Carolyn Hax: A 26-year-old feels ripped apart by his parents’ messy divorce

Dear Carolyn: I am a 26-year-old man and don’t feel like I can unload this on anyone I know. My parents’ divorce is ripping me up. I feel like I’m going to burst into tears at random moments of the day. My mom left my dad because she found out he’d been cheating with an 18-year-old girl, so the divorce is messy. Dad is alone in their gigantic house, gutted because it’s over with his girlfriend and he lost my mom to a short, stupid affair. He wants to save their marriage, but my mom won’t even talk to him, and he’s going crazy. My mom is heartbroken and wrecked in her own way and has moved to my aunt’s.

I’m splitting my time visiting them both two or three times a week. I feel responsible to check on them, more so my dad because he’s so depressed. It’s scary, but I am losing hope that things can get better for any of us.

When I’m not working or with them, I read and work out to stay busy, but it’s not helping. It sounds pathetic, but I just wish someone would pat me on the back and tell me it’s all gonna be OK.

I don’t believe it because I lost the family and childhood home I knew. I am trying to avoid self-pity, but I don’t see a good outcome. - Torn Up

Torn Up: It is all gonna be OK. Maybe not right away, and maybe not in any way you ever had in mind for this stage of your life. But there will be an “after” and you will adjust to it and it won’t always feel raw and unimaginable.

That much I feel confident saying.

There is too much going on here for a column(ist) to cover, but you can get to it in depth with a therapist. That’s the “anyone” to “unload” on. It’s basic health care. So lining that up is Step 1 and other steps can wait; my resource page suggests ways to get started.

Some things to keep in mind as you wait for an appointment:

• There isn’t one outcome here for all of you. You are still a family with ties that will outlast even a divorce, yes, but ultimately you’re free-standing adults who have to find ways through this for yourselves. Each of you has countless “good” outcomes available to you; you just haven’t been able to envision them yet.

• It’s normal for big feelings to block your vision. From the sound of it, you’re all still reeling, wondering what just happened – so give yourself the care you need, encourage the others to do the same, then give time a chance to do its thing.

• The “childhood home” you thought you knew was: 1) Gone before this happened, I’m guessing, because middle-aged married people who are feeling super healthy about things don’t blow up their lives in bed with teenagers. 2) Going away sooner or later regardless. We all lose our childhood home. If we’re lucky, we get to watch helplessly as it fades to vanishing vs. losing it abruptly to divorce, other trauma or Florida. But it vanishes no matter what, and any return is always to something changed.

So much for my sunshine-and-rainbows optimism … but I still see positives. Your nuclear family blew up and that’s wrenching and terrible, no matter how you look at it. But you are launched and adult and complete no matter how you look at your nuclear family or where you go for Thanksgiving. That’s my point. And you want to show your parents you support them both as they stagger through this, which speaks really well of you.

So keep seeing them, but only as often as you can without letting them swallow you whole, because this is between them.

If you can’t make out where their ordeal ends and where you begin, then put a rush on the counseling and rethink the purpose of your visits. Companionship, yes; codependency, no. Relief, yes; rescue, no. A son, yes; solutions, no.

Trust love and time with the rest. We are built to get through devastating things.

Dear Carolyn: A friend, “Mona,” shared troubling information with me and then asked me to keep it secret. Over time there was more burdensome news that was beginning to affect me, too, and I asked Mona if I could discuss it with my partner for some counsel and support. Mona said no.

I am upset. I told Mona I cannot hear more unless she allows me to discuss it privately with my partner, but Mona insists I cannot share and continues to tell me more despite my protests. I would hate to cut her off but feel stuck.

- Stuck

Stuck: You cannot break your agreement. But you can tell Mona that every peep from now on, you will discuss with your partner. You’re not asking. If she “continues to tell me more,” then she accepts your terms.

Unless she has you tied to a chair, you can also walk away.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com.