What a surprise. Father actually did not call.

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
He's never gone no contact with ME before. He's gotten furious at me, irrational, abusive and horrid, but I always stayed on the phone and, even if I tried to fight back, I did not tell him he could not disrespect me. And the few times he got me so angry that I hung up on him, which you can't do to him or you are auto cut off, I called back in tears, crying, apologizing, eating crow, although HE had been the one who'd been abusive.

I sent him a letter and a Channukah card. Both had short, sweet messages about how I'd be happy to talk to him if we can both treat one another with respect...that I no longer allowed anybody to yell at me. I didn't hear from him.

To him this is as good as me telling him to get ******d.

Nobody is allowed to even ask him something reasonable, agreeing to also do it.

I kind of wasn't sure if he'd actually do the cut off or not, but it seems like he will.

When my brother, whom I haven't spoken to in years because he's angry about something...God knows what...he won't say so I don't ask...anyhow, when he finally calls to tell me my father has passed, which is very sad to me, and that he disinherited me, which I have already had happen, at least I will be emotionally ready and prepared and able to put him to rest without the anger I felt toward my mother for disowning me. That hurt so much, but it was so long ago. I'm so different now.

Since this is cleansing to me, I'm going to share one other instant he was abusive, horrible and did want to cut me off, but I begged him not to. I am ashamed that I didn't just let him do it.

Like my mother before him, my father's main contribution to my health and happiness was to teach me how NOT to treat those I love.

I will always remember his immortal words being: "Not one of your kids ever brought me one moment of pleasure. NOT ONE!"

Ok, just a vent and a short update. I'm ok. Just really amazed that history can repeat itself in this way.
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
You may be stronger and more centered than I am where family is concerned at this point, but when these kinds of things happen to me, I feel really "wrong" for a number of days. I find myself wishing I hadn't pushed it (when in my secret heart I am ecstatic that I did it, that I pushed it right to the limit). Sooner or later, I remember that this is the cost of standing up for myself.

This is what it costs for us to demand the respect or honor or cherishing every daughter or son deserves. Their rejection brings up our shame. It takes a little while to get through it.

I am sorry he did this.

His loss.

I find I am more vulnerable in every aspect of my life when these kinds of things happen with my family. Other, older feelings of rejection and shame and sadness are touched and reprocessed. Once I am through it, I am better, stronger, I see everything differently, more clearly, than before.

That will happen for you too.

Until it does, we are right here. We get it. He is who he is and that hurts. It would be worse had you not confronted him. You merit respect and cherishing, and joy and every good thing.

It was a courageous thing, to send him those words, telling him you would accept nothing less than an appropriate, loving, respectful relationship.

I am proud of and for you.

He may yet respond...we never do know what they are going to do. The important thing is that you stood for yourself.

You will never feel like that same little girl, again.

This is what it costs, and it's worth every tear.

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Cedar, thank you.

I am so used to him that I can't cry. I am so tired of the non-stop abuse I've put up with that I can easily walk away from his semi-approval (because I kowtow to him) and his dang money.

I am an orphan and have always been one.

Now if this were my kids, it would probably be different.But it's just my sperm donor doing what he's done for me all of my life.

At least, unlike my mother, he would do it to any of us who demanded only to be talked to respectfully. It's not just me. There is some sick sort of solace in that.
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Many years ago when my brother and I were estranged, I wrote him a note, similar to what you've done with your Dad. I was very nice and requested that we attempt to build a new relationship based on mutual respect and equality. I never heard from him again. He could not rise to that bar. It was sad at the time, but over time, I let it go. That was over 20 years ago. We have had no relationship since.

I once read this quote, "on the spiritual path, one is always weeding the garden," meaning, as we grow and learn and heal, we outgrow certain connections. That has been the case with many of my bio family. And, it's been a positive, healthy, good thing.

You've done a wonderful job MWM of asserting your healthy self and doing it in a kind way. There is nothing else for you to do.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Thanks, RE, for sharing. You're right. People like them will not even consider the idea that perhaps they are partly at fault for a bad relationship. In my dad's case, he will not listen to anyone...never would...and will only start calling me again if I leave uber messages begging forgiveness for something I didn't do wrong. Since I've done that already with my mother, and felt demeaned and it didn't work anyway, I agree that there is nothing else to do.

