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As some here will remember, my relationship with my father has not been an easy one ... I was never the kind of sporty and gregarious son he'd wanted, and there were times when his lack of understanding manifested itself in aggression and physical abuse. My parents divorced in my early teens, and though I still kept in touch with my father, things were always strained, and came to a head when I came out to him at the age of 24. We didn't really speak after that, and he emigrated to Canada shortly afterwards, with wife #4.
For nearly 20 years we had no contact whatsoever, except that he sent me a card most Christmases which I usually didn't open, plus one to my sister (who has refused to give him her address) who did likewise. My brother, though, has kept in touch with our father, and for the past five years or so I've been getting phone calls from my father at Christmas, birthday, etc. These have gone a little bit better than expected, and lasted 20 minutes or so.
I've worked quite hard in the past few years on understanding quite why my father behaved to me - and to a lesser extent to my sister - in the way he did. In retrospect, he had a bit of a shitty upbringing from rather strict Baptist parents, and that kind of thing can be tough to escape. He's now in his mid-70s, and physically frail, living on his own in sheltered accommodation after splitting up amicably with wife #7 about 18 months ago ... I rather think he may not have long to live.
My father's sister died last year, and I went to the funeral, purely to support my brother who was going (he has, as above, kept in touch with my fathers side of the family). To my astonishment, there was a small mention in her will ... my brother suggested that he, his family, and myself should put this towards the cost of flying to Canada to visit our father (it pays about half the cost).
After mulling this over for a while, we've agreed to do it. Yesterday I got an e-mail confirming that tickets are booked from 25th July to 8th August to Vancouver.
I am now shit-scared and wondering what the hell I have got myself into!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Parents are a strange lot.... I know....
But it seems that as the candle burns low thay seem to soften a bit...
Go to Vancouver, visit a first time with no promices of a second visit...
If it goes well, then visit more with the hope you will part friends...
If it goes poorly, well, there are worse places to be stuck in for a week...
beautiful scenery there......
At anyrate, I hope it goes well....
Huggs
Marc
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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You've no reason to be scared NW; you're a person of your own right and can stand tall and be proud of who you are. An old and frail man can not hurt you, as he hasn't for the last 20 years. I'm sure that if you analize the sourse of your fear you will find it to be totally self created from your own insecurities. Deal with them and put them aside once you have.
I agree with Marc on this occasion; you would likely regret it more if you didn't take this opportunity to visit your father one last time.
I wish you a wonderful trip in July!
JimB
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 18:30] |
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A complicated post to reply to!
I agree with a lot of what you say about forgiveness. I'm certainly not aiming to do that - indeed, I doubt whether I ever could ever do so in any meaningful sense, though much of the anger that has been festering inside me for the past thirty or forty years has been released or dissipated over the past few years.
I hope that, in the end, what I'm after is some kind of increased understanding on both sides ... on my part, about what drove him to act the way he has done throughout his life, and on his part that it is very possible for me, as a person who no doubt he will continue to find "unmanly" and a "nancy-boy", to be both generally happy and to have risen as far as I cared to go in two careers (at least one of which counted as being "conventionally successful"). I rather doubt whether there's any possibility of building much of an on-going relationship ... but stranger things have happened.
I fear, most of all, that I will feel pity for him ... indeed, I think this is almost inescapable if we meet when he's in a maudlin state brought on by his daily bottle-and-a-half of brandy.
But, at root, I think I'm going because it's something that has cropped up, and my self-respect requires me to face up to this kind of challenge. And that, in a very real sense, is a part of who I am. It is an inevitable result of having survived the challenge of becoming myself rather than the clone of himself that my father demanded in his oldest son.
Doesn't stop me being scared though ... but the 13-year-old bit of me left inside is not the 13-y.o. "victim", but the 13-y.o. "survivor".
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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NW, you said the magic word, "survivor". When I left home I turned my back on my family and from that time till her death I never spoke to my mother. As I have aged now that is something I regret. No mater how bad things were, deep inside there is something that still loves him. I wish I hadnt made the choice I did. At lest if you go you wont have regrets after its to late.
If you stand for Freedom, but you wont stand for war, then you dont stand for anything worth fighting for.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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What you have got yourself into is an air trip and a short vacation in Canada.
Some of that trip, more if you choose, will be visiting your father. But most of the trip is a vacation. Enjoy all parts that it is possible to enjoy and forget the others. Try above all things to make sure there is nothing left unsaid that needs to be said.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I agree with Roger on this. By going you won't have to regret not doing so after it is too late and he has passed on. And I can certainly respect the fears of that 13 year old in you revisiting the cause of so much suffering. You may not resolve anything and you may not change your feelings towards the man, but at least you went the extra mile.
