped expecting them to fix it. And most importantly, I stopped playing marriage counselor (I sucked at it anyway) and started being an empathetic daughter that I should have been in the first place. <\/span>\n\nWhen my brother and I would meet our dad during the separation phase, initially we did not know what to talk about. But slowly the awkwardness disappeared and dad opened up, telling us about the time he skipped math class for a semester in college and how when he first started work he only knew a handful of English words. Back home, I asked my mom why we could not have long conversations, and she said I was the one always keeping it blunt. So I decided not to cut her off each time she asked me about college or how my day was. Today, mum and I are not the best of buddies, but when we sit in a room we don\u2019t pretend to check our phones. <\/span>\n\nIn the four months that my parents stayed apart, my relationship with mum and dad improved. As a family, we all \u2013 even mum and dad \u2013 started talking to each other more, we let go of our prejudices and decided to be more honest with each other. This metamorphosis of our relationships \u2014 mine with them and their own \u2014 created new boundaries. We had seen the darkest sides of each other, spewed the worst insults, and felt immensely insecure in our relationship, but gradually, the dust was settling. <\/span>\n\nMy parents got back to doing the everyday things that couples do \u2013 going on trips to the grocery store, watching a movie together, and ganging up against my brother and I. It looked like they were starting to let go of the past. <\/span>\n\nEventually, mom and dad reconciled. A year on, they are still together. But I know that if they change their mind again, I would be in the bleachers supporting them and not shutting them out.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to look at my parents as a team that\u2019s in it to win it. So the day my father said that he needed to move out, I thought it was over. I was mad that my mother was not doing anything to stop him. I wondered how I would survive this. How could I have let this happen? In my version of the story, I was the only victim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":4803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[17,8453,21,8454],"class_list":["post-4802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-family","tag-divorce","tag-family-relationships","tag-marriage","tag-parental-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I Learnt from Watching My Parents\u2019 Relationship Fall Apart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I used to look at my parents as a team that\u2019s in it to win it. 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