It is what it is.
 

pasajes4

Well-Known Member
In truth all anyone has is themselves and the beliefs they hold onto. It is these beliefs that drive our relationships and our journey. As we grow these beliefs and relationships change. Discord occurs when our beliefs do not correspond to the beliefs held by others. We evolve and new relationships form. It is not a bad thing to look at our relationships and determine that staying rooted to them is detrimental to our journey.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Well, you asked your father to give you something that is impossible for him to give you...respect. However, you deserve respect. Now, there is a stalemate.

You predicted it. Eventually, we see their patterns.

Also, sometimes narcissists, I suspect, are particularly angry around holiday time. This is because folks seems to be happy. Narcissists are not happy people (unless they are getting their way or making someone happy purposely to manipulate or impress them...to use them...same thing) and so these others who are happy for no freakin reason are all freakin idiots who are to be hated....something like that.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Well, color me shocked...BUT HE CALLED.

He didn't' apologize or admit any wrongdoing, but he said he wanted to put the event behind us. That's the best it's gonna get. He did not raise his voice and I repeated that I'm not going to fight with anybody anymore.
It was a short conversation. It always is. If it's not about him, he gets bored quickly.
I don't know how I feel. I know my request won't stop him from yelling if he feels like it, but just like this time, I will not contact him after he yells and wait for him to contact me and speak nicely. Maybe he'll get my boundary. In fact, if he EVER does that again, I'm hanging up on him, which infuriates him. But his screaming and insults don't do much for ME so I am not going to listen to it.
I didn't say much. I never do either when I talk to him. There is nothing to talk about with me except him and the weather so we had maybe a short three minute discussion about the weather.
I wish I felt happy he called me, but I'm more focused on something going on with Jumper, who is one of the members of my REAL family...somebody who loves me who I love back. So I can't give him too much thought right now. I'll think more about it later because I like to analyze what people do. Right now...not in the mood.
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Right now...not in the mood.

I laughed out loud when I read that MWM. For you to even say that speaks volumes about how far you've come from the grip of your bio family. The incident didn't phase you other then to "analyze" it. I love that you said you're not in the mood. That is priceless.

When we can be neutral and have no reaction, no charge, that's when we know it's all now in the past and we've healed. Good for you, I am proud of you and happy for you.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
That is a surprise (that he called) and it is wonderful that you aren't all that concerned about analyzing it, whether he calls again and can be appropriate, etc. any of it. It is what it is and he is what he is...
Yes, MUCH better to concern yourself with those who are capable of loving you back. Sounds like peace in your heart. So very nice. :)
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Thanks, guys. Honestly, it's just another day in the life of my Loony bin :) I am far more concerned about Jumper's boy problems (silly though that may be) than my narcissistic father's phone call.

Yep.

It is what it is. And right now it is apathy.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Eventually, we see their patterns.

Also, sometimes narcissists, I suspect, are
particularly angry around holiday time.

Narcissists are not happy people (unless they are getting their way or making someone happy
purposely to manipulate or impress them...to use them...same thing)

These are interesting observations, Nomad.

Well, color me shocked...BUT HE CALLED.

He didn't' apologize or admit any wrongdoing, but he said he wanted to put the event behind us.

I could not be more pleased for you~~and for him. It is very probable that, just as it does for our difficult child kids, your standing up to your father helped him to grow, too. He took time, he thought about calling or not calling. He probably waited for you to call, as usually you would have. And when you didn't, he probably said, "Who cares."

And then realized...he did.

It took a certain amount of grace and courage and honesty for him to call, for him to openly say the things that needed to be said. He cared enough about you to consider your concerns and take them seriously.

I could not be happier for you, or for your father.

It is a good thing to be able to see through the games and maintain a balanced perspective when someone we love disappoints us, for sure. But the best thing is to create healthy new patterns in the relationships we cherish.

What a great post!

