Time to hash out some things.
Or maybe exorcise some personal demons.
Back in early 2011, my biological father contacted me, wanting an "in" into my life. I haven't actually seen this man since I was a child, about 7. I haven't communicated with him in any meaningful since I was about 10, and told him to stop contacting me. These last 2 years have left me feeling anxious and startled at new thoughts regarding my father, my anxieties, my children, and my extended family.
My brother apparently gave him the chance at communication. I don't know where it led from there. I haven't really spoken with that particular brother in anything other than a superficial manner for several years. Our lives are just very different, and I know he doesn't approve of mine in any capacity.
I've lost my train of thought.
I have what may be termed as "daddy issues". As in, mine was never really there, and the applicants after weren't ever really "daddy". The last abused me in horrible ways that I've yet to recover from, more than a decade after it finally ended. I have trust issues with outside influences on my children. I try to intercede where it isn't needed when my husband interacts with our kids, in either a playful or disciplinary or educational way. How insane is that, that I become irrationally concerned with how my husband is navigating his own relationships with our kids?
My father-in-law (FIL) lives with us. Everything he does bothers me. I don't want him in my house, I don't want him cooking, cleaning, playing with my kids. I hate talking to him. I hate correcting his antiquated parenting advice. I hate feeling like I have to protect my space from him, when he's not actually done anything to warrant my mistrust, other than being an adult male that I don't know very well. He's been living with us these past 2 years. I can't bring myself to care about anything he does, likes, prefers. I just want him gone. I shouldn't have agreed to him living here in the first place, but it was all "temporary". This temporary is turning into a nightmare vision of long term care and things that I don't want to be involved with.
FIL tries to be friendly, wants to talk to me all the damn time. I don't engage. I can't. There is no empathy for him in me. It's all I can do to not tell him to shut up when he comes to me with some stupid thing he thought funny, or suggestion about the kids or my cooking, or anything really. I've told my husband before that I don't care that FIL used to work as a cook, used to be really good at it. He isn't now, and hasn't the memory to teach things. He's had so many concussions in life that his brain is full of holes. If I need a recipe, or need to figure out what particular cooking terms mean, I find them online. I think it irritates my husband, because he sees his fathers' experience as something beneficial to me, a thing we could potentially bond over. I don't want to. I reject the thought of it. FIL is not my father, I don't want to learn from him, I don't even want to talk to him. I'm sure this all trails back to my rejection of my father, or least it could be thought of that way.
Why communicate with a person who demonstrated all your life that you weren't important to him? That you were a sidepiece to be won, with the real prize being your sibling, because he was male. I never contemplated that someone could want me, until someone did and it scared the life out of me. I'm still working to fix that perception. My father never loved me, and I've known it for the better part of my life. What's the point of confronting him on it now? Why did he have to contact me? What the hell changed in his life, that suddenly getting to know his adult children was important? So many questions that I don't have the answers to, not even sure I want the answers.
I feel as though I'm just sitting in the backseat of a car, crying and trying to ask "Daddy, why didn't you love me? What was wrong with me?" And I hate it. I hate feeling like I've been reduced to a child, impotent to fix my emotional state without outside help.
Back in early 2011, my biological father contacted me, wanting an "in" into my life. I haven't actually seen this man since I was a child, about 7. I haven't communicated with him in any meaningful since I was about 10, and told him to stop contacting me. These last 2 years have left me feeling anxious and startled at new thoughts regarding my father, my anxieties, my children, and my extended family.
My brother apparently gave him the chance at communication. I don't know where it led from there. I haven't really spoken with that particular brother in anything other than a superficial manner for several years. Our lives are just very different, and I know he doesn't approve of mine in any capacity.
I've lost my train of thought.
I have what may be termed as "daddy issues". As in, mine was never really there, and the applicants after weren't ever really "daddy". The last abused me in horrible ways that I've yet to recover from, more than a decade after it finally ended. I have trust issues with outside influences on my children. I try to intercede where it isn't needed when my husband interacts with our kids, in either a playful or disciplinary or educational way. How insane is that, that I become irrationally concerned with how my husband is navigating his own relationships with our kids?
My father-in-law (FIL) lives with us. Everything he does bothers me. I don't want him in my house, I don't want him cooking, cleaning, playing with my kids. I hate talking to him. I hate correcting his antiquated parenting advice. I hate feeling like I have to protect my space from him, when he's not actually done anything to warrant my mistrust, other than being an adult male that I don't know very well. He's been living with us these past 2 years. I can't bring myself to care about anything he does, likes, prefers. I just want him gone. I shouldn't have agreed to him living here in the first place, but it was all "temporary". This temporary is turning into a nightmare vision of long term care and things that I don't want to be involved with.
FIL tries to be friendly, wants to talk to me all the damn time. I don't engage. I can't. There is no empathy for him in me. It's all I can do to not tell him to shut up when he comes to me with some stupid thing he thought funny, or suggestion about the kids or my cooking, or anything really. I've told my husband before that I don't care that FIL used to work as a cook, used to be really good at it. He isn't now, and hasn't the memory to teach things. He's had so many concussions in life that his brain is full of holes. If I need a recipe, or need to figure out what particular cooking terms mean, I find them online. I think it irritates my husband, because he sees his fathers' experience as something beneficial to me, a thing we could potentially bond over. I don't want to. I reject the thought of it. FIL is not my father, I don't want to learn from him, I don't even want to talk to him. I'm sure this all trails back to my rejection of my father, or least it could be thought of that way.
Why communicate with a person who demonstrated all your life that you weren't important to him? That you were a sidepiece to be won, with the real prize being your sibling, because he was male. I never contemplated that someone could want me, until someone did and it scared the life out of me. I'm still working to fix that perception. My father never loved me, and I've known it for the better part of my life. What's the point of confronting him on it now? Why did he have to contact me? What the hell changed in his life, that suddenly getting to know his adult children was important? So many questions that I don't have the answers to, not even sure I want the answers.
I feel as though I'm just sitting in the backseat of a car, crying and trying to ask "Daddy, why didn't you love me? What was wrong with me?" And I hate it. I hate feeling like I've been reduced to a child, impotent to fix my emotional state without outside help.