My parents just had a huge fight. My mom has been talking about separating since before I can remember. However, she decided to put up with my dad because she did not want to wreck the lives of my brother and me. She now claims that we are "grown up" and we can handle it. I might be able to but my brother is only 12 years old. I don't want his childhood to be ruined. What should I do? I love both my parents and my brother. Who should come first, my brother or my mom?
EDIT: The conversation was overheard by me. My brother does not know. Should I tell him to prepare him or should I let my parents do that in due course?
I think you should just talk to your mom about the situation and what you feel.
Sometimes it can just help to talk.
I can understand you being worried about your brother, seeing as how my parents are divorced when I was a pre-teen.
I was not affected at first, but when my dad moved out it just hit me like a wall.
So, to answer your question I think you should put your brother first, but you should talk to your mom to see if she can stick it out for a couple more years for your brothers sake.
You can try talking to them both in order to get them to think about the full situation, it's the best thing to do in my opinion. Who knows if they will end up sorting things out for the best, take some marriage counseling or anything like that.
Just know that you don't necessarily have it the worst off, marriages don't seem to be as successful as they used to in my opinion. Divorce rates are huge, and I still haven't understood why. It's probably something to do with financial issues that lead to stress and depression, causing other relationship problems.
My parents got divorced when I was only 4 years old, and my mom died from Hepatitis when I was 6. She had liver transplants though in the past, which isn't that good, but neither of my parents were alcoholics or anything of that nature either.
Talk to them.
My parents also wanted to have a separation but they don't have money for it.. stay strong learn from it also let us now be independent
Pretty much what Saint said, learn from it and become independent. Talk to them about it, it doesn't hurt. If they refuse to stay strong with your brother. I'm guessing you're the older one, so if talking doesn't solve anything it's your brother who you should focus on instead. Be a big brother to him and be the man of the family your mom wants to be... be a role model.
I think you should get both of your parent together and talk to them as a group and decide what is best to do considering your brother as well. One person can't decide everything since it involves others as well.
(01-17-2011, 09:47 PM)Hollow™ Wrote: [ -> ]I think you should get both of your parent together and talk to them as a group and decide what is best to do considering your brother as well. One person can't decide everything since it involves others as well.
Good idea because not to mention that if they are both thinking about it separately, the barrier between them will cause them to not wanting to talk about it.
When you are all together, and you talk to both of them about it, it will be like a proper discussion where, one of them will talk to you and the other parent can see their point of view on the subject as well indirectly. Then maybe they will try to decide between the two of them, based on what has been said, to come to a consensus about what the right thing is in that particular case.
Also, I am worried about my dad's health if my mom heaves him. He has very poor self control. He has blood pressure problems, blood sugar problems, cholesterol problems, you name it. It is my mom who has been keeping him alive for the past few years. I don't want to lose my dad.
(01-18-2011, 05:08 AM)alfonzo1955 Wrote: [ -> ]Also, I am worried about my dad's health if my mom heaves him. He has very poor self control. He has blood pressure problems, blood sugar problems, cholesterol problems, you name it. It is my mom who has been keeping him alive for the past few years. I don't want to lose my dad.
Then you take care of him now and I mean right now..
It depends how mature your brother is, there's a pretty big variation in kids that age, some are still obssessed with lego and others are out there trying to get a girlfriend, you know your brother better than we do, could he handle it? Would he rather hear it from you or them? These are things you should answer for us, so we can proceed to help you.