[Cerebro]

My parents divorced when I was about 6. My mum moved me and my older brother 2hrs away because she couldn't afford to live in Sydney anymore, I spend weekends with dad so never got enough stability in my social circle. I remember my parents arguing all the time, my dad used to start arguments/debates with my bro and I which he would never lose, that was very hurtful. I wasn't the shoulder/man about the house, the older brother was. I was the peace maker, I hated conflict. Either role is fucked up on young shoulders. My dad used to take his girlfriends overseas, he never took us. I can remember him coming back from a trip to South America, he actually bought me a tshirt that said "My Dad went to Rio de Janeiro, and all i got was this lousy tshirt" can you believe that? We were an inconvenience. We used to put a glass on our bedroom wall and listen to him fuck whoever his gf was at the time.
I tried forgiving him by looking at how happy he must have felt when I was born, some of that must have stayed with him so I held on to that (I was about 15 then). When I was 20 I met him on neutral turf and had it out with him, told him how worthless he had made me feel etc, it didnt get me anywhere deny, deny, deny...."I've got a bad memory, so I dont remember that etc". But I still feel good for having a go, although it's gay to have to be the adult when you are still so young.
We lost touch after that, I re-established a relationship with him about 6 yrs ago (27?) when we were having our first child and had a sort of dad for about 4 years, we could talk, he had accepted me, I was successful so he couldn't put shit on my occupation anymore, we had some shared interests...it was good. We didn't talk about the past.
Then at Christmas at his house he'd had too much to drink, my wife had a go at him and I was up for the next 4hrs trying to listen to him about how hurt he was that she dissed him, and explaining why it had happened. But he wouldn't listen to fucking word I said, he made out that he had some deep understanding of my wife that I wasn't privy to. So, we went back home and him and his wife licked their wounds as being very hurt by the saga and 'not ready' to move on. So we left them to it and got on with raising our own family.
One way I've been especially effected by my parents divorce is that I don't look at divorce as an option. I grew up without a father figure, that has effect me in so many ways, I can't do that to my kids.