Should I just leave my father and move back to my home country with my mom?
Tl.dr Should I(17f) just leave my dad(40sM) and and move back to my home country with my mom(40sF) (who isn’t in this country btw) bcz things are really messed up. My mom is thinking of getting a divorce/separation and full custody of me and my siblings. I think I need to provide some proper background to understand this
Background: so as far as I remember that our family used to be very happy till I was 7 or 8 years old (like 2015-16 something) like we were very happy in our little family and my parents(married 18+yrs) really loved us and were very involved in our life even though it was one of the hardest times in our life but we were very happy like during that time we were pretty average middle class, my younger sibling(under 13) had been sick from birth and we travelled around the country for their treatment, my dad had pretty important exams of his career, my mom had long shifts because of her specialisation(she was a health professiona/medical field) and so despite all that we would go for outings, go to restaurant, parks and like you get the point we loved each other a lot and were happy
After 2015/16 Then things started getting downhill from there bcz I remember my father was involved with some women (did not cheat) but I remember being very scared and my mother telling some women on the phone to keep her daughter in control and stay away from her husband (my father) because he had a family and kids and we thought that was the end of it and life went on for some time till Covid when my father decided to go abroad (although when I look back it at it as I got older I realise that my father became very withdrawn from us like complaining about simple tasks like grocery and picking us up from school saying things like “I didnt become -professional- to bring tomatoes or become a driver“ and he was also not much involved with us like doing homewor, going to parks, attending school events/meetings etc and he had also been violent towards us and mom a few times and basically mom became our primary parent but still things were going fine)
So after my father went abroad during Covid, after six months he made our visas and we also shifted abroad with him. Things were fine for a year but my mother grew very suspicious of him and finally in 2021 she found out that my father had actually married 2 other women (yes not 1 but 2) one of them being mentioned earlier and then…. All hell broke loose and for the next 2 years our house was like a warzone and a very toxic environment
In 2023-finally my mother decided to take a break from all this and to go back to our home country (other reasons were her job and our education) and by this time my father had promised to divorce those 2 women and said that he would also follow us back to our home country after he paid off his debt and we would kind of live happily ever after
Now during 2 years things improved a lot due to our distance like both mom and dad cooled off a bit and they were focusing on us and mom continued her job, our dad would also send us money for the expenses and overall things became very positive with our father constantly telling us that he was working on the divorce but it was taking time
we also came to know that dad had now no intentions of coming back to our home country so we decided to move back because we didn’t want to live apart forever and he was having some health issues and didn’t want to leave him alone
in 2025 summer vacations after school session finished we moved back here (only my sibling and I ) bcz mom’s visa was taking some time and we started school here while we waited for our mom to come then after 6 months in January 2026 my parents had a huge fight when we went to visit mom because she believed that my father wasn’t gonna get her visa and she found out that the 2 years we were in our home country dad had been living with those 2 here, how he managed to hide it from us for 2 years is very skillful and appreciable (plus what was taking so much time in the divorce it’s been 4-5 years now) and ever since then they aren’t talking (like literally they don’t talk and my mom only calls us) to add on the current war situation started so visas are blocked anyway so my mom can’t come
Now the current thing is that my mom is so fed up right now and she is asking us to go home with her (by crossing the land border to our neighbouring country and fly to our home country from there) and honestly she has had enough of it because dad has been lying to us this whole time and she is thinking of getting our custody and possibly a separatio/divorce
now I am very stressed all this is affecting my mental health so much because I am literally like a messenger between them because both of them ask me to convey their messages and my relationship with my father has become very strained because he constantly tells me that my future is ruined and I shouldn’t get involved in this stuff despite him mentioning my mother’s failures and faults in their marriage on every meal and that he is a saint to still want to live with our mom and divorcing 2 women for her because he loves us and cares for our future (he says he divorced one of them but my mother doesn’t believe it ) and he says it’s my fault for ruining their marriage because I have opened his phone for mom several times leading her to finding out about his marriages in the first place and my mom is a emotional mess obviously and she has no one to talk to so she also kind of dumps her trauma on me apart from that I have a major exam in a month which in itself is very stressful and in my mothers absence I also take care of the house and everything (we have a cook for cooking and a maid for 2 hours nut still I have to take care of the house and my siblings)
I am just so frustarted and confused on what to do , should I go with my mom because she takes care of us a lot and we had a really good time with her when we were there for 2 years and obviously she keeps a better check on our studies and wellbeing because here mu sibling has literally not stepped out of the house in 2 months because the school shut down due to the war and have had 11-12 hour unrestricted acc to internet and screen time and their grades arent that good either they have dropped so much(we were all like 95%+ top students) and honestly I am not focusing much on my studies either
but on the other hand I don’t want to leave my father he is facing health issues and I think he is changing because he constantly tells us he loves us and is doing everything for us and mom will come as soon as the war ends. I love my father very much and came back just for him last year. I really miss the person he was before all this happened and those 2 women came to our lives, I used to be my father’s princess and little girl. But these past years he has lied to us several times and I don’t know if I fully trust his words anymore
i don’t know what to do anymore I feel numb and just want to cry and sleep all day
really sorry for the long post but I literally don’t have anyone to talk to I don’t have any relat in this country nor any close friends and mom is not here so I don’t want to trouble her anymore
This is my first time posting here because I really need an outside perspective because it honestly hurts my head to think anymore and I feel numb, I really need some suggestions
Edit some more info:my mother has always taken care of us and loved us unconditionally like a mother should and sacrificed her career and wellbeing for us and our father many times and has always tried to keep the family together and be a dutiful wife so for me she is the best mother and she is not at all toxic she is very loving and kind. I will say she got very bitter towards our father these past few years but I think that is understandable for a woman whose husband married 2 women out of the blue when everything seemed fine and a lot of responsibility was taken by mom (she worked, took care of all our needs school,illness,meetings,homework, park,health everything all on top of housework and difficult job, my father didnt contribute much in housework as he believed child rearing and house hold chores are a woman’s responsibility ) so we didn’t understand why our father remarried (according to him my mother did not fulfill his rights as a wife) so we were quite surprised
my mother found about his marriages whe I was 11/12 and yes it was because of me because I think it’s normal for husband wife to have access to each other’s devices like my father always had access to my mothe’s phone but this was the time my father became very secretive of his devices and added passwords
Edit: something recent is that my father says mom will come once the war is over and visas open but she has to sign a stamp paper saying that my father gave her money and a property (our house in home country) and she has never contributed a cent to this household from her salary(which is absurd) and that he has been responsible for all our financial needs after which my mother kind of lost it because now she says that this is just to sign away any of her contributions to this house and make her handicapped and now she doesn’t want to come even if the visas open and she says to pack our bags and leave with her but my father says if we leave now he will bring home his 2nd wife whom he hasn’t divorced yet
To add in our culture we don’t move out after we are 18 nor are children expected to hold a part time job
we often move out after completing education or when getting married
Thank you to all in advance for reading this and for any suggestions you give
Posted Apr 5, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC