Hi,

I am now the only son to my parents, my dad is 70 and mum 63. My older brother passed away in a road accident when he was 24 years old, I was 19 at the time.

My mum and dad fight a lot and usually my father is the unreasonable one. There is a lot of verbal abuse and use of horrible bad words or things my father says to hurt my mom. The issues are bickering and sometime so small that it just make any sense and the mind boggles.

My mum is at the receiving end with a lot of emotional, verbal, and now more recently a few incidents of physical abuse and violence.

My father's logic is that she provoked him into anger and then he goes onto says hurtful things, bring back the past even upto 40 year old incidents from the time of when they were married.

Now, I am the one in the middle and they dump on me all the gory details of their fights etc. I sympathize with my mom, as she doesn't have any close friends or family to listen or to support her and the same is the case with my father, no real support system.

I have been married for 12 years and there have been next to no issues I have taken to them for them to solve or even as a sounding board. I do share stuff with my mom, but over time, everytime I call, its too much to listen to their stories, that I hardly have time or the energy to share my own, leave it my own personal struggles or little happy achievements.

I have my own issues to deal with and every time I call my mum is only negativity and when I hear the details of what my dad said and did, it enrages me, but then I am unable to do anything about it.

I know I cannot engage in dialog with my dad. It is not possible and will suck all the energy out of any living being listening to him.

Come to think of it, my dad has some real issues, but is refusing to see a doctor or a psychiatrist. There is no escape from a fight or receiving abuse from my dad, complete submission won't help, keeping quite won't help. Any side or statement my mum makes, he will take the opposite side and the real issue is he likes to talk bout stuff that is of no interest to my mom, politics, negative news from the media, unrelated random stuff that is of no interest to my mom and he would expect her to listen to him for hours, sometimes 4 to 5 hours at a stretch and this is a monologue. I am NOT joking, he is seriously capable of this and happens with me also when I speak to him over the phone.

I feel responsible for my mum and guilty at the same time that I am not near them to help solve or atleast be around for my mom as a shoulder to cry on.

But I know being there won't solve any problem.

I have proposed separation / divorce to my mom, but that is just not happening and I am convinced she has grown dependent and is refusing to let go and come away, the reasons are manifold.

Now, how should I cope in this situation ? Is there no escape then to just continue to listen to their silly day to day fights and the details of all that crap ?

Would much appreciate thoughts, suggestions and experiences.

Cheers,
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