Does anyone else have parents in unhappy marriage who are still together?

[HelloSunshine100]

I honestly do not know what to do. I’m a single parent with a young child. My main support is from my parents who we have a brilliant relationship with. Both of my parents have done so much for us and are lovely people.
The issue is together they are incredibly unhappy. They are in their 70s now but throughout my childhood they have always been unhappy and have never liked each other. When I was younger I really wished they would separate as even as a child I could see the unhappiness between them and knew they shouldn’t be together. There is a lot of resentment, tension snide comments and they are both very unhappy. My mum gets really frustrated with my dad who likely has undiagnosed autism and potential learning difficulties. My mum moans about my dad and i really don’t want to get involved with it and feel like I have to take sides. I feel sad for both of them and want them to be happy. This has been for 30+ years.
They don’t have much money and mum is retired now. We have spoken about them living separately as they are so miserable. The housing situation is really complicated as they don’t own the home so are unable to sell it and part ways. If one of them moved out they would be unable to afford private rent and wouldn’t consider any social or council housing.
as mentioned at the beginning they are very involved in our lives and help out a lot with my little one but it is becoming more obvious how unhappy and toxic they are together. It is getting me really down and I am super aware that my child is going to pick up on this unhealthy atmosphere too and I just don’t know what to do and feel helpless with the whole situation

this sounds like my parents and they also couldn’t really afford to live separately. They turned one of their spare bedrooms into a second living room so they each have their own space to spend time in alone and they basically just have dinner together and that’s it. They haven’t shared a bed in about 20 years. They should have divorced years ago but it all fell on deaf ears whenever I tried to broach it with them

Thank you for your reply. Can I ask if growing up with parents like this had an impact on you?

It definitely did. I find it draining spending time with them and I have quite warped ideas of how a healthy relationship should be now. I’ve stuck it out far too long with horrible partners in the past as I was taught to just bottle stuff up and get on with it. is it the same for you?

Mine split up when I was 22, I used to pray they would split up before as they obviously didn’t like each other. I actually felt quite angry when they split up, I remember thinking I’ve listened to their arguments and experienced the awful atmosphere and now they are splitting up anyway, why didn’t they do it years ago?

Mine have been unhappily married for nearly 40 years. My father is a selfish, emotionally abusive man child and I begged my mum to divorce him from the age of around 14. He makes her miserable and takes pleasure in making her life as awkward as possible.

The impact of growing up seeing this, is that I too married a man just like my dad. I had an epiphany last year where I realised that I hadn't felt genuinely happy since September 2015 and that if I didn't get out, my daughter may follow in my footsteps.

That's what gave me the strength to leave, I thought I was staying for the kids but in actual fact I had to leave for my kids' sake.

I'm now 9 months separated and all I feel is relief. Even at Christmas or on New Year's Eve, I thought I may feel a bit sad but in reality I was so lonely in that marriage for so long, that I just felt peaceful.

There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I'm alone but I'm no longer lonely.