Sick Relationships

[51anna]

When I was a child, my mother was emotionally and physically abuse to me all the time, always. My dad knew what was happening because I told him, and he chose to ignore it. He was weak and desparately needed my mother, so I was sacrificed to that end. Anyways, my mother died 2 1/2 yrs ago and I thought maybe I could try to have a relationship with my dad. He lives far away so we only visit once or twice a year, but talk on the phone almost daily. Our conversations usually consist of him dumping on me about the problem of the day, telling me how he is and how lonely he is and how much he misses my mother, saint jean. The whole idea of this makes me want to laugh, cry and scream because their marriage was awful. All my years at hime, they fought constantly - throwing things, name calling, nasty stuff. He had a long, long-term girlfriend on the side. But, in his twisted, guilty mind, he has elevated my mother to the level of saint. And, then he says I gotta go, bye. He rarely asks how I am, almost never asks about my kids (2 of his 3 grandkids). If I mention something about them, he quickly dismisses it. I have worked really hard to get all toxic people out of my life and have great relationships with people I care about and who care about me. Except for my dad. He is needy and selfish and self-centered and always complaining about something. It's hard for me to keep my resentments in check, when I am talking to him so often. I feel like he was never there to protect me, which was his job as dad, but now I should be there to listen to his one-sided conversations. In June he is coming to visit for a week and I am so not looking forward to it. You see I know why he's coming and it's nothing to do with me. My daughter is getting married and he wants to come to the wedding because 'saint jean' (my mother) would have wanted him to. So, it has nothing to do with me or my daughter but it's all about him and his twisted relationship with my mother. The fact that he will be doing this for my mother and he doesn't want to be there for me or my family, just really ticks me off, a lot. Oh, the anger!

Dealing with relationships in a healthy way has been really important for me and so very satisfying. But, I'm not sure about how to deal with a visit from him. I had hopes that we might form a good relationship after my mother died. I was very willing to put the past aside, but he has nothing at all to give and only wants to take. I am frustrated because I had the expectation that he would see me as a good person and he doesn't. I had an expectation which was a mistake. I want to get myself in a place where I can deal with his phone calls. I want to get myself into a place within myself where I can be detached emotionally from him when he visits - no expectations, no disappointments, no anger. I wish...

[Justme57]

My dear friend .................. ((((((((((((((((( )))))))))))))))))) to you .

I cannot offr much in the way of advice, but my thoughts and prayers are with you . I too, had hoped to have a good relationship with my father after my mother died, but it was never to be . He as so bitter , but that is a long story .

I do hope you find the solution to your pain, and that you and your family can enjoy your daughters wedding as you should .

HUGX
Lee

[ODAT]

I found with my parents that once I stopped looking at them as parents and wishing for a better past, and just learn to get to know them as individuals things changed. I became able to grieve the past and let the bad stuff go, more able to see the few good things that they tried to do--the few gems that we all have--more able to see how they were once small children living with messed up parents, had children when they were ill-adapted to cope--and then it became possible for me to start seeing a lot more good in them.

You say that he has nothing to offer and only wants to take...perhaps this is a place for you to learn to set limits on what you can give, but to stop expecting to take anymore.

Alanon for me, recovery for me, has given me tools and emotions and such to be able to be a better parent than my parents were to me. How sad for your father to be so desperatley needy and low that he would have to blind himself to his child and such, attatch himself to an abusive cycle just to stay alive. What kind of childhood would one have to have gone through to be that needy as an adult? What kind of hurts must he have felt before he stopped being able to feel?

Remember how you felt when you went to your first meeting? Can you imagine what and how he must have felt not having had that chance? How desperate he must have felt when his wife died despite the abuse he went through? Rather than seeing him as 'your father' I would suggest you try seeing him as just an old man. An old man who never learned what love is, never learned how to love, always ruled by fear and alone in this world.
Perhaps you will be the first person to actually model a good relationship to him. Rather than being afraid or worried or whatever, try looking at this time as an opportunity to begin a new relationship with him. Sure, he can't give you what you want--but you might just be able to give him what he needs. Not financial or whatever, but emotionally.

As long as you are still angry with your parents about what you got or didn't get in the past, you are still being controlled by that past and forgiveness is not possible. You can not change the past no matter how much you wish you could. I know you know that already, but sometimes we get so stuck on regretting this or that which happened to us, or someone did to us that we can't really operate in the present because we aren't really there to see it.

I was always told that if I have a resentment against someone, I am to pray for that person. I'm to ask God to give that person everything that I want for myself--all the joy and happiness and peace that I want for me. Even if I don't really feel it inside, if I keep praying--pray every day for 60 days--then at the end of the 60 days, I should notice that there is no more resentment. If there is, then I need to pray for another 60 days and keep going. I would suggest that you pray for your father.

Hope and be glad that you likely will never have to go through life as he has inorder to understand how much a person must be hurt inorder to accept and idolize an abusive partner.

June is still 3 months away. God can do many miracles in 90 days.

