I think my parents are sleeping together

My parents got divorced right after I graduated high school. My mom, not having anyone to talk to, had often told me of their intimacy problems, so this wasn't too much of a surprise to me, but it was still difficult. She is thirteen years younger than him, so right about the time she reached her peak of sexuality, he was on a sharp decline. My mom met another man about a year later and stayed with him for four years. They were one of those couples that broke up every 8 months or so, only to get back together out of co-dependency and dysfunctional attraction. My mom and her BF got engaged this year (one month before I did), but they had another breakup last month. This one seems permanent, but so did the last two.

Since the break-up, my mom has been spending weekends at my dad’s house (which isn’t that weird, because they’ve been platonic friends ever since the divorce; in between her last break-up period she even moved into his guest bedroom to save $). I’ve always assumed, and she’s always reminded me, that my parents are nothing more than “companions.” They are great friends (or as she calls it “soul mates”) who could never resume a romantic relationship because he is physically incapable of doing so for whatever reasons (health, age, stress, psychology, etc). In fact, after spending her post-break-up weekends with my dad, my mom just had a talk with me two days ago letting me know that nothing other than friendship was going on. I was cool with that, even though I knew that my dad probably wanted more.

Here’s what I’ve been expecting since then: either my mom would get back together with her BF, or she would meet someone else. Either way, I knew that my parents would always be good friends and nothing more. A lot of people can’t understand their relationship, including my fiancé, whose divorced parents don’t even speak. I might have found it strange at first, but after five years of my mom’s relationship drama, I’ve gotten used to her closeness with my dad in their own platonic way.

So today my mom reveals something. Two days after her “your-dad-and-I-are-only-friends” talk, she hesitantly tells me, “You know what I said about your dad—about a romantic relationship never happening—well I was wrong.” She got embarrassed after that and told me to forget about it. That’s the funny thing about my mom; just when I think that nothing could surprise me, something does. I wasn’t shocked, and I didn’t really believe that my dad was incapable of certain things—I just honestly thought that she would never be attracted to him again. And now I get the feeling that my parents are headed towards getting back together. I guess it doesn’t surprise me that much, and it still might not happen. But to my great surprise, my parents are sleeping together.

You might think it’s odd that I can write this without being disgusted, but I’ve been hearing about the details of their relationship for years. When they were having problems, I was their therapist. And it doesn’t really bother me. I see them as parents, and also as people. It will be interesting to see what happens from this point on. Now I can honestly say that nothing would surprise me.