How to deal with a dysfunctional family?
As the title states that's really what I've been wondering lately. I've considered talking with a therapist as well. I have goals I want to achieve in my own life and I'm sick of my dysfunctional family dragging me under. I'm sure some people have way worse s**t going on in their families than me, but hopefully this helps them as well.
Personally: My parents constantly fight. This has been going on since I was a kid. My father was always working and what most RP people might call a "nice guy". My mother would talk s**t about my dad often in front of me and my siblings. They would get into big arguments it seemed like on a regular basis. My father never really showed alot of love towards my mother either, or even seemed to try and fix things between both of them. I believe this affected my early dating life. I got very little if any guidance on how to approach relationships with women. Ironically one time my father actually asked ME for advice with my mother.
I don't know all the specifics but I would suspect their relationship is a dead bedroom. My mother told me relatively recently she caught my father watching porn and talking to other women on facebook. I'm not sure as to the details, accuracy, etc. I honestly think I just disassociated with this, and refused to let myself get involved. There was other more important and heavier things happening at that time as well, and I never confronted my dad on this.
They continue to get in arguments, seemingly more frequently since then. And my mother continuously accuses him of cheating or talking to "his girlfriends". I asked my father what was going on between them and he actually told me something along the lines of "this has been going on for awhile, and it's no more Mr Nice guy".
My mother acts more and more in a feminist/independent way as this drama continues, not in a motherly way as one might expect. Additionally, I continue to learn rumors and whispers of both their past history. This includes possible drug use from my father, and more disappointing is hearing rumors of my mother working as a stripper in her past.
This has affected my brother as well, I believe. I won't get into details about that, but I see his development and guidance in life just turned out worse than mine. He is doing way better for himself though lately and also seems to disassociate from this drama. I'm proud of the direction he's turned his life around in.
Again, I know this level of drama is nothing, but living with them and constantly feeling this tension just brings my mood down incredibly. I'm not depressed, I just feel betrayed by the instability. I recently started heavily drinking just to try and forget about most of this. I have since put the bottle down, but I am struggling to figure out how to deal with this still.
Part of me feels some level of responsibility to help resolve this drama, but I also like to remind myself, my parents are both approaching 70, which makes this feel beyond ridiculous they haven't fixed things themselves at this point, and being together for 30+ years.
Quite a few guys have posted about moving back in with their parents since the Covid-19 psy-op a few years back. Bizarrely enough, many also share how they're reminded of the discord and dysfunction in their parents homes which prompted them to leave to begin with. Trauma and co-dependency issues are no joke. You should make the time to understand and deal with yours when you can.
As for the situation with your parents, if you haven't started doing so, find a place of your own that's a reasonable distance from their home to relocate to. While there's nothing you can actively do to engage this matter, maybe an old dog can indeed learn new tricks. You can at least provide your surprisingly internet savvy father some sources of information to consider going forward with the links below. If he decides he wants to read any of the books these people have put out, be sure to introduce him to free ebook websites like libgen and ebook managers like Calibre.
Best of luck to you both.
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