My parents don’t get along. How do I fix the situation?
Question:
Hi,
I feel so sad right now. I'm a 23-year-old female. I have my parents who never got along well. They've been having problems since I was young. They would always complain and talk badly about each other to my siblings and me. They would blame each other for everything. One brother never got along with my dad so he left for the army. Another brother literally plays games on his computer every day and doesn't want to do anything. He has been like this almost all his life. A sister moved out of the house to her own apartment and is really close with God. I'm living with my grandmother now because I don't like to stay in the house, My dad always talks bad about my mom to me. My mom is with me at my grandmother's house as well. My parents no longer talk to each other, so my dad is home alone now.
Should I do something to make the situation better? I feel like I'm wrong somehow. I got pregnant by my ex-boyfriend who is not a Christian, so I broke up with him knowing I did wrong in being unequally yoked and having sex. My dad is disappointed in me. I've asked God to forgive me as I repented. But I can't quite move on with how things are so broken in the family, and I feel like a failure. I want to be happy, but am I missing something? Should I do something about my dad? He is very hard to get along with. I don't know why it's so hard to talk to him.
Answer:
You can't fix your parents. If they wanted to change, you can be encouraging to them, but the choice to change has to come from them. It doesn't sound likely that you would be able to talk either of them into improving themselves. One thing you can do is refuse to listen to your parents' complaints about each other. When it happens, hang up or leave the room. Without an audience, the complaints will slowly stop.
Happiness is not something that comes to you. It is what you decide to be with the circumstances you find yourself in.
I suspect that you thought your boyfriend would make you happy. When he pushed for sinful acts, you went along because he was paying attention to you and you thought it would make you happy. Then you found yourself pregnant and your boyfriend didn't want the responsibility, so he left. You weren't unequally yoked with your former boyfriend. There was nothing binding the two of you, which is why he left. This is one reason why God insisted that sex only takes place in marriage (Hebrews 13:4).
You can't undo the past, but you can make your future better. You were born into a dysfunctional family, but you have a chance to form a new family that is functional. Disconnect from your parents and start building your own life -- one that is centered around God.
