He's leaving. Now what do we do?

saddness.. how old is your bro?

@ninjacolin ; fifteen.

Your dad has behaved badly. I don’t think it helps though for you to so totally identify with your mom.

You need to focus on your own feelings about your dad’s departure.

I don’t think you should hate him or cut him off event hough you might be angry at him right now.

You need to process your anger and move on. Focusing on hating them will just fill your life with poison.

I’m very sorry that you are going through this. I know it will be tough for your brother. He will need your support and help. He will need his dad in his life.

@marinelife : Well its too late for that.

Oh, that is just terribly sad. I hope you don’t hate me for saying this, but there is never only one side to a story. I’m sure you dad loves you. Maybe he needs to talk to you.

@dpworkin ; if he did, he wouldn’t have done this.

That’s just how life is; you just gotta get over it and be stronger.

@troubleinharlem His leaving is not about whether he loves you or not. It is about what is going in his marriage to your mom. It is about adult relationships sometimes not working out.

hmm… i agree with @dpworkin.. there are no rules as to what one who loves another will do with their own lives.

@troubleinharlem Yeah, it must feel that way. Maybe in time you will be able to make room for the idea that dads can make mistakes, or behave badly, or screw up, and still love their children very, very much. I’m a dad, and I know.

I went through this when I was only 11. It’ll all work itself out. Just don’t hate, that is too strong, dislike by all means. You will look back on this when you get older and realise that your parents had to do their own thing for their own reasons.

I am sorry for your pain and anger that makes you feel so powerless. The advise @Marinelife offered is as good as any advice anybody can offer you.

You need to work through your anger so you don’t continue to carry it around. It gets heavier every day and will damage you the longer you carry it around.

You will need to talk these things through with your Dad so he knows and understands how you feel. It may not change any decisions he has made or will make, but you two need to talk anyway.

He’s still your dad and he Does still love you. Try to talk to him when you can.

Stay out of jail. Make that priority #1.

Right now, your emotions are so raw there is nothing that anyone can tell you to do to help or really make things better. I think a lot of us have had moments in our life where we felt so hurt, disappointed or betrayed by someone we’ve loved…unconditionally, that when it happens, the pain and anger is more than anyone could have ever imagined.

Your father made a huge mistake, something that makes you question how you thought you knew him, as a person. As a man and as a father. Now everything is turned upside down. Making any permanent decisions in this state, is a tricky thing to do. In the long run, any decision you make could wind up hurting you more than him.

Be angry. Let those emotions out, constructively. When you can talk to him, do so. Something we forget about our parents. They are human, just like us. They make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones, such as this – instead of rushing to ban him from existence, give it space and time. Do this for yourself, not for him.

I’m so sorry for the pain you are experiencing.

Sometimes my son tells us that we are not allowed to get divorced. He will personally, he says, make us stay together. Whenever he sees us hugging, he comes to join in in the hug (which annoys me, but I guess is very loving and cute). I have a daughter, too, age 13. If I ever did something—met someone—left my marriage—I’m told they would hate me and hate whoever I was with, just like you do with your father.

I think our children see us as fairytale parents. They think we are locked together so tightly that nothing can break us apart. If we do break apart, they see only the other woman. They don’t see the problems between their parents that we happening for years.

Sure, it can be selfish. Your dad just looking for his own happiness, and being willing to sacrifice the family for that. What could possibly make him do that?

Sometimes our spouses don’t or cant give us what we think we need in order to make life worth living. Some of us might be selfish and just do what we want for our happiness and others might agonize over it, and then, knowing they will cause pain, but knowing the pain they will have to bear will be worse if they stay, decide to leave. To try again.

It’s no good from the family’s point of view. It causes incredible pain, and you can’t imagine what he could be thinking that would make it worth causing this kind of pain. So you are incredibly angry at him and at his new woman.

Neither love nor anger can fix things any more. They can only express your feelings. But no matter what he’s done, he’s still your dad, and the only one you’ll ever have, whether or not you live with him.

He has a story, too. And maybe some day you’ll want to try to understand why he has done what he has done. Maybe you can’t imagine that now. But most of us, I think, eventually need to understand—to know why. If you keep that anger glowing in your chest, you’ll never know. Worse, that anger will eat you up, too. That’s what anger does. It often hurts us more than it hurts the person we are angry with.

I hope you can find a way to let go of it—over time. I hope you can find a way to reconnect with your father. He did not do this to hurt you, although that’s what happened. He did this—probably—because he was trying to save his own life.

@wundayatta
No, he did this because he was and is selfish. He wasn’t trying to save his own life.

If your family has a plan B, now is the time.
The deed is done and dad is out. Someone needs to pick up the slack for the family unit to function.
If the family obsesses on how much dad sucks for leaving, you’ll never get out of that space.
Your family can either give up and play the victim to your dad’s douchery, or the family can bind together and work to make things better. As a family working together, you can accomplish some pretty great things.
Live your life like you’re better off with the guy gone. That’s my advice. Being bitter and hating the world because your dad sucks won’t get you far.

Pretend to like him(as a revenge). After you get your legacy from him you can leave him right away!.

@Doctor_D Great idea! Introduce pecuniary dishonesty into the family dynamic! I hope you’re a real Doctor, so that real people can benefit from your wisdom.

At face value what you dad has done may seem shallow and selfish and of course it does. There is I am sure more to this story and you may not ever want to understand that other side of this story but there are two other people involved here that are a big part of why things have turned out the way they have. Not everything may be as it seems. The dynamics of a marriage between your parents may not be as black and white as you may prefer it to be…perhaps time to talk this one through with your dad before it is too late if you are strong enough to want to do so.

Maybe this support forum will help.

Really it’s up to you…. you’ve got 2 basic choices. Either remain bitter at your dad for the rest of your life, thereby helping to sour any relationship your brother might have with him, & possibly threaten the relationship you have with your brother. Or learn to accept that you dont know what the relationship between your mum & dad was like, & try to build some sort of relationship with him.

MY nieces went through something similar when their Dad left their Mum for another woman. My oldest niece called her Dad, made him come see her and balled him out. She was very angry with him and expressed it to him. They were distant with him for a few years but in the last year or two have gotten close with him again and he is a part of their lives. They will never be happy with what he did but they realize that there are aspects to their relationship with their father that are of value to them. As far as I know, they are not close with his new wife but they do have a relationship with her.

Consider grief counseling. If you’re still in school, almost all schools offer it for free (high school, college, whatever)

Most important thing, do not bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. Just finding someone that you can express your feelings to is paramount.