a fathers day dilemma

[Purron]

Hey LGFNB,

I've been following this and just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. First of all, I really respect your effort to reconnect with your dad.

I believe you may be opening yourself up to some hurt here. Even so, nothing worthwhile is without risks and possible emotional pain. I lost my dad at the tender age of 20 and still feel a big sense of loss. There is something special about the father figure in all our lives so I can understand the turmoil you must be feeling.
Hang in there and follow your heart on this one.

 

[calmloki]

Wow Calm, sorry I did, um, something there, I'm not real sure what it was.
Congrats on your long years of marriage, we hope to be there in another 15 years!

I'm not sure what I said that referred to a "cool" father, but I did mention that my DH's dad was (and is) not really a very nice guy or supportive to DH, but DH is a fine man in spite of (or because of) that experience.

My dad is awesome, and besides my DH, is my most favorite person in the world. Most folks call me his "clone" and I worked beside him in the family business from the time I was old enough to walk beside the transplanter in the field. He's a "cool" dad.

So, yeah, sorry about whatever gotcha there, but I promise I was trying to show some love to Lazy, not PO the rest of the world. Cool?

Hope we cool! my play mode doesn't always show off well. i was responding to what i percieved as the characterization of non-demonstrative Dads as being lacking in some way. i see a certain nobility in the reserve of people like my Dad - he was not without emotion, but kept it in check, as did my honey's father. There were benefits to having that kind of father. Unfortunate that LGNB's personality and his father's didn't jibe, but i'm not sure it is his Dad's fault, or that there is any fault. Doubt that my gal would have been attracted to me had she not had the relationship with her father that she had - consider that your DH would be a very different man with a different father - and perhaps not the man with whom you would have wanted to be. Lazy is who he is through his father's influence - had his Dad stuck around Lazy could have been scared straight! or not - no idea - but it may be that his life is better for things having happened as they did. I'm with Candide: this really is the best of all possible worlds!

 

[Sarah in SC]

We are cool, Calmloki and I am appreciative of your further thoughts on the subject.

Scooter, that must be really really tough, even after all this time. I am sure sorry that it all turned out that way. It makes me think, well, of my signature line, which is my new favorite quote whenever I am tilting at windmills.
Sounds like you've done the best you can and maybe one day they'll appreciate the effort.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

while love is often a given, it can not just be taken and not returned without deteriorative effects. though trust and friendship might be first offered without prejudgement on initial contact, they are not everlasting entitlements rather subject to periodic review &, when required, withdrawal.

i am well aware of causes and effects. though i don't place blame, i do enjoy and am not afraid to explore influence and motivation even of the most deeply seeded sort. i've ignored lots of good examples and picked up on bad ones people have placed before me or tried to teach; all my doing. no excuses. mostly i’ve picked up on what amused me. i neither credit nor discredit my parents for neither how i chose to perceive the world nor how i act upon those perceptions. as i’ve always been quite a strong character, more likely i influenced them at least as much as they might have influenced me.

even with as much work as i've done to know & control myself, certainly parts of my life still require tweaking. i don't consider myself damaged even if i still can't balance a checkbook. i have very many healthy relationships, way more than ones lacking. my most intimate relationships were not based upon the one i had with dad. if anything, the relationships i patterned on the bad one i had with my father were with people who never would have had a chance with me otherwise. perhaps the damage done which made me blind to that combined with my generosity gave us the only chance we’d have had to be friends.

some people are just takers, like my father, and while i’ll grandfather existing takers in to some extent--i’ll give 75%--i've had quite enough of 3/4ths of that. there are those who simply do not know how to give. you may consider that stoic and proud. but i consider it selfish, cold & lacking. when i realized how my father's relationship with me affected some of my other relationships, i confronted some of those friends about this.

one in particular, a very good friend who was originally one of my college professors, admitted that she was not being a good friend but that this was the way she was. i told her that now that i can see our relationship more clearly, that i'd still be willing to continue giving 75%, but i wanted 25% back. i'm not giving 100% to get nothing in return and she agreed that was more than reasonable.

she loved it when i took her sailing on the lake, or boating down the intracoastal with my parents. she loved it when i called to make a dinner date. but she never called me. she loved doing things with me but never initiated contact. so i started looking closer at all those types of relationships. the people who love to hear from me but who never call. again, that's not all my relationships. i have lots of good people, some i've known since before grade school who call to say hi and visit from around the country. lovely people, healthy relationships with those who know to work to maintain friendships. people are not to be taken for granted.

so i tested my new found theory and new found powers of observation on suspect relationships. sure enough. i'd call and call and call and everything would be just fine. then i stopped calling. days, weeks, months past. like my father, they don't even know if i'm alive or dead. why associate with that? it hurt me to let them go but with my knew found recognition of this pattern, it hurt more to keep them.

i don’t believe that my dad doesn’t know any better. he’d not an idiot. i know my friends knew better because i confronted them on it. what happens is that these people either never get challenged in their life or they never accept one. they project this aura of pride but that is bull, nothing more than an excuse to avoid intimacy with those they otherwise say they love. it is avoidance to explore themselves and seek out what has caused their patterns. it is sleep. it is unconscious living.

i’m not sure what was meant by the “emotional lifestyle” or “scared straight” comments, but i certainly am not who i am due to the influence of anyone. that it might seem that anyone influenced me is merely a coincidence as i take full responsibility for me.

scooterguy’s point that those around him changed regardless of how well he tried to maintain his relationships rings very true to me. my step-sister and i see my step-father (her father) with completely different eyes, she having been fed such terrible stories by her mother since she was a child. also i lost a friend to new agism just like you lost your daughter to christianity. so sad when anyone tries to take a concept as simple as god to try to understand a concept as complex as god. and so easy to corrupt such concepts to even use them against those who love you.

purron, sorry for your loss. i have so much trouble making my way through this world even with all the help i’ve had that i think i would be a complete basketcase by now had i buried a parent so young in life. you must have great strength.

in my case, since i was so close to mom and not so close to a dad who would not allow himself to be close to me, having found my father alive right after having buried my mom, well, nice to be chatting with him again, but how oddly anticlimatic.