A parent.

[GenSec]

This is about my father.

To cut a very long story short, we have never gotten along - he was emotionally and mentally abusive, never liked me (i am his only child, he always openly blamed me coming along for "ruining his life) and i have not spoken to him in 7 years. I have no intention of speaking to him ever again either. I was brought up by my mother and her family and am very happy with just them in my life.

From what i learned over the years, my father married and moved away to another country with his new woman and her family. That suited me, because he was finally out of the way and i would never have to see his ugly face again.

Now, however, i have learned that he has been spotted in my home city. He's back. Two seperate people have seen him milling about. I also noticed recently that i niece of his has been floating about the very street i live - of course, she has spotted me although we don't speak. So, i can guess he will soon know where i actually live. Damn.

He has absolutely no reason to be here, apart from me he has nothing here. I'd dreading the idea he is trying to find me, approach me. Speak to me.

I'm not scared of him anymore, i just don't want him in my life - or trying to get into it. Too much water has passed under the bridge, and i absolutely detest the b-----d, i hope he dies a lonely and slow death. I will never forgive nor forget.
My life is better without him - i'm not jumping to his tune just because he has perhaps developed a conscience now.

My mother reckons its because he is getting old, and now - realising he has only one relative left, me - he is up to something. I am starting to think she may be right. And i may have to actually deal with this after 7 years of total silence.

Any advice or thoughts?

[Grandma]

Hi Red -

I think that you will not get many responses to this thread, because the issue it addresses is either foreign or intensely painful to most people.  I am glad that you posted your comment because my feelings are pretty much like yours.

Until my mother died, I had no choice but to interact with my father.  He survived her by nine years.  For the first four years I maintained minimum contact.  On my last visit to him, after we had not seen each other for nearly two years, he said something so inexcusably cruel that I stood up, left the room, and never spoke to him again.  He died four years ago this month and I have felt not one bit of regret or remorse, nor have I grieved over his death.

The saddest part is that I deserved to have a father whom I could love, and whose death would cause me sorrow.

But I didn't have that father, and neither, I'm sad to see, do you.

My only advice is to follow your instincts.  I just wanted to tell you that you are not alone in feeling as you do toward your father.

Love, Grandma

[GenSec]

Hi Grandma,

Thats ok, i knew this kind of issue would seem a bit unusual to most people's experiences. 

I feel bitter sometimes, but i take solace in the fact that i have a very loving mother who i am very close to. Some people unfortunately do not even have that.
My father was like you described - he enjoyed making very cruel and nasty comments. He also enjoyed threatening behaviour, keeping you on constant edge for hours and hours. Like you with your father, i will not grieve his death.

I mean, he was there for me very early on in my life.... i remember him in my pre-teen years doing nice fatherly things for me, but for some reason, it just went all wrong. He became distant, unloving, uninterested. Rejectful. Bitter. Spiteful. I will probably never know why - i most likely never need to know now, anyway. Its all in the past.

Funnily, i never got along with his siblings or my cousins on his side of the family, but i got along very well with his parents (my grandparents) - they continued to see me until they died. And his mother blamed him for our estrangement.

I no longer see him as a parent... i just see him as a flawed man who i just wish to leave me alone, he has no meaning to me now. His death would feel like a relief to me, and final closure.

[Carryon]

"All the lonely people. Where do they all come from" The Beatles.

[Jeannddp]

Hi Red.....

Sorry to hear you're so upset about your father returning to town after all these years. I have not a clue how you have felt, are feeling now or what you are going through. I have not had a similar experience as you or grandma have gone through.  All I can tell you is I've gone through life at times being very bitter and resentful towards others and have spent hours getting myself sick over things people have said or done. I have spent years not talking to relatives and some old friends. Recently, I have let things go and accepted that most people have many flaws and I am one of them too. Sometimes things are done to us out of ignorance, selfishness, and sometimes the person is mentally sick and can't help themselves.

I am 44 yrs right now and have a 15 yr old son. I try my hardest, but know with my HA issues, I'm not always the best parent. This makes me very sad. I know I have a mental issue that my poor son has to deal with and I pray to God he won't develop it and won't resent me when he becomes an adult.

What I'm basically trying to say is that lifes too short. Who knows your dad might not be in town for you, but maybe he is. What he's done to you is totally unacceptable, but maybe you might need to talk to him and get answers to why he did what he did. Sometimes letting go, accepting and somewhat forgiving people is very healing.  What I've learned in my years on this earth is, you never know why people do what they do because you're not them. Everyone has some sort of battle they're going through.

Try to relax and calm yourself. I truly believe that things in life don't happen by chance, but for a reason. Wishing you a happy resolve to this problem.

