My mom is married to my dad and now in love with a woman!

Hi there, and welcome to EC.

I'm not sure what to tell you exactly. The relationship between your mom and your step dad is theirs to work through. Your step dad is an adult, and he should be able to talk for himself. It also was inappropriate for you or your brother to read your mom's journal.

Your mom is obviously going through a difficult time right now. It isn't easy to reconcile all of the feelings that she likely has going on right now.

Have you had a private discsussion with your step dad? Maybe you need to sit down with him and share with him how you're feeling, why you're frustrated, how unfair you see all this as being.

In the end though, you can't dictate how your mom lives her life. It's up to her to work all of this out. It would appear that she's got her priorities messed up at the moment - and hopefully she'll come around and see the error of her ways...

 

I'm with Jim. It sounds like a horrendous mess for everybody involved. And to put it simply, the last thing a soap opera like that needs in another participant. Let them sort it out, or screw it up further, on their own. Oh, and stop reading their journals and looking up their texts. That's kinda rude.

Lex

 

This is going to sound harsh, but I'll say it anyway. What is going on sexually or otherwise between your parents is none of your business. You obtained this information through snooping through your mothers private journal and private texts on her phone.

What goes on in your parents relationship is their issue. You're a kid. You can't fix their problems, and even if you could they aren't your problems to fix.

Obviously, you're worried about what is going to happen to your family. However, what does and does not happen to them is beyond your control. This is a relationship issue between your parents, and the last thing you want to do is put yourself in the middle of the mess they've gotten themselves into.

So, what do you do? Well, when you love someone you love them completely, flaws and all. You don't point fingers, and you don't place blame because that's none of your business. You create healthy boundaries - such as staying out of the middle of your parents relationship problems. You also let them OWN their problems and the consequences of their actions without taking responsibility for them. So, if something happens in their relationship and they break up, it's their problem and their fault - not yours.

By putting yourself in the middle of things, you're not helping. You're making things worse and more complicated. You are also interfering into a private adult matter that has nothing directly to do with you.

 

I'm sure that I do not need to repeat what others have said, but I am sorry for what your family is going through. My parents marriage has been rocky for years, yet they're still together. I'm not a judgmental person, but inviting someone else into the bedroom, whether you are married or in a relationship is never a good idea. It's bound to happen, for someone to catch feelings and in this case it's your Mom. Please do not be upset with her or feel sorry for your Dad because they're adults, they knew very well what they were getting themselves into. And it's their problem to figure things out. I know it hurts for a family to become broken, but time heals all wounds.

Just be there and be supportive of both parents if things do go awry.

 

I understand where you're coming from because I was in a similar situation with my parents. It sucks I don't think you can really do anything because it's up to your dad, he needs to set some boundaries between him and your mum and decide if he wants to continue the relationship.

How does your mum treat your dad?

 

Are you afraid that your parents will get divorced? When you first started you called him your step dad. Are you afraid that if they get divorced, you won't be able to have a relationship with him any more, or with any of your siblings that are his biological children? That would be something you could talk to them about.

Since you were kicked out of the house, do you have anywhere to go?

 

As much as I don't think infidelity is okay and believe that all relationships should have full disclosure, I think as a straight ciswoman, you're failing to appreciate a lot of stuff. Like the fact that people hate us and want us to suffer and die or at the very least be ostracized and made to feel all-enveloping shame.

So to just say "rawr, I'm so pissed she didn't tell anyone" just wreaks of heterosexual privilege, I'm sorry.

 

As someone who had a long term relationship and marriage (and subsequent divorce) to a woman who is now in a same sex relationship, I am not sure of what this privilege is? Seems to me it cuts both ways.

LIM Shoes:

This is your Dad's battle if he chooses to fight it - sounds like he needs to be far more assertive for himself and his kids.

If your parents don't want to be in a relationship then they should work productively to move on, getting support for themselves and their kids in the meantime. If your Dad moves on then let him know he will be allright, but you need to be looked after too!

You should not have been kicked out of home, to me that smacks of conditional love. Get some help for yourself if others aren't looking after you.