No one can simply ask for forgiveness without making the effort to make amends to somewhat alleviate the pain they may have caused. I hope this is your Dad's intention and that he can offer you something that can provide you with a degree of comfort and healing. I hope the outcome is some closure for you, NW. God speed.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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Dear NW,
Ouch! Your post reads as if you still crave his approval.
Forgive me for saying so but I think you should not be seeking that. First it is unlikely that he would be able to change his opinions of a lifetime. Second if he were to undergo a Pauline conversion it would do little good (the natural feeling then would be to say "NOW? why now when twenty or thirty years ago would have been so much better.").
I think maybe one of your objectives might be to forgive him.
But really you need to think about what you want from it. Imagine the flight back and consider what would have happened to make you feel really good on that flight and glad you took the trouble to go.
What can you do between now and then to get the best chance of such an outcome?
Love,
Anthony
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I don't believe forgiveness, at least in the Christian sense, was intended to help the transgressor. Forgiveness is a means for the victim to take a step towards becoming a survivor. We can carry the pain and nurture it and sustain it or we can seek a means of letting it go and getting on with our lives. The alternative is to carry bitterness and anger to our own graves. We may have earned our right to feel bitter but in the long run it is a robber. Not only are we a victim of our transgressor but we become victims of our own unresolved anger.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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acam wrote:
> Dear NW,
>
> Ouch! Your post reads as if you still crave his approval.
I don't think it's that, exactly. If I crave anything, it's that he should start to see me as I am, not as the person he wished me to be, nor as the kid that he's been busy editing his memories into making me have been. He may like or dislike what he sees, but by God he owes it me to actually face me as I am.
I'll admit, a small corner of me still craves his love (and in his own way I guess he does love me to the extent that he's capable of loving anyone ... sadly, he's the kind of repressed Englishman who can spend half a lifetime working in animal welfare, but is incapable of really having or showing feelings for *people*).
> I think maybe one of your objectives might be to forgive him.
It simply isn't, at present, in me. Reaching an understanding (that I represented to him all the side of himself that he'd had to bury and ignore, and had been taught by his parents to consider unfitting, inappropriate, or "unmanly"), and an acceptance that it wasn't altogether his fault, took many years ... and a bit of professional assistance. I may be able to go further towards forgiveness when we meet - I hope so, but I'm realistic enough not to force what has to be grown.
> But really you need to think about what you want from it. Imagine the flight back and consider what would have happened to make you feel really good on that flight and glad you took the trouble to go.
I don't think that can happen ... though I guess I could be surprised. I'm not going because I expect to get much out of it, simply because I know that if I don't I'll feel shitty about it for the rest of my life, and wonder if it could have been different. And, probably, because my father has on several occasions said he was coming to the UK (for example, to his mother's funeral), and then bottled it at the last moment: there is surely a residual and childish need for me to show myself that (in that sense at least) I'm a stronger man than he is. Not really a worthy set of motives, if I'm honest.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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You will never show yourself to be "a stronger man than he is" because you and he are just men. And it's not important to be stronger than he is, it's just important to be strong enough. And you are.
If you choose to forgive him, a thing that is active and for you, not for him, then do it. That proves, if you like, that you are strong. But you may not be ready to or even want or need to.
Anyone ought to be proud to have you as a son. Orientation is just orientation. I think we all need to start to understand that, however large our orientation is for us, it is just orientation. Heterosexual folk don;t make as big a production number of it as we do.
I wonder when I can start to take my own advice on that!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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While I agree with everything you say, I think one has to be ready to forgive first, and the transgressor has to appear to be worth the effort of forgiving.
I do not believe I can forgive as a one sided act, especially if the transgressor shows no remorse at all.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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You will have a long journey and you will visit an old man. Your very presence will demonstrate to him that despite everything that he did (and did not do) you are what you are: a decent, honourable and accepted member of society with strong views of your own, and with the moral stamina to hold fast to those views whatever others may think. You can meet this old man with your head held high. Who knows? - maybe at the meeting you will discover a father. At any rate, I strongly suspect that you are what you are today in no small measure because of this man. You can afford to be generous. You can offer your hand in friendship knowing that if it is rejected you have done the honourable thing. I wish you every success on this trip.
Your friend, J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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While I understand the emotions that tell us a person needs to first be worthy of our forgiveness, that emotion can itself be an impediment to our own happiness. If we wait for a person to become worthy of forgiving, the likelihood is that there will never be any forgiving. The result is that we continue to carry the burden of the anger, frustration and hurt. We owe it to ourselves, not to them, to take the steps to unburden ourselves. We forgive not because they deserve it but because we do.
This is not an easy thing, especially when the transgressor is unrepentant. I have tried many times and failed. But I won't stop the trying because I know the ultimate reward is piece of mind.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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thanks for all the replies - a lot of good points, and a lot of stuff for me to think about!
I've got a few months before I go to get my head a bit more sorted out about this. I'm normally pretty secure in who I am, so I hope that my panic over this was a purely temporary thing!
NW
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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