Hugs!

[Carryon]

Red,

Jean above has given you sound objective advice. Some people never forgive and never forget which does them no good. Some people forgive and forget and are likely to make the same mistakes. Smart people forgive but never forget.

I disagree with Jean on one point: things don't happen for a reason, they happen randomly.

[GenSec]

Hi Jean and Carryon,

Thanks for your very nice reply jean, i maybe cannot agree with most of it but i enjoyed reading your words.  It was very sweet. Hugs to you too! 

I know why he did what he did to me - he is a very selfish and arrogant man. He always came first in his own mind before anyone else, and that included me. I just don't see why i should have to deal with him again - after all for 7 years he has been happy in his own little world. And now, maybe because he wants or needs something, i am just supposed to drop everything and welcome him back, forgive him? No way. Any idiot can father a child, its not something i need to instantly respect and love him for.

I believe that when we commit an action in life, we live and stick with that. He will have to live and stick with his actions throughout my youth. I will not ease his conscience as he gets older by forgiving him.
Where was he when i needed him? Where was he when i wanted him in my life? Nowhere. And now i am going to return the favour and have my revenge. I hope he dies a sad lonely pathetic old man.

Actually, this may sound weird, but i like the idea he is suffering like that somewhere all by himself. Perfect poetic justice. I have already left instructions that if i die unexpectedly, he is to be barred from my funeral. A small thing, but important to me.

This may sound weird, but for all these years my dislike of him has sustained me, given me strength and made me a stronger individual. In a way, our estrangement made me who i am today and i feel stronger for it. I do not think about him every day, in fact i can go ages without even remembering him -so never forgiving him will do me no damage i reckon!

But this issue seems to be an onging thing in my father's family - my father never got along with his father, he didn't even call him dad. And i found out when studying my family history that my grandfather never liked his father, he called him "sh*thouse" and nobody even knew what the man's real name was until i discovered it in my family history reseach. Sadly, it does indeed seem to be a trait in my father's male ancestors.  Its amazing how these things keep on going one after the other. But to be fair i found my grandfather to be a very nice man, it was my own father who was the pain.

[GenSec]

Actually i should say he still causes problems for me in other ways - i look exactly like him, totally, and when my mother goes through a depressive episode she often uses against me that i remind her of him - thats why she likes me having a moustache because he didn't have one, lol. She moans like hell when i shave it off.

And i discovered that his and mine music taste match.... again, totally. Even his favourite classical composer is the same as mine, lol.

I hate the idea i share alot of personality traits with him.... which, according to my sister, i certainly do.... damn indeed! 

[Carryon]

Red, it is unhealthy for you to carry a grudge throughout life, and besides who has time for that while living a full life-- in the present.  I've read several posts in which people have misused "a good life is the  is the best  revenge" as a remedy for anxiety.  Don't deny yourself a good life by dwelling on your anger; displace it with happy thoughts and experiences. That's the only way to even the score, where it matters, in you.

[GenSec]

Mmmm.... i only have 2 positive memories about him....

When i was little, he used to wake me up every morning with 2 like hand puppets, they were both dinosaurs and he used to have them live out a little story or adventure and then they would ask me how i was and things and go on about how special i was.... lol.

And when i was in my teens, when he found out i was being bullied at school, he gave me boxing and self defence lessons (he was a boxing and Judo nut when he was younger) and i did indeed give my bullied a good hiding, it never happened again when i was at school!

He did have some good personal attributes.... he always worked, he never drank, and he took on my mother even though she was single parent and he was only a teenager himself... he always tried to teach that things like casual relations with the opposite gender was wrong and things should always be serious and carry genuine emotion or nothing at all, even though he was very anti-religious.

I don't like remembering the odd example of good times.... it confuses my thinking more, lol.

[Carryon]

I was not talking about experiences with him, but in the here and now, your life. 

[GenSec]

Well, 3 years ago when i graduated from university was an example of how i am still making positive experiences in my life in spite of him.... in fact a sister of his contacted me to ask if he could attend - so i barred him lol.  What a cheek contacting me after all them years of having nothing to do with me!  No chance any of them were getting near my proudest moment to date!

[Carryon]

Well, 3 years ago when i graduated from university was an example of how i am still making positive experiences in my life in spite of him.... in fact a sister of his contacted me to ask if he could attend - so i barred him lol.  What a cheek contacting me after all them years of having nothing to do with me!  No chance any of them were getting near my proudest moment to date!

"In spite of him" is still letting the past influence the present, hold you back. When you think about him, push the thought aside, the same as is done when thoughts pop into one's head, as they do, when meditating. It's gets easier with time, the more you do it.