About father

[Dom]

I don't think this whole thing is about him at all.

It's about you. And it's not about the present and/or future.

It's about you and your past and what type of hold it has on you. It's about you being dragged into a fight between two people at a tender age and made to suffer for them.

It's the chance of a lifetime to cleanse yourself of all the baggage THEY made you carry.

Because, no matter who you ended up siding with, and who was a better parent, THEY allowed their problems to spill into your life in a big way. And that is wrong, and you are carrying THEIR baggage to this day. THEY were not adult or caring enough to put their kids first. They are both badly at fault the way I see it.

One parent forbidding a kid to see the other parent? WTF?

They should both be ashamed and they both owe you for their childish behavior when they should have co-parented despite any of their issues. You should have come first.

So, you carry anger against BOTH parents, whether you are aware of it or not. And it's time to get away from following in their foot steps and freeing yourself of the burden THEY put on you.

You are the innocent here, your life and personal happiness has been permanently affected by their immaturity back then.

Let it go. You should have never been made to carry this in the first place. Why should you hang on to feelings created by them a long time ago?

Forgive them, shrug your shoulders and walk away from it. If they want to earn your friendship, let them work on it like any stranger would have to. They can't have you as a kid anymore, all they can do is try to establish a friendship. Just like anyone else who comes into your life. And then you decide if you like them or not.

[Luminon]

In my (recent) experience, dads leaving their families are extremely bad at judging the effects of their actions on others. He doesn't care about the wife and assumes that children are all right, because the wife is the reason why he's leaving, not the children. He has no idea that people are all connected and when he hurts one family member, the others share the pain and know who caused it. He assumes he can go away and then pick up where he left with whom he chooses...


In other cases I heard some fathers might have been very immature to begin with, saying things to children that they shouldn't say. (about how we all are going to die some day anyway) Or they let the child do a terrible work that a normal adult would not let them do - killing sick animals, for example.

Leela, it seems to me Birdguy has the best idea. If you tell your father all that you think about him and hold nothing back, you should set yourself free, not to be burdened with his problems. You deserve to be free, give him what's his, even if it means to give him a lot of shit. I know it can be very traumatizing, but you need to hold yourself in front of him, leave and then you can cry all you want and maybe after that you'll get better. It might be a good idea to prepare yourself a bottle of something stronger for that time of crisis, to dissolve away the feelings.

[FZUMedia]

Go therapy or cut off contact if it's stressing you out- worked for me, and I am happy as a clam.

Parents splitting up is really tragic, the harmful effects it has on a child is horrible, so I am sorry you had to go through that.

[Vera]

(23-12-2012 10:55 AM)FZUMedia Wrote:  I am happy as a clam.

Which is why you feel the insurmountable urge to hurl insults at everyone here, including calling people you've never met or seen, fat (and, no, it wasn't me)? Is this the ultimate insult in your pathetic little world which consists of you and your inflated ego?

Sorry, Leela!

[Leela]

Thank you for all the answers, keep 'em coming.

I will just shortly answer to a few points you guys made.

I don't know how he is with expressing himself and so on. I know he gave one of my brothers some furniture when he needed it. Which I think is a nice gesture. I know that he did express his love to my mom even after they got divorced and still when he got together with his new gf a few years back (he is now married to her).

As for forgiving. I am not sure. I also asked some friends, not here in the forum. One told me, just like you guys, about forgiving. He said I have to forgive my father. I asked why, he couldn't answer. I understand that some people are very consumed with hate and so on, and for those people it might be very helpful and healing to forgive. But I am no consuming myself with hate. I am not concentrating on what he did and so on, all the time. I excluded him from my life completely > even in my thinking. There are very few moments when I think about him. Usually with a very neutral thought like "I inherited the dark hair from my father" things like that.
And even rarer are the moments that I think of him the way I did last night. So forgiving will not make my life better or anything.
Plus I do not want to forgive. As I told my friend last night, I tell you, unforgivables are unforgivable for a reason. Therefore: Although I am not concentrating on being mad or anything, there are things I am not going to forgive. By ignoring him I let everything slide, that he ever did or didn't when he should have.

So far this method worked very well, but Last night, I had the urge to write him via facebook. I didn't even know what to, or how to adress him, so I didn't. I rather come here, where I feel I can talk freely, and ask for input.

I still kinda feel like, I would like to, at least have coffee one day. When I visit Munich... Probably I should have coffee...

[Vera]

Leela, you don't have to forgive anyone. If you want to - then do it. If you cannot find it in you - don't and do not feel bad about it. If you could just meet up and chat, without getting into waters that are too deep - do this, too, and see where it takes you. Just do not put pressure on you either way.

