Mum, and Dad, please shut up!

Carina Burton's parents used to get on well but now, in their 80s,

they constantly bicker and snipe at each other.

And she is fed up with being caught in the crossfire


[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]


My mother sits in front of me. She shakes with anger

as she recounts the injustices that have befallen her.

Her voice is raised, hot and sharp. Occasionally

she chokes on her words because she has forgotten to breathe in.

But even though I am her daughter, she does not really see,

or hear me. I am just someone she can pour all this on to.

An audience of one. The perpetrator,

the cause of such anger and bitterness, is my father.

As a child, one of the worst things I could imagine was my parents –

now in their eighties – separating. Now I think it's one of the best

things they could do. There are countless guides to tell you

how to handle a [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] as warring parents of a young child.

But no help for such parents when those children have grown up.

The general advice seems to be not to argue in front of

the children, but, seemingly, only if those children are small.

Once you're an adult-child you're no longer afforded this shield.

I'm in my forties, but seeing my parents like this is only marginally

easier than if I were still a child.

To me, they're still my mum and dad.

My parents weren't always like this. They were never lovebirds

but I never for a moment thought about their marriage,

doubted it or was told about it. They argued,

but I was never brought into it. My mother used to complain about my father,

but in a normal "pick up your dirty socks" way, not like this.

Now she speaks with the desperation of a woman looking back

at a life she can not re-live. And she clearly has regrets.

For most of my life I have never heard my father criticise

my mother but now he has started doing it too. The moment

I am left alone in the room with one of them, the knives

come out for the other and I am brought in

as some sort of confidante/counsellor.

When they are together, every exchange between them is

an exercise in point scoring. It is painful to watch.

Spending time with them when there are tensions –

which is often – is rarely an uplifting experience.

It's like giving blood, except without the biscuits

and the sticker to say you've done something positive.

Separately, they have both admitted to me that they

wish they'd never married. It's a declaration

that doesn't make any of us feel good.

What they don't realise, in slagging each other off,

is how much it hurts us – the children. We are made of half of each.

To sympathise with one is to naturally side against the other.

It's an impossible situation. Being the only daughter

hasn't helped. My brothers don't seem to get the same

avalanche of complaints, although they do see the bickering

and the bitterness and it upsets them greatly. However,

unlike me, they are not brought in –

or won't be brought in – to referee.

I look around for help. How do I cope? Among my friends

there are three types: those whose parents, both or one,

are no longer alive; those who aren't close to their parents

so they don't really care if they get on or not; and those,

like me, whose mum and dad no longer get on

but the bickering has become part of the wallpaper.

Questioned, these latter friends admit it's painful.

"I try not to think about it," says one male friend of 50.

"Anyway, they'll be dead soon."

This is depressing for two reasons. Life expectancy is getting longer,

but life is still too short to be unhappy. Also,

who wants to think that you get to old age

and become like that?

The experience of being at my parents' house has become

so corrosive that I consult a relationship counsellor –

to help me cope with my parents' marriage.

Christopher Mills is a psychotherapist who practises in Bath

and works with divorcing or separating couples.

Does he see many in their 70s and 80s who aren't getting on?

"I don't see many, but I see some," he says.

"I saw one couple recently – I watched how they communicated

and it became apparent that what one said, and how

it was heard by the other, were two completely different things

. So they were never giving the answer the other wanted.

And round and round it would go." I recognised this.

But, Mills said, they had become so used to saying the same thing

(either in complaint or reply) that they no longer thought about

what they were saying. The same phrases were simply

trotted out without thought. I recognised this too.

"Also, depending on the culture, arguing and bickering may be

seen as normal. To some couples it may be strangely reassuring,

like a dance to which they both know the steps.

Plus, your mother might not want to

let go of her anger and bitterness."

My mother, in case you haven't guessed, is the worse of the two.

Self awareness is not something she possesses.

But what both parents fail to see is that, in criticising their partner

(their choice), neither of my parents makes themselves look good.

That, in turn, destabilises me. It's like nothing is as I thought any more.

I start to question everything.

I tell Mills all of this. It's a relief to tell someone,

but the guilt churns me up. I come from an extremely close-

knit [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and we don't discuss stuff outside it.

But guilt also plays a huge part in our family.

You could say that it's in our DNA.

Then Mills says two things that are so obvious that they strike me dumb.

"Your mother is stuck on transmit and no one is stopping her"

and "Your parents' marriage is none of your business."

Neither of these points had occurred to me. My mum is stuck on transmit.

It has become her unique selling point and he's right,

none of us stop her. And it's none of my business. He's right.

It isn't. I don't want it to be my business.

"It's massively damaging for you to hear their conflict," says Mills.

The relief is immense, as if a safety valve has been turned

and the steam is pouring out.


Mills advises me to tell my parents that I won't listen to their

tales of relationship woes any more.

I'm going to tell them to shut the fuck up.

I try this at the next opportunity. I tell them to either

get a divorce or stop talking to me about it.

I say I won't be their relationship counsellor.

It works for a week or two, then we're back to square one.

But, like dogs that need training, I'm going to keep reinforcing the point.

I may even buy a whistle and some treats. I also need to do some work:

start zoning out when the talk turns to their relationship

and how unhappy they are,

and not try to make it better for them.

I feel the need to say that as parents, until quite recently,

they were pretty good. I had a

happy, warm, loving childhood. Even now, there is nothing

they wouldn't do for us (except, it seems, get on with each other).


Both my parents worked hard. They had their own business.

They worked well together. But it all started to fall apart

when two key things happened: they retired and the last of

their children left home. In other words, without

the distraction of work and raising kids, they had time on their hands

to look inwards; perhaps they didn't like what they saw.

But my family comes from a culture where the thought of divorce is,

well, it's not thought of at all. Whereas once I saw divorce as failure,

now I see it as sensible for some people. Later this year is

my parents' golden wedding anniversary.

"What shall we get them?" my brothers and I joke, "A divorce?"

The reason it's said that you should insulate children

from parental conflict is because children can internalise

and make it their own problem. I think this is true even

when you're older. "You really need to ask yourself

if this is your problem or your parents'," says Mills.

This is my parents' problem. But somewhere along the line,

I have made it my problem. That's probably because,

as the youngest, I see my leaving home as the catalyst

for their marriage starting to implode. Also,

although I have ups and downs I am, on the whole,

pretty content and happy with my life and I think seeing my mother

like this makes me feel guilty. As if I've abandoned her.

The whole thing makes me sad for so many reasons

I may have to write a list. But if I'm honest, it taps into

a fear I have of ending up like this. As a little girl,

I used to see elderly couples bickering and sniping at each other

in the supermarket. The women wore the bitterness on their faces.

Mills has seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of couples.

Is it possible to stay happily married until you're on your second hip?

"Things are changing," he says. "People are more accepting of divorce.

Forty, fifty years is a hell of a long time to stay married to the same person.

Far longer than any of our forebears were married

because people died younger.

'Till death do us part' wasn't very long 150 years ago.

Then, the average duration of a marriage was 12 years.

There's nothing anthropologically to say it's normal

to stay together for so long."


So what is the secret of a long-lasting marriage? Friendship apparently.

Simply getting on. Small acts of grace and generosity.

People who are still helping each other: into a chair,

sharing the cooking, the washing up, the drying.

The little things that may not look like much. And, Mills thinks,

a bit of luck and "choosing well". Actually, the more

he describes these little acts of kindness the more it doesn't

sound a million miles away from what my parents were like,

not so long ago. Perhaps ...

But I shut the thought away. It's simply none of my business.

The relief is immense.