(no subject)
I know that B knows most of what I'm about to post but I think it is an important event that needs LJing. As I posted before, my father went off about me not being able to see him when I was there, and I finally expressed how I feel back, and what follows is our recent email exchanges, starting with his response to my, um, expressions.
"I treated you like shit for a year? You are my daughter. I have never
treated you like shit!! I think you had better explain yourself, young
lady! Who was it that gave you FREE cable? How can I treat you like shit
when I don't even see you??? In two years, I have seen you once, at your
graduation. How in the world have I treated you like shit?? Do I need to
remind you that you were the one who told me not to try to contact you????
I respected your request. Is that treating you like shit???????
Let's talk about treating someone like shit. You don't call me. You
don't make an effort to see me.
Yes, I am the parent. I intended to give you your Xmas card when you saw
me. That didn't work out. Was that my fault? I have given you my cell
phone number on two occasions. Have you called me????? Once??????
When did you intend to give me my card?
Get with it Michelle. You have not gotten over the fact that I don't love
your mother anymore. It happens. I am happy now. I didn't realize how
unhappy I was when I was with your mother. Once again, just in case you
missed it. I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. Doesn't that
mean anything to you? You should be happy for me. That might be tough for
you, but you need to do it.
I hope that we can get over this hump in the road. You are my daughter and
I love you dearly.
Your Father"
I didn't read this email because I had a feeling it would be really hurtful, so I sent to B and let her read it, and she confirmed what I had thought. She let her mom read it too, and she said the email upset her too, so I thought it best not to read it, at least at that time. Kevin wanted to read it, so he did, and he was really confused, I think partly because he wasn't around for the play by play when this was going on, but he said it was hurtful too. Kevin and B talked about it, and I talked to my mom about it and she wanted to read it, so today when I was finally getting around to forwarding it, I decided to read it. I wrote this response the night B and Kevin read it:
"Fearing that your reply would bring out your insensitive, egotistical, and childish characteristics, I had a confidant read your email before I would allow myself to read it, and I wanted to let you know that I didn't read it, and don't plan on it. You hurt me beyond words once, not my fault - but allowing you to destroy me again would be my fault and I'm not giving you that power. Something that you need to learn is that its not all about you. In order to be happy, I need to cut the toxic people out of my life, and you've proven on more than one occasion to be one of those people. This isn't about mom, its about me. What YOU did to ME, not the other way around. I hope that whatever it was you said was worth losing your only daughter, I thought you realized before that it wasn't, but then again, you never were very good at staying true to your word."
I figured that he'd eventually get it and just leave me alone, but he didn't, and I got this response back that took me about a week to finally read:
"Since you don't even read my email, why even bother to send anything to me? I have no idea what you are talking about. egotistical. childish. insensitive. You must be talking about someone else. I am 51, almost 52 years old. I am not anything you acuse me of being. I am your father and you don't even know me. If it is your desire to not communicate with me anymore, then you will be the loser. If the best you can do is call me names, then just forget it. I don't need you or anybody else. I am my own man and have been so for alot of years. I am quite happy being who I am. If you can't deal with that, then I don't need you in my life either.
Why not just read my emails yourself instead of letting someone else do it for you. You might just learn something."
I want to write back just because he really honestly doesn't get it, well that or he just says this crap to make me look like the bad guy but knowing him, I woudln't be surprised if he honestly did think he did nothing wrong. He's insinuating that he should be able to buy my love with the free cable (that lasted like a month), and that its my fault that I haven't talked to him, well dad, you were the one who was having an affair, you were the one that never once sat me down to talk about it, you were the one that got married to somebody else and allowed somebody else to move into my house and my room and expected me to hear about it through the family grapevine, you just allowed myself and my mother to move out without saying a single word to me and you knew what was wrong because you wrote me a letter saying you lived alone and wanted me to come visit you, and when I finally got enough courage to do that and went to your house, Jill was living there again! Thats great that you're happy but you were more concerned with making yourself happy than trying to preserve your relationship with your daughter, otherwise you wouldn't have allowed our relationship to get this strained.
However, I think saying this will just futher his pointing fingers at me. I don't know if he realizes that the entire family thinks he's treated not just me, but his family like dirt since he married Jill. I want to win this battle because I know that I'm the one who was wronged here but should I just cut my losses and move on and stop stressing about this or should I continue? I want him to know everything but I wonder if he's really even reading it......
