Freedom
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There comes a time when you realize that sometimes it’s better to cut and run than to stay and fight. For my entire life, I’ve had a pretty horrible relationship with my father. I’ve been reading LeeAnn’s blog lately, and it’s made me realize that I am far better off without the pain, anger, and stress that having any contact with my father inevitably creates.
My parents divorced when I was six years old. I remember almost nothing before the divorce, except for a few fuzzy moments inspired by photographs. I remember a lot of what happened after the divorce. Almost relentlessly, my father pressured my sister and me to live with him. His reasons are, even now, a mystery because he doesn’t like children and never has. He was a strict parent, placing more emphasis on tidiness and order than love and affection (I was once spanked pretty harshly because someone left a small piece of tissue on the floor).
So, with every visit, he pressured us. He would play the role of the affectionate father until we said that we didn’t want to leave our mother. Then, he’d show his true colors. It was an experience that we both learned to dread. But, he is a brilliant manipulator, and with each visit, he would nurture that small seed of doubt he had planted. He would prop himself up and make it appear as if he alone cared for me. He would tell me how proud he was when I got good grades (after all, my mother was not really interested in my school performance). He would encourage me to do the best I could so that I could go to college one day. But, none of it was sincere.
Finally, after 10 years of his manipulation and brain washing, I decided that living with my mother, her husband, and four other kids was too much. After all, if I lived with my father, I could have my own room and be the only child (he and his 2nd wife had no children). So, the summer before my senior year of high school, I packed up my belongings, loaded them into my car, and drove with my father from Rhode Island to Mississippi.
Almost as soon as I moved in, I noticed that things were not as rosy as I’d imagined. My father was surly and distant, and my stepmother was downright resentful of my presence. I was a messy teenager; a contradiction to the organized, neat person I am now. I kept my bedroom pretty untidy, but I know few teenagers who didn’t. For some reason, this drove my father crazy. Actually, I know the reason. It was all about control. He wanted to control everything, including how I kept my room. He also expected me to clean the entire house. It was if he brought me to live with him so that I could be their maid.
A few weeks after I arrived, I started to get a sore throat. I also became incredibly fatigued after doing very basic things. After two or three days, my throat was so swollen that I couldn’t talk properly, I couldn’t eat anything, and I was in constant pain. Rather than take me to a doctor, I was given OTC cold meds. Finally, I called my father at work and told him that I needed to see a doctor (keep in mind that I was terrified of doctors at that time). I told him I’d found an urgent care clinic in the phonebook and that I really had to go. He told me that he’d “try” to meet me there.
So, I got into my car and drove myself. After a while, my father actually showed up. I couldn’t believe it. The doctor said that I had a pretty bad case of Mono and that I would need bed rest for six weeks. After that, I could only do minimal activity for another six weeks. He wrote a prescription for Prednisone to help open up my very swollen throat. Since I had given the clinic my insurance information (thanks to my mother), we left. Outside of the clinic, my father tore up the prescription and told me that I had contracted Mono due to a lack of exercise.
When we got home, I went to bed. I woke a few hours later to hear my stepmother loading every dish into the dishwasher (very loudly). She had presoaked everything in bleach (to kill my germs), and resented every minute of it. After all, her maid was sick – a very good reason to be angry.
After a week, the swelling in my throat started to come down (thanks to nothing more than my immune system). I was able to speak, eat, and breath normally again. Naturally, this caused my father and step-mother to assume that I was all better. I still had that incredible, insatiable fatigue that comes with Mono, but they didn’t believe me. One night, they decided to go out for the evening. I was told to take care of the laundry while they were gone. Before I got to it, I fell asleep. As you can imagine, they were not pleased.
Life continued in that way for a few months. I started school (which I hated because I was the freak Yankee with the accent) and worked at my father’s rented office space as his secretary after school. He was always trying to appear more important than he actually was – I can look back now and laugh at his pretentious attitude. I actually thought I might be able to get through the year and then go off to college somewhere. But, the worst possible thing happened – my car (that I had saved for years to buy) needed a new clutch (something my father blamed on me). He gave me a choice: he would get the clutch fixed or I could have my senior portrait. I got neither. Instead, I was subjected to constant ridicule and resentment from them both.
