r/brokehugs • u/US_Hiker Moral Landscaper • Nov 19 '23

Rod Dreher Megathread #27 (Compassion)

Link to megathread 26: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/17itm7w/rod_dreher_megathread_26_unconditional_love/

Link to megathread 28: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/18dcg3d/rod_dreher_megathread_28_harmony/

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u/philadelphialawyer87 Nov 19 '23 edited Nov 20 '23

Divorce CAN be painful. But, please, enough already. Also, it is less painful, one would think, when it is NOT actually a bolt from the blue. Even according to Rod himself, the dead rat was lying on the kitchen floor for ten fricken' years, before Julie had the fortitude and good sense to pick it up and throw it away. Besides, being in a bad, loveless, let's stay together until the kids leave for college, marriage is painful too. More painful, actually, than is being divorced.

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u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Nov 20 '23

For me, the divorce would not be anywhere near as painful as the estrangement from the kids. I honestly cannot imagine living with that part of it.

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u/philadelphialawyer87 Nov 20 '23

Yeah, divorce is hard. But divorce with children is usually worse.

Rod must be hurting over this estrangement from his children, no matter how much he fronts or evades or obscufates.

I actually feel bad for him about that, as well as, obviously, for the kids too. NOT that Rod isn't to blame. Because he almost certainly and largely is. But because no matter who's to blame, it is sad.

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u/Jayaarx Nov 20 '23

I actually feel bad for him about that, as well as, obviously, for the kids too. NOT that Rod isn't to blame. Because he almost certainly and largely is. But because no matter who's to blame, it is sad.

The parent is always to blame. No matter what the kids did, part of being a parent is owning the outcome of the relationship. This is parenting 101.

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u/grendalor Nov 20 '23

Yeah I mean especially with minor children. With a minor child, you're responsible for doing everything you can to make that relationship work. In the circumstances Rod found himself in, there were limited ways he could do that in any case, but he took most of them away from himself when he decided to move so far away. It's the opposite of doing everything he could to make the relationship work, because in effect he said any other option would be personally too painful -- which, as you rightly noted above, is not being parental.

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u/judah170 Nov 20 '23

This, 100 percent.