ACOD

I'm an Adult Child of Divorce - an ACOD. Though my parents' divorce isn't finalized (they're waiting on a judge's decree), they have been separated for two and a half years.  In that time, not a whole lot had changed.  Yes, my mom moved out into an apartment and then bought a house.  But really, they spent a lot of time together.  Probably 3 out of 5 times I called my mom on her cell phone, I'd hear my dad in the background.

At Thanksgiving, I invited my family to a New Year's party I knew we'd be having.  My dad said he'd have a "house guest" over and wouldn't be able to come.  He was very vague with pronouns.  A friend was coming.  They'd be here for two weeks.  They were from Ireland.

When I called my dad the other day to see if he'd come to dinner at our house with my mom so that we could exchange gifts left from Christmas, he said "Bernadette's still here, she'd be coming too."  It kind of knocked me for a loop.  My mom, understandably, bowed out and we saw her this morning.  I didn't think I could handle some strange woman in my house who (I believe, though I might be wrong because I was never given a name) was the one who broke up my parents' marriage.

I'm still really angry with my dad for the divorce.  For so many years, he treated my mother poorly.  I don't mean leaving dirty clothes on the floor and not appreciating the work she did.  I mean yelling at her, cursing her out, even refusing to speak with her for three days because she put her hair in a french braid not just once, but on at least two occasions.  Of Valentine's Day and anniversaries, he'd scoff and say they were made up by the greeting card companies.  I remember their anniversary in 2001, the day before 9/11, my mom made my dad's coffee and put an anniversary card on top of the cup.  He dumped the card without reading it, took the coffee and left for work without a word to her. 

We ended up meeting my dad and his "friend" at a local diner.  It was the strangest thing I've ever been through. My dad was a completely changed person with this other lady.  He held her door open, helped her take off her coat, read her menu to her when she forgot her glasses.  He was genuinely excited for what was going on in her life.  Why wasn't my mom good enough for the same treatment?  With my mom, she wasn't even worth going to counseling to try to work things out.

All in all, Bernadette was a nice enough lady.  Things said during the course of the dinner insinuates that she's sticking around for a while (though she does still live in Ireland).

Right now I'm struggling with the fact that are very few resources for an adult dealing with parents divorcing.  Many of the support networks I've found deal with custody issues, absent parents, and parents' SOs disciplining kids.  There's very little out there for people who are still blindsided by the sudden loss of family.  Being an ACOD, I felt for a long time like I have no family. 

The last year with *B* has helped that out a lot.  I feel like I have a little seed of a family started now.  Though it may not be a mature family, it provides some hope and comfort.  In light of the problems my parents have had, we are being proactive in our relationship to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes and ameliorate the ones we do make.

It is my hope that eventually, everything will settle into normalcy.  I would like each of my parents to find someone to be happy with, though I'd secretly prefer it to be my mom first rather than my dad.  I'd like to know what holidays and birthdays are going to be like with this new kind of life rather than fear the attitude of the year.

Any ACODs out there?  How does it all work out?  Does it ever get easy?