Divorce Support Forums: Help me, help my dad. Please

Buy your dad an hour with a LOCAL lawyer in his state. Different states have different rules. His time with a lawyer will help him know whether or not he's being taken to the cleaners, and from there he can decide how to proceed. It might be that he is not.

If she was a stay-at-home mom with zero income in a no-fault state, it's quite possible that he's right, she's entitled to half the pension, half the assets, and maybe even half his income for life. I'm not saying that's going to happen, just that it MIGHT.

He needs to bring his own income and asset & debt information (including houses, loans, pensions, IRAs, etc., to the meeting with the lawyer, and be prepared to talk money, not emotions. He needs to explain anything he may know about the emotions of it, whether she was having an affair or he was, but only IF the lawyer says that fault issues will be considered in making a determination of money.

And regarding your own feelings about it, please understand that you don't have to take sides. If your dad has done anything to make you think you have to, then he is wrong... he's busy grieving for the loss of the relationship. Whatever she did that made her leave your father, or whatever HE did that made her leave, it really should be between her & him.

What's interesting is that if you were with her all the time, listening to her side of things, you might hear things like that she had tried to talk to him about the problems but he refused to listen, she tried to get him to go to counselors but he refused (or wouldn't take any of the counselors' suggestions), that she felt he neglected or abused her or that she was trying to tell him for years that she was going to leave him and he never listened ... or that he was having affairs & she never mentioned it but knew all about it or ... well ... SOMETHING. THere are always two sides to every story. The fact that you don't know her side is actually a good sign about her... it means that she is NOT trying to make you love her more or gossip to you about him or cry to you about him, which is a wrong thing for a parent to do to a kid (no matter HOW old the kid is). It's quite likely that if she were the type of person to come to you & plop on your guest bed and vent about all her issues with him, that you'd be siding with HER right now, but it's not right for her to do that... any more than it's right for your father to be allowing you to be his support system in this.

But sadly, for older adults, often the only support system they have is their kids, and they don't know anything else... it's possible he is also doing his best... but allowing you to know even this much about the divorce is not a good thing for him to have done. He has not characterized her as evil, so you should trust him enough to know that maybe there's some part of the story that you don't entirely know... something that makes her more sympathetic than you feel towards her right now.

Or maybe she's pure evil. Evil exists.

But that's just so rare I don't believe it's the case. TRULY. It FEELS better if you feel like you have to take sides, to consider one side as good & the other side evil, but it's generally a whole lot more complicated than that.

So give your mother a break. Contact her, talk about mom-kid things, about her new house or whether she'll be able to visit you for Thanksgiving next year or wahtever... but don't do stuff that you know will just encourage either of them to use YOU as a sounding board. Understand that you do not have to and should not take sides. She is teh same woman who raised you and he is the same man, and they have their strengths and weaknesses and those things have not changed.

And find the best lawyer in town, an honest one, not a shark... not one who won't spend the hour you pay for, trying to convince your Dad to hire him on. Find the one who will give a full picture of what is REALLY likely, not some pie in the sky hope that he'll be able to crusade for righteousness and save your Dad's entire income and pension for him in the name of man-kind. And once you find that good, unbiased lawyer, buy your Dad an hour for some honest evaluation of his case and maybe a little peace of mind that he's doing the right thing in his settlement.

And once you've done that. Let it go. Let them settle this between themselves and don't let them talk to you about it any more.

Good luck.

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