Not going to His Church (the capital in this case meaning Dear Old Dad) seems to be one of the points, from previous posts. I can’t recall what’s Opal’s exact affiliation, if any, but he reminds me of my Mom getting mad because I wasn’t going to Mass every Sunday while working the weekend shift (she almost fainted when she found out I was going every Thursday instead and that this met with her parish priests’ approval :p).
He’s one of those guys for whom things have to be My Way Or The Highway. You can simply do anything right with those, even if you do things Their Way it’s never perfect enough. And if you get it perfect, then “it” suddenly becomes so easy as to be completely unremarkable. And yes, I’m projecting.
Well done, Opal - it’s a tough thing to do but you will be the one who benefits from it. I think the best thing you can do is send cards and/or gifts to the family members you want to, but do it without the expectation of anything in return. You can’t know for sure what influence he has over the others and whether that extends to banning them from contact with you, sinner that you are. I think it’s good that you want to keep in touch with the rest of the family, but only do it so long as it makes you feel good - don’t regard it as a chore, and if it become so, then stop.
I’m not a Christian is the big one. I am one of those people who believes in a far more vague “higher power” and not his concept of a god, and I don’t participate in organized religion. Then there is the fact that I live with my boyfriend and we’re not married, too.
The stuff in the past that makes him think I’m a bad person is too long to list, but I hit on the highlights in my very long livejournal post (which I don’t expect anyone to read, but if you were curious, it’s there.)
My 5 brothers and sisters range from 8-14 in ages, and one of my sisters has Down Syndrome. All 5 have been homeschooled their entire lives, and currently live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee (they used to live in Florida and had at least contact with neighborhood kids, but now they don’t live in a neighborhood, they live on an 8 acre place with a farm next door). I worry about their ability to deal with “the real world” when they grow up His wife had a son who was 11 when they got married. He was also homeschooled. When he moved out of the house at 18 he robbed a gun store with a buddy and did several years in prison.
To give a minor example of the way my dad is when it comes to me: when I was in 8th grade I lived with him for a year (my parents got divorced when I was still a baby and I lived with my mom in AZ growing up; my dad lived in FL). We were eating dinner one night and suddenly my dad made a funny noise and face. I giggled for a second because I didn’t know what it was about. My dad is a silly person (I really like his sense of humor). He then told me that he’d bitten his tongue and berated me for what an evil person I was to laugh at his pain, and how it showed that I had no empathy as a person. As soon as I realized he’d bitten his tongue I stopped laughing and started apologizing and explaining why I’d laughed. He refused to believe me that I didn’t realize it was a pain thing when I laughed. He still continues to bring it up as an example of how I didn’t care about other people, and that happened in 1986. He still doesn’t believe me that I wasn’t laughing at his pain–just what I perceived as a startling and funny noise he made.
I should add to be fair that I’m bipolar and wasn’t medicated at all until I was about 21, before which I was pretty hard to deal with at times, and didn’t get on a really effective medication until about 2001. So he’s definitely seen me “not at my best” before. However, aside from one year in jr. high and 6 months when I was 17, I’ve never lived within a thousand miles of him and he does not know what I’m like as a person at all. His experience of me is typically a long weekend here or there, or sometimes a whole week, in a vacation setting once every year or two, and from that he thinks he knows exactly “what I’m like” and what kind of person I am.
In one of his emails to me in the last few days he says
Which is laughable. Anybody who knows me in person knows that I’ve made massive changes over the last several years, for one thing. For another, he is in no position to say whether I am or am not, seeing as how he never spends any time with me and rarely bothers to call me on the phone. How he thinks that he has any perspective from which to judge that is beyond me.
(The rest of that paragraph in that email goes like this, just to give you a little clearer idea of the kind of person he is)
Opal - I understand how you feel, too. I never realized so many of us had toxic parents. Perhaps that is why we are here, constantly seeking knowledge & insight. Who knows why they are the way they are. (Recently, I gave my eldest daughter permission to shoot me if I ever started behaving toward her & her siblings the way my father has toward me.)
As for your half-sibs, my motto has been that I will interact with people I choose to interact with. I make no differentiation between those that I share genetic links with and those that I do not. If you want to be with these people, I think you should do so.
I’m no expert on the Bible (unless reading 3 pages of it qualifies me) but it would seem there must be plenty of retorts in there if you chose to use them. E.g. “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
That’s scary stuff about their living arrangements, homeschooling, etc. It strikes me as one of the best reason to have a public education—and by that I mean “out in public” at least, even it’s a private school. Depriving kids of a peer group outside their family is a really bad idea even under the best of circumstances.
There is one person who you need to take care of and make numero uno in your life - You.
If you are not safe you cannot take care of your son, so there is the order. You -> your son.
Remember to breathe. I commend your courage Opal. Have you read the book Toxic Parents ? By your words it appears you may have. It is a wonderful book.
Good luck in your endeavor, my wish for you is that he no longer haunt you, and you grow forth without him. I picture you as a huge beautiful Beech Tree, strong, rooted and wise. I’ll send that vibe out to the universe for you.
Not surprising. They never do. Whether they claim that they’re not judging, God is, or that they’re not judging, just warning sinners, it’s never them being judgmental. It’s always them loving you SOOOO much that they just can’t stand to see you burn for eternity on orders from their sociopathic deity.
