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The joys of battles over child support.
My mother is in town for a week; she lives out of state. I'm staying in a small hotel room with her for the time being. Normally, I live with my dad about 5 miles away from this hotel.
Because of the tiny size of the hotel room, I hear all of her conversations. All of them are the same...I swear I've heard her give the same whiny speech to 10 different people about her friend making her angry, me making her angry, and of course, my dad making her angry.
A new court battle has been opened up with them, even though they've been divorced for 10 years. It never ends. You'd think I'd know by now how to approach this, but I have no idea how to go about telling her that I don't know how much more I can hear about my dad being a horrible person. He could be one in this situation, but he is still my dad, and if he had even said half of this stuff about my mom he definitely would have heard it from me by now.
My mom and I have been fighting a lot though... I will be the first to admit I haven't been the kindest person; I've been very irritable. There's that, plus the fact that I know she'll automatically get defensive and say I'm taking his side if I ask her to stop saying these things about him to people while I'm in the room, even though any psychologist or person on the street would definitely agree with me that one parent is not supposed to trash talk the other around the child.
I don't think trying to talk to her about this will work- like I said, I know how she'll react already and it will just increase the tension... Anyone have any suggestions anyway? Or should I just bite the bullet and listen to all of this BS until she leaves in a few days and not do anything?
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I will suggest something that may seem harsh. It is really but if you want to get your point across it may get her attention.
Tell her you won't stay with her in the hotel. If she gets upset and wants to know why not...tell her. It may have an impact.
Emphasize you aren't taking sides and because of that you don't want to listen to discussions concerning custody from her OR your dad.
I know you don't want to say anything about it to her, but, she may not even realize what it is she is doing, or how it affects you.
Good luck. :)
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Hi,
Your mother sounds a little like mine :) Except half of the time mine is speaking French far too loudly, which is almost more annoying, like it interferes with your hearing English.
So you're stuck in a small hotel room with her, and she's on the phone a lot. She keeps repeating a very similar, and to you, somewhat offensive conversation. Along with that, you don't think talking to your mother will work, because she'll see that as siding with your father and just put up the mental "I'm not listening to a word you're saying" recognition barrier... and then add a sentence on to her phone call perhaps.
I'm probably going to suggest the wrong thing first, because you sound like an intelligent person, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't have already considered it. Get out of the room?
Try and think up things to do. If your father lives only about 5 miles away then do you have some friends in the area? Maybe you could ask your mother if you can have the phone for a while, and after you're done, go do something with them.
Oh, spontaneous idea. Ask if you can have some phonetime, then phone up some friends (you'd have to figure out what you were going to say beforehand, sneakily) and then show your mother what it's like to have the same conversation about her annoying you, and how you know that your father "could" be a horrible person in this situation, but he's still your father, and it distresses you to hear over and over about what a bad guy he is.
That one's your call. I don't know your mother, but it's worth a try if she tends to learn by example.
Ok, I've got one last option. It involves talking to your mother. But I did read your question, so this is how it goes. She has to know you're on her side. You -are- on her side, but you just don't think that your father deserves to have so much said behind his back about him, and you also don't particularly like the way your mother is openly slandering him in front of you. The trick is not to talk to her about it directly. If you do, then she will just stop listening, and you obviously know that.
The next time you hear your mother talking about how bad a man he is, try to get her attention, I don't know whether interrupting her calls is so bad or if she's a "Can't you see I'm on the phone" kind of person. Maybe it's best to wait until after, but anyway. The next time she makes a call, go talk to her afterwards. The topic I would go for is how distressed it makes her thinking about it. That way, perhaps you could convince her that by repeating her conversation so often on the phone, maybe she's just stressing herself out more. Don't directly discuss whether or not your father IS bad, make it about her, and how she shouldn't be 'wasting her time' talking about it and stressing about him over the phone.
If you did want to get out and do stuff, maybe you could take your mother. It could improve things between you, and it would mean that she wouldn't be talking on the phone the whole time you were out.
I've only really answered the short term question of "stuck in a room" because that seemed to be the emphasis of your dilemma, but if the relationship between you, your mother and your father becomes problematic, feel free to ask me a private question.
-K
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