So, my dad (59M) cheated on my mom (59F). They both gathered us in the living-room to explain they were gettign a divorce. Things heated up, and mom asked the children (me 37M, my sis 34M, my little bro 30M) to pick sides. Complete mayhem ensues. Not sure how to proceed from there.

Tl;dr: parents are getting a divorce because of adultery. Them not being diplomatically gifted, things heated up and we were asked to pick sides. Little brother picked his own side. Cue the apocalypse.

Sorry if this reads disjointed, it happened a day ago and it's still fresh.

Alright, from the start.

So, mom and dad never had the greatest of relationships. They were both old school in the bad sense, he liked to have nothing to do at all at home, no cooking, no cleaning, and mom had a fatalistic outlook on life and considered they should stay together for the sake of the kids, despite said kids being out of the house, independant, and with limited contact to them. By limited, I mean that apart from my sister who's house is one minute away on foot, me and my brother live rather far from our parents, and our parents were never great at communicating their love, so our conversations tend to be rather factual and short. But we still try to see them for the sake of our own kids, so that they can have grandparents in their life. I have two kids, my sis has two, my little brother none and I don't think I ever saw him with a girlfriend.

Anyway, their fatalistic marriage went on, just as we got on with life, trying to spend a week-end here and there at the parent's home so the grandchildren could see each other and I caught up the latest about my sister and brother.

Cue yesterday, when mom solemnly put the grandchildren away, and summoned us to the living-room before closing the door.

So far, so good.

Turns out, dad who - stayed at home to do nothing at all except maybe go to his theater group with two friends - had slept with a woman from the neighboring village, I think I remember the name and face vaguely, my sister definitely does as she knows everyone everywhere, and my brother shrugged as he's the opposite in that regard and barely knows anyone from the place he lived his entire childhood, let alone a village 5 minutes away. Dad said there was no love left in the marriage, hence why he got weak and did it. Talking it out with my sis and bro, we agreed there had been no love in that marriage for roughly the last twenty years or so. Mom got understandably angry and asked for a divorce.

So far, so good.

Then they talked about who would get what. They built a big house together, and have several more that they are renting. While they can agree about how to split the houses they are renting, they both claim dibs on the family house. Mom has her big garden and her plants and her kitchen, and dad has his workshop and machines and all the stuff he tinkers with.

I'd like to point out that they started to get angry not because of the cheating, or the lack of love, or the children and grandchildren, but because they couldn't agree who would get the house.

So, they both argue voices are rising, while I try - without success - to calm them down, explaining it is still fresh and nothing good will come out of it. My sister does so too and tries not to cry as she's a very emotional person. My brother is the only one still sitting on the sofa, eating an apple and hoping he can leave soon.

Me and my sister fail, and it ends with mom telling us we have to pick sides and cut either dad or mom out of our lives, because she considers seeing him as endorsing adultery and she can't stand that.

Now, I'm obviously angry at dad for what he did, but I wasn't about to pick a side there and now. I want my children to have contact with their grandparents, both of them, even if divorced, and so does my sister. I told them as such, and told them I couldn't just make a decision in the heat of the moment. Of course, this did nothing to calm them and there were lots of tears and shouts.

Cue my little brother standing up and calmly explain that dad was always at home yet never cared about raising his kids and was a complete stranger (extreme, but he's not entirely wrong either), then calmly explain that mom's only way of raising us was with orders and slaps should we not comply, and that her love was proportional to the amount of obediance we showed her (again, too extreme for my taste, but it has a basis in reality. Both parents are "old-school", as said, raised in a farm where life was rude and parents ruder still. They kept that). He proceeded to say both of them were utterly shitty parents and not even good human beings, and that he should have cut ties with both of them long ago but didn't because it was a convenient way to see his nephews and nieces. He added that they could stick the inheritence where the sun didn't shine, gave them both a middle finger, smiled, and left the room.

My little brother has two modes: discreet and very silent (99% of the time), and nuclear (1% of the time) where he doesn't so much burn bridges as blow them up and laugh maniacally as fire and debris rain down all around him.

So far, so... just kidding. Nothing was good from the start, but that's when shit hit the fan.

Needless to say, the dispute my parents had before my little bro told them to get lost looked like a polite NATO diplomatic meeting compared to what came after. Dad got extra angry, Mom got extra angry, my sister started to cry for good and I got an extra headache. Mom ranted about ho we never loved her in the first place, dad was making grand gestures as if he was making strong argumentative points but no words actually left his mouth, mom randomly grabbed her face or slammed the table, dad... and so forth and son.

I took my sister by the arm and led her out, my little brother had already gathered my girlfriend, my sis' boyfriend, and the kids to bring them over at my sister's place at the end of the road as it looked like a haven of peace by comparison.

So there we are, a day after. We all slept very cramped but in blissful silence, we explained to the kids in the morning that sometimes, people don't love each other anymore and they break up (hopefully with more diplomacy), and now we're... waiting? I guess?

I mean, I'm pretty certain that the best thing to do is go home for now and wait for things to calm down, if just a little, before picking up contact with mom and dad again to see how things are. But hell, I did not expect a week-end of vacations to go down like this. I just had to write it somewhere. If you have anything to say, honestly, I'd appreciate the support.

Submitted January 29, 2023 at 06:36AM by ThrowAwayandSoOn https://ift.tt/cLt9deR