If you as a parent behave in such a way as to place upon your children the burden of your unacceptable behavior regarding their other parent, then they get a free pass to carry that burden any way they can. And the only acceptable response from you at this juncture is to apologize profusely and possibly try to help them heal from the damage you inflicted upon them. If you can manage that. If not, then at least try to refrain from inflicting more damage by insisting that your child be the one to hand out justice on your behalf lest you should pout like a spoilt baby.
People who behave like adults – that is, who remain within the limits of social acceptability regarding their exes – generally get invited to the wedding. People who don’t, often don’t. As it should be.
This is not about justice. It’s about taking people for granted and respect.
Your mother is not like this with anyone but your father - as far as you’ve said in this thread. It seems as if you and she have atleast a somewhat decent relationship. She didn’t give you any crap when you told her about not having a ceremony and then she made the effort to get atleast a token gift.
But instead of correcting her assumption and inviting her to your wedding - you chase down your father who hasn’t shown much interest in your life and when he does show up, it’s too little, too late.
Do you expect your mother to be at the birth of your child?
I feel for you, Maastricht. I’m going through something similar - currently four months pregnant, and dealing with parents who have let me down all my life.
One thing I came to realize in therapy is that while sometimes I don’t think I have expectations, I really do - I just might not be clear on what they are. For example, when I moved back to California years ago, I decided to try and have a great relationship with my dad. I had realized how alike we are and how many interests we share. The problem? My dad didn’t cooperate. He was stiff and formal and avoiding, and his wife was a real pain in the ass. I realized that just because I decided I want a good relationship with my dad doesn’t mean he is willing or able to have one! That was a major disappointment for me.
And my mother - she just doesn’t know me. She never has. The woman couldn’t shut up about what a “surprise” my wedding was - long story short, it was as if she thought I was the same person I was 16 years ago, so everything I did outside of that box was a shock to her. It was extremely hurtful. Again, I didn’t think I expected anything from her except to show up - but I did expect things from her, like respect and interest, I just didn’t realize it until I didn’t get them.
One thing that has helped me is to really try and find these expectations within myself. They are the source of any pain my parents do to me now. But with the prospect of starting my own family, I find that my parents bother me less and less. My priorities are shifting away from my “old” family and focusing on my new family. My advice (free, and worth every penny!) is to do your best to let go, and move on with your life. As someone upthread said, your dad is not going to change now. You are angry and disappointed because your dad didn’t take an active interest in your wedding - why did you have that expectation? Probably because that would be the normal behavior for a parent. But was it a realistic expectation for your father? Probably not. That doesn’t make it okay, but it can serve as a model for taking a hard look at your expectations for when the baby comes. It could save you a lot of pain.
I’d like to say that you’ve made a couple of assumptions here - that the OP has “at least a somewhat decent relationship” with her mother. Nothing in the OP or later posts leaves me thinking she’s at all close to her mother. Her mother may well have been more physically present, but the sort of bitter divorce the OP alludes to can often leave the caretaker parent as emotionally distant as the ‘abandoning’ parent. In fact, that the OP took steps to keep her mother away from the ceremony goes a long way towards implying to me that she doesn’t have a very good relationship with her mother, either. I may be wrong about this, and even if I’m correct, I don’t know why that might be. But, it does mean that I think you’re beginning your argument from false premises when you consider the OP’s situation.
More to the point, the only people who, IMNSHO, have a vote about who will or will not be at a wedding are the bride and groom. Other people may make requests, or even state expectations - but the final say is theirs. If they choose not to have the bride’s mother, that’s her choice. Similarly, if they want the bride’s father’s wife to butt the fuck out, that’s their choice, too.
By presenting the wedding couple with a situation where everyone involved is convinced that one parent cannot behave like an adult around another parent, it’s the wedding couple’s choice whom they want at the ceremony. There’s no obligation to oblige one party, or another. If you want to talk about parent-child relationships in terms of obligations, I’d begin with the obligation that a parent has not to make the child pick and choose between his or her parents. No matter how flawed they might be as people.