In the end, I called my mother and said that I wanted to come home. She sent a plane ticket, and I left. I left almost all of my belongings, including that car. My father drove me to the airport, never saying a word. When he stopped, I got out, and he drove away. I did not hear from him for years.
I spent the rest of my senior year in a state of depression, self loathing, and suicidal thoughts. I don’t know how I got through it, but I did. It was, without question, the bleakest time in my life.
After a while (i.e., after he and his 2nd wife divorced), my father insinuated himself back into my life. He said that he accepted full responsibility for what happened. He apologized and asked me to forgive him. Like an idiot, I did. And so began a new pattern of manipulation. There was another period of estrangement after I disagreed with him on something insignificant. But, once again, he dragged me back in.
I included him in major events in my life, including giving him the honor of walking me down the aisle at my wedding to Brian. I gave him a father/daughter dance. I was a fool, but I wanted that relationship with my father. Don’t underestimate me, though. I didn’t have blinders on to his manipulative ways. I recognized that almost everything he said was bullshit, and almost everything he did had some ulterior motive. He married again; this time to a woman whom I absolutely adore. She was the only reason I was willing to give him another chance. But, being who he is, he’s treating her like shit now, too.
Then he got sick. After years of abusing his body through untreated high blood pressure (something I now have to deal with), both of his kidneys had failed. He went on dialysis and waited for a kidney. It took two years, but he finally had the transplant and decided that he’d been given a second chance. He claimed:
“My health issues caused me to examine my mind, heart and conscience, and in so doing, I have made a determined effort to seek forgiveness from those I’ve wronged in the past and to offer forgiveness to those who have slighted me.”
So, here we are. This past week, he showed me his true colors once again. He established contact with wife #2 so that he could “offer her his forgiveness to her for hurting him.” Evidently, she cheated on him (I find this incredibly amusing because he cheated on my mother, hence their divorce), which is why he divorced her. Until now, I had always thought that he left her because of me. Yes, I was a naïve fool again. Anyway, for some reason, he felt the need to tell my sister and me that he was in contact with her. When he received admonishment from us both, he became defensive and angry. He lashed out at me for many things including those few months when I lived with him. He wrote:
“Keep in mind, however, that you were not entirely without blame for the problems that occurred during that time. Apparently, you thought that since you were so miserable living with your mother and her “new” family, you could come live with me and be allowed to do as you pleased. Hell, you couldn’t even manage to keep your room clean let alone offer to do anything around the house. And you thought that I would allow that behavior and choose you over her, when it was I who objected most to the mess. If I asked you to choose between me and Brian, do you really think I would expect to be the one chosen? Even if you and I had the idyllic father/daughter relationship, I would have to be self-delusional to think that you would choose me over your husband.”
He actually thinks that it’s the same thing. Speaking of morons . . .
Then, there was this gem:
“If you cannot accept what I’ve said without reading something into it based upon your “assumptions”, maybe you need to learn something about trust, young lady.”
I find it so ironic that the one person responsible for my lack of trust in EVERYTHING is lecturing me on the subject.
What I’ve learned from this back and forth nonsense is that all of his apologies and pleas for forgiveness were really just bullshit. His “determined effort to seek forgiveness” is really just an excuse to establish contact with the woman he probably still wants (I feel so sorry for my current step-mother). He is, once again, willing to sacrifice his relationship with his children for his own selfish wants. I have washed my hands of him and his toxicity once and for all.
I know that some of you might think that I’ll change my mind. Others will tell me to “honor thy father.” Don’t waste your time. I have spent 30 years being dragged in and out of a manipulative web so complex that I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. I’m finally free, and I won’t be caught again.
I wrote this post as a sort of exorcism. It worked.
Now that I’m 
Themocracy