:O)

Cedar
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Cedar,
I would love to think you are right in your thoughts about why MWM's father probably called. But, I suspect you are too optimistic and are thinking in way too logical and healthy of a manner. Although it is possible that he realized he had too much at stake....and realized he "cared"with "grace and courage" ....these very words would not usually be associated with a true narcissist. He might have realized that he cared, but more that he realized he pushed it too far and that he is getting old now and he might need MWM in the not too distant future and better not keep her too far away....or something along those lines...he likely wants to put this aside because of something he needs or wants from her. I don't think a true narcissist is likely to change his or her ways and being a caring individual ... Especially when it comes to having a relationship with another person that involves GIVE and take. Just my thoughts...it took me a long time to "get" my father's "different" way of thinking and I've been reading a bit on the topic and I've noticed that these folks can be very damaging to families. Maybe someday I can learn more and help others. It seems to be relatively common for them to never get better, since they very rarely will admit to being sick or will seek help. It often takes a very long time to figure them out. I too really like the healthier relationship being established here in the form of a boundary...no more putting up with disrespect. MWM is the one who is brave here. Fingers crossed that maybe real change will come out of this, but it's not likely. But, again, the new boundary set up is awesome.
 
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witzend

Well-Known Member
MWM, this might sound awful to someone who hasn't been through this, but you all know how awful my dad was. When he learned he was dying he sent a letter to me telling me I was disinherited, after not talking to me for 15 years. Same situation - I had told him that I was an adult and I wouldn't be tolerate his disrespect anymore. Then last Father's Day he died, and I heard it from an old neighbor/friend.

Things with the kids were already tenuous enough, there was no question that I was done with L. I had done what I could to prepare M for the idea that he is a 29 year old man who makes his own decisions and has to take responsibility for what he does. It's on M that he chose to honor that last wish of my father's to not even tell me he died. I'm fairly certain that both my kids somehow got a promise of an extra portion of the estate (why would he not leave everything to my mom?) to sell me out. Oh well, their loss for a few pieces of silver. But I digress...

My father was always the example in my family for manipulation and hatred. He's dead now and not only will I not miss him (how could I? I haven't heard from him since 1998), I have high hopes that I will never receive another nasty letter from him. God knows if anyone was likely to set up a system to send out nasty messages after their death, it's him. It's a huge relief. His death doesn't directly change anything in my life.

I suppose if someone buys into the theory that others benefit from our prayers for relief, then they should also buy into the theory that others lose from our prayers for harm or evil thoughts. I have no doubt that my dad held evil thoughts for me, so that's one less evil force working against me. I'm sure that there are people who will miss him and I don't discount them that. There are people who die a natural death every day and it doesn't affect me one way or another. I can't see his death as anything more or less than that.

It will hurt when your dad dies, but not as much as his living has and then it will be over. You know he's poisonous to your well-being. Let him be.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Hmmm....

It is shocking to think that you both could be right. This is certainly what husband says, and continues to say, about my mother and family of origin and even our kids.

As time passes, I am forgetting, like I always do, the harshness of what happens.

What you are saying is that people cannot, or that there are people who choose not to, change, once they know a better way. That the better way I think I see does not exist for them, or the situations that now exist would not have existed to begin with.

?

But what about Maya's "When we knew better we did better", or Christianity or psychotherapy or fighting against racism and so on?

Cedar

Why would the father call at all, unless he valued his relationship to his daughter?

Why would he not just cut everything off and talk badly about her behind her back forever, sort of uniting to exclude the one who stood up? That, sick as it sounds, is how they do it in my family of origin. They unite in hatred, headed by my mother.

They do not call.

Except that my sister did.

Repeatedly.

Well...if these things are true, if it really is true that people, certain people, choose to use and hate and abuse and will manipulate to get you back into those old, harmful patterns that would explain why husband never changes his mind, once he has decided against someone.

It would make sense, raised as I was, that I would not recognize a healthy boundary that does not relent and forgive and work together to make it better if it jumped up and bit me.

Well I just don't know what to think.

I always thought Witz' family was the exception, not the rule. I know them to be hellacious ~ rabid even.

You could hold faith all you wanted to with a family like that and they would only hurt you more, as they have done with Witz, time and time again.