To clarify a couple of things: this “wedding” was a simple ceremony at the courthouse. It started at 9 am and was over 15 minutes later. Four guests attended. We had breakfast together afterwards and everybody was gone by noon. My dad lives a five minute walk from the courthouse. It would have taken him less time to attend then to come to my house afterwards with those damned flowers. And I didn’t go through a lot of trouble to invite my dad; I went through a lot of trouble to invite neither of my parents. When My dad said he could attend after all, my emotions told me it was more of a big deal then I had told myself; and when he fucked up even that simple arrangement, I got the bitter feelings that inspired my OP.
As for my mom; no, that’s another lousy relationship. It’s not just the bitter divorce; there’s a boatload of crap in our past, and very few positive things. But that’s another story. Suffice to say that there is far less frustrated ambivalent love towards my mom then towards my dad.
As for the birth, I told her in november that my sons’ birth would be in April. She told me, when I made a short visit last week (I can’t be near her longer then an hour or I get so irritated I lose it) that she had made arrangements to leave for her house abroad a couple of weeks before that, so she would miss the birth. Again, I was relieved.
Maastricht, I’m sorry to hear the nitty-gritty about your mom, and your relationship with her.
I wish you all the best with your new family.
Questionable advice hijack, shrunk so it’s easy to ignore if that’s what you choose:
I also hope you’ll not take the desire to provide your child with better parenting, and better parental relationships so much to heart that you drive yourself nuts trying to live up to standards no one could meet. Love them, and yourself, and do your best by your new family. Let the details take care of themselves as they come along.
This is absolutely absolutely not intended as any sort of rub-in-your-face thing against Maastricht but I just wanted to say, as hope to the rest of you out there who have poor relationships with your parents:
My relationship with my mom sucked. SUCKED. Like suicidally sucked. But when my son was born, she suddenly turned into the world’s best grandma. Everything she never was for me, she has been for my son. This is just a sort of shout-out reminder to those with crappy parent-relationships not to give up. They may surprise you in the end.
This is a shot in the dark, Maastricht, and I could be wrong, but are you sort of booby-trapping your father so he can let you down and you can add to your hoard of hurt feelings over him?
Maastricht, anything I’d say would be a repeat of things others said, except this:
I, too, parented my Mom for many years. I, too, used to collect tons of brown stamps. Things are better now, I was able to stop looking at her as “that strange person vs the Mom I’m told should be” and see her for what she was; once I did that, I was able to explain things in terms she understood and she was able to stop looking at me as “that strange person vs the Daughter I should have had”. I’ve accepted she’ll never respect my physical space and started carrying my passport on me when she’s around (she’s managed to lose two by stashing them too-safely away); she’s accepted I won’t get a late vocation and suddenly decide to become a teacher. I still need to do things like point out that I’d appreciate it if she let me do my own talking at stores, but hey, she finally listens.
Will things get better for you? I don’t know, but it can and it looks to me as if you’re at that horrible point where you finally face the reality of your parent head-on. The rest of the way goes up but is, generally, a lot easier going (or was for me).
Well, at least now we know what the point of deviation is.
I hold these truths to be self evident: That children are supposed to be able to take the good will of their parents for granted. (I would say, their parents’ love, but some of us are still on that journey). That children are supposed to be able to take their parents’ minimally decent behavior towards one another for granted. Those things are supposed to be granted.
The debts – emotional and otherwise – racked up in raising children are not supposed to be repaid by the children to the parents. If they are repaid at all, which is by no means certain, they are repaid by the grandchildren. In fairness, when this happens, the repayment is bountiful beyond human understanding.
If you as a parent resent being taken for granted because your child values the no good bum you chose as their other parent, your priorities are FUBAR and you should limit yourself to trying to stop doing further harm until you can get you head screwed on straight again.
Whenever I agree to do something or be somewhere for someone else. Look, I’m a pretty self-centered person. I am often expected to do things that I’m not that crazy about because that’s what you do if you want to maintain a positive relationship with people you supposedly care about. Saying “that’s not who I am” is a pathetic attempt to ennoble being a selfish asshole.
