Dear Eric: I am a single, recent college graduate whose parents have just gone through a very nasty divorce. As much as I love them both, there is a “bad guy” in the whole situation, and it is clearly my mother. She is a successful doctor and was always the primary breadwinner for our family, while my dad has been a stay-at-home dad.
After my brother and I left for college, my mother carried on a series of extramarital affairs and ultimately left my father; she has now remarried to her latest fling. They are even attending the same church we went to from the time I was a child.
I have gone to counselors who urge me not to pick sides and to maintain a good relationship with both of my parents, but it’s kind of hard not to sympathize with my dad (who up to the date of the divorce said he was willing to forgive and forget, and take Mom back) over my mom, who just says she was unfulfilled and wanted a “new soulmate.”
I told my mom I wanted nothing to do with her at the time of the divorce, and up to this day have followed through on that. But I’ve gotten a lot of advice urging me to forgive her and try to move on in a positive direction.
What do you advise? Am I wrong in this? I can’t overstate how disappointed I am in my mother’s choices which are completely at odds with everything she’d claimed to be, up until a few years ago.
— Seeking Clarity
Dear Clarity: The emotions you’re feeling about the divorce and your mother’s actions are likely overwhelmingly complex. So, you have my empathy.
You’ve accumulated a lot of advice, and I doubt I’m the last word. And I’m not going to contradict everything else you’ve heard. But I think that forgiveness is a step or two beyond where you are right now.
It’s important to remember that parents are human, that every marriage is unique and that every person has the capacity to give in to their worst instincts and that doesn’t make them unworthy of love. And I’m not writing this to defend your mother; I’m referring to both of your parents.
Try, if you can, to step away from choosing sides. Instead, see your relationship with each parent as unique. Each relationship has its injuries that need mending. With your mother, you’re holding on to this disappointment over the dissolution of your family structure. That’s a major injury. And I think you’ll continue to feel the hurt of that injury for a long time unless you have a conversation with her wherein you talk about your hurt and give her the opportunity to make amends. It’s hard to forgive when no apology has been offered.
I don’t think you can actually forgive her on behalf of your father. But by refocusing on what’s wrong between the two of you, you may find a path forward. It doesn’t have to be forgiveness. But I think that you can experience more peace.
Dear Eric: I wanted to add to your response to “Super Crush”, the married letter writer who developed a crush on someone who works at her local grocery. This is something that helped me tremendously when I felt the same thing 25 years ago, as a young wife and mother who totally was in love with her husband. At the time, I was completely shocked at myself and took no pleasure in my crush whatsoever. I didn’t want it, I knew the person wasn’t right for me, there was nothing that explained it.
After researching it at the time, I found a book titled “Anatomy of Love” by Helen Fisher. One of the things it explained was how a crush out of nowhere is a primal experience in our brain that is caused by the chemicals in one’s brain, not because we have found our soulmate. This person’s crush probably has nothing to do with the grocery employee, but everything to do with a rush of brain chemicals that happened to occur in their particular brain coincidentally at that moment and in that space.
This helped calm me at the time and allowed me to continue meeting with him (a physical therapist) to get the medical care I needed. I was able to remind myself that this was just some overactive 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 went away.
— Been There
Dear Been There: Dr. Fisher’s book is a very interesting resource and, to your point, might calm the letter writer’s nerves. Sometimes a crush is just a crush.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
