08/26/2026
My parents are divorcing and my dad won't accept it (TW)
Loaded veggie and egg breakfast burrito.
TW (mentions of r**e)
Recently, my mother made the decision to divorce my father. I've never been overly close to him, especially within the past couple of years since learning he had an affair earlier on in their marriage. (He finally confessed to my mom years later, on her birthday...) Since then, I've been fairly guarded around him. Last month, my parents told me and my two brothers that they would be getting a divorce. The decision is not mutual, and my father is basically saying, "I'm going to win you back" to my mom.
Well, I also learned why my mom decided she needed a divorce.
Apparently, the entirety of their marriage, my father has been extremely emotionally and sexually abusive toward my mom. They got married young, when my mom was in a very vulnerable state health-wise and needed health insurance. From the very start of their marriage, he r**ed her frequently, yelled, threw things, and was always angry. My mom didn't have a support system and had no way out. A couple months after they got married, my mom got pregnant, and she pretty much decided she was stuck.
That's a little bit of background. I don't know every detail, but I know enough to say that it was horrible for her in many ways.
Since she's decided she wants and needs a divorce, my father has moved out (Thank God) and has been living in an apartment nearby our house for a few weeks. I've not stayed with him, I don't wish to have any form of relationship with him since learning what he's put my mom through.
He's communicated to my mom that she needs to prepare me to be around him because he ‘has a legal right to me.’ (I'm still a minor, unfortunately.) He's also said that once they actually start the divorce process, he wants 50/50 custody of me and both of my brothers—which is so stupid considering he's never been a 50/50 parent.
I'm very concerned that I will be legally forced to go to his house and stay the night and all of that once they get divorced. I don't like him at all. I don't feel comfortable around him. He's never been physically abusive toward me, but since learning the depth of what he's done to my mom, I have concerns in some regards. I'm not fearing for my safety whenever I'm around him, to be clear, but I also don't feel comfortable being around him.
My mom has been genuinely so awesome throughout this entire process. Even though this is really hard for her, she's trying to be a buffer between me and him, and I can't even express how much I appreciate it.
He's basically communicating to my mom that as long as they stay legally married, he'll continue financially supporting the household and nothing will need to get messy, which feels so manipulative to me. And to add even more! My mom and I's main boundary has been that we want space, and he is now coming over to our house more because he wants to work on projects, and his reason why: "I want to show you guys how much I'm changing and how I respect you." ....By literally disrespecting the boundaries that we put up, gee thanks. My mom doesn't like it, but she's recovering from a surgery and still isn't completely back to normal, and unfortunately, some of these projects are things that need to get done and we can't afford to pay someone else to do them. So I'm going over to a friend's house while he's coming over and showing us how much he respects us 🙄 Thankfully.
I dunno. It's all so stupid, exhausting, and messy, and this isn't even the half of it.