I don’t think expecting her Dad to act like a normal human being is unreasonable. I do believe you are correct though. He is not going to change. She needs to accept that he is for all intents and purposes absent from her life and not expect him to be a part of it. In other words, not expecting him to appear at events or even inviting him. It’s not a matter of trying to “punish” him. It’s not continually punishing herself by maintaining even the slightest hope that maybe this will be the time he shows up.
If I may make another point, I think this is the crux of the matter. Your father doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him. That’s why, in an attempt to help you, he suggested a two week trip to Africa as a cure for your ails, and your response was WTF?
Neither one of you knows each other. You should, as father and daughter, and for that I blame your father. Children don’t have a choice of being born or who their parents are, so it is up to the adults in the relationship to forge the bond.
Again, your father isn’t going to change. Trying to get the father figure you want from this man isn’t going to happen. I think you have to step back, accept him for what he is, and lay the blame for the lack of a relationship where it belongs, at his feet.
He’s 75yrs old, it’s not for you to judge if he’s happy with his life or shape his behaviour in any way.
I am a very firm believer that every upside has a downside and the reverse. Stop focusing on his shortcomings, you wouldn’t long stay in any relationship where the other was constantly judging you as ‘not enough’, attempting to shape your behaviour with their projected ‘expectations’, and focused constantly on your shortcomings. He surely has other charms, try focusing on those for a while and just be accepting of the rest. And, no, acceptance doesn’t mean you condone the behaviour. It means you possess the maturity to accept what you cannot change.
If you want a loving relationship with your Dad, in whatever capacity he’s capable of, perhaps it’s time you decided to accept who he is, lay down your baggage, and celebrate what you enjoy about him, no matter how minor. What you focus on expands, they say.
I am aware that none of this is easy to do, but acceptance is a very valuable life skill once learned, it will serve you well the rest of your days.
Sometimes I think the Gods give us family as instruction in the nature of love. To teach us that it isn’t just about manifesting love when it’s easy, but also when it’s challenging.
Have you considered therapy? I know it helped me deal with my mom, who is mentally ill in the way your parents seem to be–having a personality disorder. I bet you could find your parents on this list: Personality disorder - Wikipedia
I vote narcissistic for your dad. My mom, too, so that one is easy for me to spot.
Trying to deal with crazy people will make you crazy. You can’t change them, so try getting unstuck in your ways of dealing with them.
Saving the world is not something you succeed in. The journey is the destination. It never ends, and it benefits the world in spite of failure.
The other thing is that your dad is an emotionally selfish, frightened person. His public demeanor is a defense, and his charity protects him from being someone he himself would despise. That makes his charity his own personal self definition, and has to be attended to without relent. A sad way to live, I imagine. Success would be as big a disaster as failure.
He is 75 years old. It’s not impossible that he might change. It is not likely. A picture of his granddaughter will become a treasure to him. If it is associated with a confrontation on his quality as a father, it will become a monument to his shortcomings, and an object of great sadness, but he will not treasure less, he will just hurt more. I have a granddaughter I have never seen, and will probably never see. I know about this. Her picture is in my bedroom. It has to be there, because it makes me cry, and I don’t do that unless I am alone.
I just wanted to support this idea. In English, we have two meanings for accept - in the usage we’re not talking about here, you accept a parcel from a courier - you take it, and you bring it into your house. Acceptance as an idea in this thread is not the same - it makes no judgement; it just says that yes, I see what is there. I accept that it exists. You agree that the courier indeed has a parcel, but you don’t necessarily take it into your house (to stretch my analogy about as far as it will go. )
I also agree that this is a valuable skill, and it’s important to know the difference between the two kinds of “accept” we talk about.
Hah! The gods gave us families to teach us how to protect ourselves from other people. Either from the mistakes of others in your family, or from your own mistakes regarding them. Who else would you know well enough to know why they acted a certain way?
My mom, too, so that one is easy for me to spot.
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