Auntie SparkNotes: My Parents Involve Me in Their Arguments

Dear Auntie,

For as far back as I can remember, my parents have had a tense relationship. When I was younger, my parents avoided arguing in front of me. In the past few years, that situation has changed and they have shifted to arguing in front of me. I understand that because I am in my teens, it’s part of getting older that I see the cracks in my parents’ marriage. I know that no family is perfect, but the situation has shifted recently.

As of late, they have increasingly involved me in their arguments. When they argue, they will openly call on me to agree with their insults against each other. For example, if one of them calls the other “selfish,” I am immediately called on to give my opinion on the matter. If I try to avoid saying anything, my lack of involvement sets them off. They get irritated, which eventually leads to them threatening to not buy me new clothes or pay for school trips. It has gotten to the point where every other day one of my parents tell me that I am the reason they argue. Additionally, I get a lot of backlash when I try to explain to one or both of them how the situation makes me feel. More recently, they tell me to “shut up” and “just be quiet” or tell me that I’m “selfish and lazy” when I voice any complaints.

Of course, I don’t tell anyone about what happens at home. My parents are usually good people it’s just when they argue that everything becomes bad. They never hit me and are well liked by everyone. When I have tried to tell people like teachers, they act as though I’m exaggerating because my parents are such “great” or “nice” or “good” people. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to do anything public because I don’t want any interference in my college process down the road. Without college, I can’t ever leave my parents. Do you have any advice?

Unfortunately, yes, I do—and I say “unfortunately,” because it’s the kind of advice Auntie SparkNotes hates to give. I wish there were a way for you to deal with this situation that didn’t involve, well, dealing with it (and that instead involved something really fun, like magic, or rollercoasters.)

But as long as you’re under your parents’ roof, you’re going to be witness to their conflicts. And since convincing a long-married couple to engage with each other differently is already a damn-near-impossible task—doubly so when that couple holds parental authority over you—the only thing you can do in this situation is find a way to bear it until you don’t have to anymore.

In your case, I suspect that will mean setting some boundaries, the kind that will keep you safe and sane regardless of how your parents behave (or misbehave, as the case may be.) The problem with your current approach is that it makes you powerless: you tell your parents how their arguments make you feel in the hopes that they’ll hear you and be inspired to change, only to end up all the more frustrated when your hopes don’t pan out. The solution is to turn that conversation from a plea into an explanation.

In other words: When they do X, you feel Y. So from now on, you’re going to Z.

And Z can be absolutely anything, as long as it’s a step you take to remove yourself from your parents’ marital conflicts. You can excuse yourself and leave the room when they start to argue. You can respond to their calls for you to take sides by saying, “I do not want to be part of this argument, and it’s really unfair of you to ask me to.” (To be followed by leaving the room.) And if one of your parents responds by threatening to withhold money/clothes/whatever as punishment for remaining neutral, you can give them your most incredulous are-you-kidding-me look and say, “Did you seriously just try to blackmail me because I don’t want to talk trash about my own mother?” (To be followed by saying you refuse to be involved, to be followed by leaving the room.)

This won’t be easy, especially not at first. But you actually have the power to vastly reduce the effect of your parents’ conflicts on your life by refusing to be drawn in—particularly if you’re ready to hold your ground when they try to punish you.

Parent: If you don’t agree that Other Parent is selfish, I won’t pay for your clothes!
You: That’s fine. I’d rather have my integrity than a new pair of shoes.
The Universe: OH SNAP DUDE.

Plus, when you draw this line and refuse to be manipulated, you effectively put the uncomfortable responsibility for this mess back where it belongs: on your parents’ shoulders. It’s one thing to idly threaten to punish your kid for not taking sides in their marital spats, but to actually do it is a much bigger step, the kind that a lot of people won’t take because it would make them feel (not unjustifiably) like they’d crossed a big, bright line into Total Jerkville. The more you force your folks to really own their bad behavior, the more likely they are to feel embarrassed and dial it back.

But even if they don’t, that’s okay. That’s what boundaries are for; they do their job for you, regardless of what other people do or don’t do. And the best thing about boundaries is that you can revisit and revise them as needed, including in the unfortunate event that your parents escalate from boundary-challenged spatting to officially separating.

Which brings us to one last thing: You say that you don’t want to do anything “public” to expose your folks’ bad behavior out of fear that they won’t pay for your college if you do—and that’s valid, but it’s not actually the primary reason why you shouldn’t be putting your parents’ marital drama on blast. Yes, they’re over-involving you in their arguments; yes, they’re being jerks about it when you try to resist; and yes, they are extremely wrong to be doing both these things. But it’s worth keeping in mind that as much as your parents are making major mistakes right now, they are also two human beings in a marriage that sounds like it isn’t working on a fundamental level, and hasn’t been for a very long time. That’s a miserable way to live, and while it doesn’t make their behavior any less awful, it does make it less surprising.

So while your feelings about this are absolutely valid, and the kind of thing you can and should vent about to friends (or hash out with a therapist, if it continues to be a problem), I hope you’ll err on the side of not airing out their intimate conflicts to people like your teachers, just because you want the world to know that they aren’t as “good” as their reputation. The satisfaction you get from publicly shaming them won’t be worth the bad feeling it causes in the long run (not to mention that it puts your teachers in the awkward position of knowing things about your parents’ marriage that are really none of their business.) And since your relationship with your folks is likely to last for another fifty years or so longer than your front-row seat to their various fights, learning to set boundaries for the sake of some peace is not just the best thing you can do for yourself now, but a skill that’s likely to serve you for the rest of your life.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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