But I thought they were the exception.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I'm sure that we are an exception, and that there are more than one exceptional (sorry for the seeming misuse) families like mine. I think that a part of what makes my family seem extra-exceptional is that somehow we have avoided criminal life. We're a functioning broken family. My older brother has been on the fringes of criminality, and I still have my concerns about M (his juvenile record is behind him), but I think there are a lot of families like mine, but most of them don't have the advantages that we had.

I also look at it in the terms of incidental percentages. ie: The Muscular Dystrophy I have occurs in 1 of every 20,000 births - pretty rare. But it happens. Every once in a while I'll meet a doctor who has treated someone who is not related to me and also has it, but it is really rare. That's how I look at the similarities in MWM's and my family situation. Exceptional but not impossible.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Sadly, I don't believe "When we know better we do better." All of our children and our difficult child parents KNOW better. They weren't brought up not seeing kindness and choose to turn away from it. They are so into their own misery and power that they DON'T do better. They want US to do better for THEM. More, more, more. What can YOU do for me lately?
It is on purpose, in my opinion. I don't expect most who seem to have always been inherently bad people to ever change. I don't think they mull over what happens to them. I don't think they are teachable.

I think my father does indeed have something in this for him. I can't think of any time he has ever done anything altruistic without expecting huge kudos or he'd take it back. He never did say, "I'm sorry I blamed you for my own mistake and said such horrible things to you, things that no father says to his daughter, I was wrong, wrong, wrong."

He just wants "us" (as if we were both participating in the hate) to put it behind us.

I did not feel warm and fuzzy. I did not think "Ah, he actually saw the light." We have done this before a nd he is the same old jerk he always is. He must be shocked that I don't give a flip about his inheritance, but I don't. I don't even want it. It screws up my benefits. For anyone who is conservative or a libertarian and thinks I shouldn't get any, I am NOT sorry...lol. I am explaining. His inheritance is a waste that I have to spend only on certain things and in one month and I wish he'd give it to one of my kids or all of them. But he won't. I brought it up to him and he answered as if he hadn't even been listening to me, which was probably true.

I believe narcissists and antisocials may learn how to evade the law better as they get older, but that they do not become empathetic or nice people. They are just beginning to have success with borderlines WHO WANT TO CHANGE, which is NOT the vast majority. I think about this issue in a radical acceptance way. It is what it is. He is what he is. He doesn't have the emotions or insight to know how to change so he won't change.

My biggest regret is that I've lived with so many personality disordered people so I know too much about it...lol.

As for my Dad, he took a hit in my respect parade with his last incident. I may love him as my father, although I love many people way more than him, but I don't respect him. And if he doesn't call me xxxx amount of days, I don't notice, "Hey, Dad hasn't called." He isn't really a big part of my life. He never has been. I have almost no memories of him as a father since he was never home other than the Sunday morning fights that grew semi-violent with my baiting, crazed mother. He never participated in our childhood at all and that continues to this day.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
MWM... in my experience. they DON'T know better. They don't WANT to know better, because of course that would mean having to face the true picture about themselves. But, living with what I have for relatives, I am convinced that they really don't know better. Any other way of doing things doesn't fit with their warped view of the world, and as their view is right, the warp has to be in everything else... They really don't get it.

Which is why we pay such a high price for trying to help them get it?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
IC, you actually make a good point. Their brains are wired so weirdly that they may not know better. But they are not mentally challenged and if they were to observe that they do things differently and it doesn't' work and wanted to change it, maybe they could?? I don't know. All I know is that they are not normal people with normal thought processes and that their "not normal" is not nice. They do seem to have a real lack of empathy which makes them selfish to dangerous.

All I know is that, whatever "it" is or whatever they can or can not learn, I am not longer interested in being an active member of their damaged lives unless they can be trained, sort of like dog training, to act nicer. My son is responding well to this. I really don't enjoy comparing my intelligent son to being dog-trained, but...I don't know how else to describe it.

On the other hand my fahter is way beyond my son and has never ever ever seen how he treats others as "bad." I believe he thinks he is a good person, even when he was telling his girlfriend, who has a totally disabled daughter in a wheel chair, that they have too man ***** handicapped parking spots and it's *****. Why she put up with him until her death only she knew. Why anyone puts up with him only they know.

I'm not playing with narcissists and anti-socials anymore.

Thanks for your thought provoking post :)
 
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