Lastly, my heart goes out to you.

 

Looking to see what your brother had seen, after he went snooping to see it - that's still snooping. You wanted to verify what he was telling you. The proper response here wasn't to go and see what everyone else had seen, it was to tell them that it was none of their business, that it was an issue between your parents, and that they should leave it that way.

This is good news.

Your parents are right in this case. They should protect your younger siblings by sheltering them from their problems. First of all, they are adults and they are dealing with adult problems. Second of all, there is nothing they can do to help solve those problems, because it's something they have to work out between themselves. You are in the same position as them, there is nothing you can do - no matter how much you care - and by trying to insert yourself you're only going to complicate matters and make things more difficult.

There is nothing you can do to help, unless it's to help shelter your younger siblings from their conflict. For example, if your father or mother need some alone time to talk - taking the younger ones over to the park or something, getting them out of the house, that's being helpful. Getting directly involved in their crazy hot mess? That's a bad idea, and it's only going to make it more difficult for them to sort it out.

Having never been LGBT yourself, you don't know what it's like. It isn't wise to pass judgement on something you can't understand by calling it a sign of weakness. It isn't a sign of weakness; it is a sign of a lack of confidence and shame. The shame exists because society constantly tells LGBT people that they are abominations, that they are wrong, sick, perverted, disgusting, immoral, and the list goes on. The fact that things have changed in recent years does not change the fact that this was the world your mother grew up in, and the messages she internalized as a child and adult.

As Pret Allez said, you're speaking from a position of heterosexual privilege and cannot understand. You're also at a disadvantage due to a generational gap - a lot has changed over the years, but your mothers experiences growing up were not your own.

Also, if you're thinking about outing your mother to other people... just no. No, no, no, no. No. That is such a horrible idea; beyond horrible. From an LGBT perspective, it would make you worse than anything she's done.

If you want them to be happy, then you need to step out of the middle of their problems and let them try to solve it as best they know how. It's for your own good as well as theirs, because if you put yourself in the middle you're setting yourself up to be blamed by one or both of them.

For example, if their marriage goes south and they get a divorce, do you really want your mother or your father pointing their finger at you? They both need to own their own actions and the consequences of them, by trying to put yourself in the middle you're effectively trying to claim responsibility for fixing things. However, you can't fix things unless they want to fix them, and if they want to fix them they still have to find a way to do it - which would likely involve seeking counseling (I hope).

I'm going to repeat myself yet again, you can do nothing to help them. You can only make things worse by getting involved. If you want to do anything for them, encourage them to seek professional help. By doing that, it might save their relationship, or help them separate on good terms.

Obviously, what happens between your parents has an impact on you. No one here thinks otherwise. You want to save your family. You hate seeing your father hurt. I think everyone understands that and sympathizes. But once again, you can't control other people. You can't fix something that they aren't willing or capable of fixing themselves. You can give them space, encourage them to seek professional help, but that's about the extent of what you can do.

Trying to do more than that is going to cause more harm than good, and is likely to backfire.

Yes, this is exactly the truth. However, this is something your mother has to work out for herself, and something your father has to work out for himself. How things play out - for better and for worse - is entirely up to them.

Quite obviously, your mother has issues and problems. However, you're father also agreed with her when they kicked you out. My impression from what you've written is that you decided to inject yourself right into the middle of their crazy drama, and as a result they kicked you out.

My opinion on how you should proceed is that you should apologize both to your mother and your father. Tell them that you decided that it was a poor decision on your part to put yourself into the middle of their problems, and explain that you only wanted to try and save your family. Tell them that you'd like for them to seek professional help in order to try and solve their problems, and that you're willing to do what you can with your younger siblings if they need some space to work things out.

At that point, keep your word, take several steps back and a deep breath... and then let your parents figure it out.

By putting yourself in the middle, you not only make it harder for them to deal with the situation, you put yourself in a position to attract blame should things go poorly. There is no way it'll end well for you or them, and it's even worse because you can't do anything to help them since all of this is on their shoulders.