[indigo]

Lee and Taira what wonderful responses. Anna I can add to it , you know my story. He can't seem to see the good in you maybe because he can't see good in anything but your mom......I'm raw I'll e-mail you my dear dear friend.
I have so much respect for you mon amie.

[51anna]

Thank you all for your comments and encouragements.

I am aware that I need to forgive my parents so that they no longer control my thoughts and actions. I have done that. But, it is not a once only process for me. At times, like last night, it creeps back into my mind and I need to forgive and move on once again.

Taira, when my mother was sick and after she died, I did see my dad as a lonely old man and I was there to offer him my love and caring. He didn't want it, he didn't care about it. It made zero difference in his life. He appreciates me being at the other end of the phone, simply because of fear of being sick or dying alone. But, there is nothing I can give him that he wants. He only wants my mother and that's all he ever wanted. There was a time when I would give my love freely to people who didn't care. I was a people-pleaser. It nearly killed me and I worked very hard to get out of that way of life. Now, I give of myself, only to people who care. That is my boundary and protection. I work hard to remain positive and stable and I am not going to put myself out there into a position of sure rejection. I do pity him.

[GettingFree]

Anna,

My heart goes out to you. My father played a similar role -- stood by while my sisters and I were horribly emotionally abused by our stepmother.
I can understand your wish for a better relationship after your mother's death. I think the child inside us keeps a flame lit, hoping that things with mom or dad might get better, can improve, that things don't have to be the way they were in the past. The wish for a loving parent is that strong.

It sounds like your hopes and wishes for that are not being met. Rather, it sounds like each encounter is another reminder of what wasn't then, and wasn't isn't now. Of course, I can't tell you what to do, I can only share what I have come to understand and believe for myself.

The first step for me was accepting who my father was and letting go of the idealized notions I had - and the continued hope that I might get what I wanted from him. I stopped seeing him as a victim as I had for so long, and came to see him as a perpetrator through his awful ommision and neglect as well as self-protection and self-absorption. I learned how to stop going back to the trough and re-exposing myself to more disappointment and hurt.

I began to question the belief systems of family that most of us grew up with. The belief that by birth we are bound to a continued sense of obligation -- I began to see how much all kinds of families go through motions out of an indealized sense of family or through obligation, while underneath so much toxicity continues and old wounds continue to be reopened and reopened.

I eventually learned, for me, that there's no rule that dictates how much, or how little, or if at all, I must continue to be in relation to any individual on the planet, no matter what their previous role in life to me was. I began the hard work on boundaries as you have, and continue to do so.

I began to look at what it meant to become less impacted by others today -- how to have my serenity despite what was going on around me. And here I take exception to what many else say about forgiveness. I don't believe we can will ourselves to let go of the past, or that by praying for others, we stop being angry.

I came to believe that the only way to be less impacted by the past is by really giving ourselves permission to hate and greive the past -- full force. I don't mean directly at the people who hurt, but whether in journaling, through therapy, or whatever, expressing what we weren't allowed to feel then. Most of us grew up taking in hurt after hurt after hurt -- but never being allowed to feel the emotions in response to 10,000 days of hurts.

I think through this kind of processing of emotion, we can get to a place with much more serenity, particularly in our everyday dealings with our immediate families (spouses, children), friends, workmates. I'm working on it, seeing improvement, continuing to work on it. I have a file on my computer called "Angry Pages".

But with members of our family of origin, those who were resposible for the original pain, I think it's more complicated and not always possible to simply 'forgive' to stop being triggered. This is especially true if the very same hurtful beahvior continues. When current harm reminds us of the harm that went in so long ago, it can be very difficult to intellectualize it, hoping it won't impact us anymore. I don't think we can ever separate them completely from the role of father or mother, as much as we might want to intellectualize this.

As well, I see compassion and forgiveness as two different things. I have compassion for every single person who's ever hurt me. I can see their own pain, I can see their own difficulties and struggles in the world. And I feel compassion for them, and their own internal unhappiness. I see the families my own parents came from, the dynamics at play with their own parents, and I have an understanding of their own limitations and behavior.

But forgiveness has a different quality for me. To forgive someone in addition to having compassion for them involves something more - usually from the other person as well. When I forgive someone in the present, there's a feeling that goes along with it. There's a sense of a lifting of a burden, a lightening, and a sense that between two people there's been some resolution. There's also a sense that I can count on an effort being made by both to prevent what needed forgiveness from happening again. But if the very same thing continues to happen in interaction with someone, can you truly feel unimpacted by it, even though you worked at forgiving them in the past? Can that forgiveness 'stay put' with repeated hurt and violation. Whle I can understand, I don't think I don't think I'd ever be completely umpacted, which is where my work on boundaries comes it. If you look at a couple whose relationship has endured an affair, perhaps the injured person might eventually forgive. They might stay in the relationship and forgive, or they may divorce and forgive. But could they forgive if they were still married to the person and he or she continued to have affairs? Unlikely I think.

I'd suggest asking yourself what "shoulds" or rules are at play in relating to your father right now. What belief systems are underlying choices etc. Just a suggestion.

fondly
gf

[51anna]

GF,

Thanks so much for all of your insight and compassion!