Hi I am hoping maybe you can give me a new perspective. I am 26 and the oldest of 5 children, ages 24, 21, 19, and 17. My parents divorced 5 years ago after 24 years of marriage. My father did not want the divorce.
Immediately after the divorce, my dad got a girlfriend. My siblings & I liked her and accepted her and just wanted my dad to be happy. Over the last year, though, things have been bad and we feel like our relationship with our dad is going downhill. His girlfriend treats him very badly in front of us, and she drinks alcohol in excessive amounts. We do not respect her.
Recently my dad gave her a ring and she says they are engaged, but he has never sat down and spoken with us kids about it. He changes the subject whenever she brings it up. We feel like she is pushing herself on us, and pushing them as a "couple" on us, and we are losing our father. Our relationship with him is failing because we do not like to be at his house, where she lives with him.
Further, my father is very successful and we feel that his girlfriend cares more about the fact that she is a "[insert his prominent position here] wife" than about our father as a person. If she marries him she stands to inherit a good amount of money. We don't care about the money, but I know my dad (he's 55) did not work hard all these years to support a self-sufficient woman (she's 43) -- he sacrificed so much for all of us to go to college and I think he is being pressured into staying with her because he doesn't want to be alone.
I have told my dad I want to talk with him alone about a few things, and he might come over today to meet with me. I don't know what to say to him because I don't want to hurt his feelings!!!!! Help!
Thanks for listening.
A DRASTIC means of letting him know that you are worried for him. If each of you would write a letter, each in his or her own words, to tell your father exactly what you feel about this new woman, it might at least put the seed of an idea in his head. This would be a serious intervention which could also result in strained feelings with him, and certainly with her, forever.
BETTER than that would be to meet with him as a group and tell him you think she is in it for status not for love. Tell him why you think this.
But bear in mind that you do not know what goes on between them when you are not around. She might be the person he most needs. He may not like to talk about his affection for her in front of you because of consideration for your mother, who apparently left him.
It is possible that he and his new lady will have a wonderful life and he will be able to enjoy his next fifty years, whereas he might have been lonely.
She might be the sort of person he most needs just now. When you sit down to talk with him, I hope you don't just scold him and point out all the faults in this woman who is taking your mother's place in his life. There might be something special about her, after all your dad has chosen her. He's in a delicate situation. Try to see the whole situation from his point of view. You and your siblings, or most of them, are ready to set out on your own independent lives. Don't try to deny your father the same privilege. And imagine how you would feel if he came on strongly against someone you held dear.
What you are facing is not easy, but she isn't going to be your mother, just someone who has come into your father's life, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, but it's not for you to decide.
Good luck,
GG