"I treated you like shit for a year? You are my daughter. I have never
treated you like shit!! I think you had better explain yourself, young
lady! Who was it that gave you FREE cable? How can I treat you like shit
when I don't even see you??? In two years, I have seen you once, at your
graduation. How in the world have I treated you like shit?? Do I need to
remind you that you were the one who told me not to try to contact you????
I respected your request. Is that treating you like shit???????
Let's talk about treating someone like shit. You don't call me. You
don't make an effort to see me.
Yes, I am the parent. I intended to give you your Xmas card when you saw
me. That didn't work out. Was that my fault? I have given you my cell
phone number on two occasions. Have you called me????? Once??????
When did you intend to give me my card?
Get with it Michelle. You have not gotten over the fact that I don't love
your mother anymore. It happens. I am happy now. I didn't realize how
unhappy I was when I was with your mother. Once again, just in case you
missed it. I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. Doesn't that
mean anything to you? You should be happy for me. That might be tough for
you, but you need to do it.
I hope that we can get over this hump in the road. You are my daughter and
I love you dearly.
Your Father"
I didn't read this email because I had a feeling it would be really hurtful, so I sent to B and let her read it, and she confirmed what I had thought. She let her mom read it too, and she said the email upset her too, so I thought it best not to read it, at least at that time. Kevin wanted to read it, so he did, and he was really confused, I think partly because he wasn't around for the play by play when this was going on, but he said it was hurtful too. Kevin and B talked about it, and I talked to my mom about it and she wanted to read it, so today when I was finally getting around to forwarding it, I decided to read it. I wrote this response the night B and Kevin read it:
"Fearing that your reply would bring out your insensitive, egotistical, and childish characteristics, I had a confidant read your email before I would allow myself to read it, and I wanted to let you know that I didn't read it, and don't plan on it. You hurt me beyond words once, not my fault - but allowing you to destroy me again would be my fault and I'm not giving you that power. Something that you need to learn is that its not all about you. In order to be happy, I need to cut the toxic people out of my life, and you've proven on more than one occasion to be one of those people. This isn't about mom, its about me. What YOU did to ME, not the other way around. I hope that whatever it was you said was worth losing your only daughter, I thought you realized before that it wasn't, but then again, you never were very good at staying true to your word."
I figured that he'd eventually get it and just leave me alone, but he didn't, and I got this response back that took me about a week to finally read:
"Since you don't even read my email, why even bother to send anything to me? I have no idea what you are talking about. egotistical. childish. insensitive. You must be talking about someone else. I am 51, almost 52 years old. I am not anything you acuse me of being. I am your father and you don't even know me. If it is your desire to not communicate with me anymore, then you will be the loser. If the best you can do is call me names, then just forget it. I don't need you or anybody else. I am my own man and have been so for alot of years. I am quite happy being who I am. If you can't deal with that, then I don't need you in my life either.
Why not just read my emails yourself instead of letting someone else do it for you. You might just learn something."
I want to write back just because he really honestly doesn't get it, well that or he just says this crap to make me look like the bad guy but knowing him, I woudln't be surprised if he honestly did think he did nothing wrong. He's insinuating that he should be able to buy my love with the free cable (that lasted like a month), and that its my fault that I haven't talked to him, well dad, you were the one who was having an affair, you were the one that never once sat me down to talk about it, you were the one that got married to somebody else and allowed somebody else to move into my house and my room and expected me to hear about it through the family grapevine, you just allowed myself and my mother to move out without saying a single word to me and you knew what was wrong because you wrote me a letter saying you lived alone and wanted me to come visit you, and when I finally got enough courage to do that and went to your house, Jill was living there again! Thats great that you're happy but you were more concerned with making yourself happy than trying to preserve your relationship with your daughter, otherwise you wouldn't have allowed our relationship to get this strained.
However, I think saying this will just futher his pointing fingers at me. I don't know if he realizes that the entire family thinks he's treated not just me, but his family like dirt since he married Jill. I want to win this battle because I know that I'm the one who was wronged here but should I just cut my losses and move on and stop stressing about this or should I continue? I want him to know everything but I wonder if he's really even reading it......