When I was 23 or 24 (I’m 31 now), my parents called and asked if I could come over to their place for a “talk.”
“Oh shit,” I thought. “What’d I do?”
When I got there, they were both sitting at the dining room table. My father looked absolutely ill and white as a sheet. My mom looked incredibly pissed. Not livid - it was the quiet sort of anger that makes you wonder if someone is silently plotting a murder.
“I want your father to tell you something,” my mom said.
Turns out that my parents had been in a screaming argument. At some point, my father spitefully confessed to an affair from ten fucking years in the past. My mom was so angry with him that she demanded that he humiliate himself by telling me.
Now, the ages of about 12-16 were rough between me and my parents, and the stress of my relationship with them caused some strain in their relationship. It was during this period that my dad stepped out. During his confession to me, he managed to imply that I bore some responsibility for his infidelity, and my mom said nothing to contradict him.
Gee, thanks guys.
They also asked that I never breathe a word about it to anybody, including my brother, who’s three years younger than me.
Here’s the best part: Guess what my mom does for a living.
Really.
Guess.
She’s a social worker who specializes in adolescent couseling for “families in transition,” a.k.a. families where the parents are splitting up.
You’d figure she’d know better.
Anyway, the knowledge did absolutely nothing for me other than getting me pissed at them for putting me in the middle of their bullshit. They’re still together and working on stuff. I (and sometimes my brother) will occasionally get really inappropriate calls from one of them while they’re in the middle of an argument. After one particularly freaky series of 4AM calls to both my brother and myself, I finally broke down and told my brother the backstory. After I got off the phone with him, I called my parents back and told them both to knock it the fuck off, and they haven’t involved either one of us since.
On the up side, it’s helped put my own problems in persepctive. I’d always assumed that my parents had this model relationship grounded in total emotional insight and healthy compromise, which stood in stark contrast to my own series of messed up relationships. They never really did anything to dissuade me of that fact. Now I know better - I’m probably in better shape than they are.
But my vote is still a resounding never.