[FZUMedia]

(23-12-2012 11:05 AM)Leela Wrote:  Thank you for all the answers, keep 'em coming.

I will just shortly answer to a few points you guys made.

I don't know how he is with expressing himself and so on. I know he gave one of my brothers some furniture when he needed it. Which I think is a nice gesture. I know that he did express his love to my mom even after they got divorced and still when he got together with his new gf a few years back (he is now married to her).

As for forgiving. I am not sure. I also asked some friends, not here in the forum. One told me, just like you guys, about forgiving. He said I have to forgive my father. I asked why, he couldn't answer. I understand that some people are very consumed with hate and so on, and for those people it might be very helpful and healing to forgive. But I am no consuming myself with hate. I am not concentrating on what he did and so on, all the time. I excluded him from my life completely > even in my thinking. There are very few moments when I think about him. Usually with a very neutral thought like "I inherited the dark hair from my father" things like that.
And even rarer are the moments that I think of him the way I did last night. So forgiving will not make my life better or anything.
Plus I do not want to forgive. As I told my friend last night, I tell you, unforgivables are unforgivable for a reason. Therefore: Although I am not concentrating on being mad or anything, there are things I am not going to forgive. By ignoring him I let everything slide, that he ever did or didn't when he should have.

So far this method worked very well, but Last night, I had the urge to write him via facebook. I didn't even know what to, or how to adress him, so I didn't. I rather come here, where I feel I can talk freely, and ask for input.

I still kinda feel like, I would like to, at least have coffee one day. When I visit Munich... Probably I should have coffee...

Or you could stop wasting your time with people that abandoned you when you was most vulnerable.

[Leela]

oh sorry, I didn't see there were new answers since I went afk and then just finished my post.

Dom, yes of course it is about me. Me and my thoughts about my sperm donor (thanks birdguy, wonderful description)
But I don't feel they draged me into a fight. They split and divorced completely fight less. Once I was with my mom, she never talked ill of my father, she tried to keep in touch for the sake of us (the kids). When that didn't work, she did not say anything. Never ever did she speak ill. When I asked why they split up or if he is coming back, she said that they were not in love anymore but he is still our dad and if we want to visit, that will be fine. We even visited him together for a weekend...
When I got a little older and my questions got deeper, the answers got deeper as well, but still my mom didn't speak ill of him at all. She told me fun stories about how they met and travelled and things like that. She let me build my opinion of him myself. And the opinion I built, despite the fun stories she told, was not a good one. The fact that he left us with nothing but the clothes on our bodies was not even the worst thing. I am not going into detail about those things, just saying, he never even tried to make a good impression or hide his misdeeds.
So I excluded him from my life. And it felt good!

Probably I will leave it like that, probably not. I am still not sure.
My mom gave me an idea. She told me to write him a letter about everything I want to say to him, but just for me. Just so I can look at it from a distance when I am done writing. I will probably do that (did something similar about her a few months ago and it did indeed help).

FZUMedia: I find it very nice of you, that you try and give good advice on topics like this, but please start reading original posts. Like in my last thread, again you are giving advice that has been told in the OP Thanks anyway, I understand you mean well.

[DLJ]

(22-12-2012 05:50 PM)Leela Wrote:  ...
Should I approach him after all these years? I know he has a facebook page, so I could simple send a message. But what would I say? I am pretty sure that he knows my profile because I am on the friendlist of his two sons and my mom who he is still talking to. He did not approach me, if that is respect or being stubborn, I do not know.

I would like to approach him, I guess. But I have no idea how. I would like to talk about things, but I am afraid I would start a fight. Because although I stand to me not needing a father anymore, I am bitter.
I don't know... Would he even wanna talk?

So maybe at the fathers here... If you were in his shoes... what do you think? I guess I need some input...

Throw all the assumptions away.

Start with, "Hi. Remember me?"

'No response' will show that he is not ready to or does not want to reestablish lines of communication.

I will predict the response to be, "Of course, I do."

... which is a huge leap forward for someone who might have built protective walls against the pain of being disconnected from someone they love/loved.

Next from you... "So, what's up?". Light and friendly.

Treat him like you would a 'new' friend on Facebook.

You do not know each other yet.

Go for it and good luck.

[Dom]

I like the idea of writing a letter without sending it to him. Actually, I like the idea of sending it to yourself, so it will be out of sight for a few days and you will see it with new eyes.

Maybe forgiving is not the right word for what I meant. To me, when I forgive something, I dismiss it's importance and impact on my life. It doesn't matter anymore.