To me, that’s about the worst hypocrisy there is. So many people want to debate the Bible. Of course, our first objection is that just because it’s written there doesn’t make it true, any more than every story in the National Enquirer is true. Can they corroborate the Bible with any independent sources, for example? They tell you “It says in the Bible…” like this is a given we don’t have to question it, test it, etc. because it’s the treasured “word of God.”
But ok, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose it is. When you take something from that same “word of God” and turn it on them, and they should just salute it and fall in line, right? Never seems to work that way. :smack: :mad:
I haven’t spoken to my terribly toxic father in nearly twenty years. One of the best choices I’ve ever made. And I’m not alone, either; he’s managed to alienate almost every one of his relatives. Neither his brother nor mother talks to him, in fact. For my part, I don’t even really think about him anymore, either; I don’t dwell at all on the choice. He comes to mind only when somebody asks directly, or when there’s a relevant life question like about medical history or something. As somebody said above, first you turn your back, and then you become entirely indifferent. Don’t let the man live in your heart, at all, or you’ll be controlled by his memory just as effectively as if he were standing right next to you.
Be very, very cautious about this kind of thing. It’s okay to throw it out as a very occasional lighthearted explanation for why you’ve chosen to cut off contact with whoever-it-is, but you definitely don’t want to be seen as trying to recruit that person’s children/siblings/etc to “your side.” If you give off any hint that you’re maintaining contact with your father’s children (your half-brothers-and-sisters) because you want them to agree with your assessment of his character and cut off contact with him themselves, you will be judged to be just as divisive and toxic an influence as he is. Make absolutely certain that anything you say along these lines is an unambiguous explanation for your own choice, and not an argument or inducement in favor of anyone else’s.
Welcome to freedom. It’s going to feel great. Trust me.
I completely agree with this statement. Why is it allowable to divorce a spouse who is abusive, manipulative, and toxic in every way, why can’t we divorce a parent or sibling? That’s what I did with my sister, and it saved my sanity and my life. A sibling or filial divorce is sometimes as necessary as a spousal one.
Right on. Take the high road. I think young kids especially can sense this stuff. If you are able to maintain contact with them, I wouldn’t talk about him at all. If pressed, say something like “We have our differences” and let it go at that. You’re a bigger person than he is, and they’ll know that your interest is in them despite him, not because of him.
It wouldn’t surpirse me if this has something to do with why your dad acts like this. Bipolar disorder, as you may know, is very influenced by genetics, so it kind of makes me wonder if maybe he is suffering from some form of mental disorder that is not severe enough to have brought him to medical attention but is bad enough to cause this chaos in your family. Some of the things he says and believes do sound like someone who is a bit out of touch with reality. I mean the theme that you are “plotting” against him and that sort of thing. That sounds like the kind of thing someone who genuinely does have paranoid delusions would think.
Anyway, if that is in fact the case, it’s definitely important to remember that no amount of trying to explain things or reason with him will ever be enough to convince him - you can’t talk someone out of a delusion - so you can either choose not to talk to him at all like this, or if you decide it’s worth it to to you to maintain contact with your siblings, just try to ignore the stuff that bothers you and not even get into Discussions over it.
Opal - sorry to hear that things have had to go this way but it sounds like a truly toxic relationship and one you’re better off not preserving. As others have said, try to maintain some sort of contact with the half-sibs and perhaps the stepmother, even if you don’t actually visit. I had an oftentimes uneasy relationship with my own parents - never as hostile and mean as you describe, but they surely never understood me - but the only relative I’ve had to cut out of my life completely was one brother… who is a pathologically nasty person. At least in my case, the cutoff is a joyous one that I’d wanted for 4 decades, rather than the painful one you’re dealing with.
I haven’t spoken to my father in about ten years. I still keep in touch with my grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles on his side.
The visits, letters, and emails are all very pleasant, but always somewhat distant and formal. The specter of my father is always the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I don’t want to accuse my grandparent’s son of being a bastard (and perhaps make them feel like failures as parents by extension), and they don’t want to question me too closely about why we’re estranged. We keep barriers up for both our sakes’. I will never, never be as close to his side of the family as I am with my mother’s. But it’s enough for me to have some familial connection, even if it is strained, and even if it will never be as close as I would hope.
I am reminded to be thankful, almost every day, that both my parents have always been sane, responsible, and genuinely supportive of my sister and me, even when we’ve been little shits. I read threads like this and am truly amazed I got so lucky.
That said, I had to “divorce” myself, in the “I can’t stay sane and also keep caring any more” way, from my best friend, when I was in my early 20s. It ended up being a good thing for both of us. I think. She’s much better now – I enjoy her company in visits and emails, though I don’t think we could ever be so close as we were. I can only try to imagine what that would be like with a parent. I’m sorry you’re having to do it.
Ever since I married and became a step-parent, my ability to deal with difficult relatives has improved; I just put them in the “horrible people my beloved spouse has brought into my life” category, and dealt with them as I would difficult co-workers.
My relationship with my father was like yours, but over the past fourteen years, I have come to appreciate his strong points, forgive him his weakness, and find again the love I once had.
Yeah, he died in 1994.
That sounds just like my older sister. I adore her, and she is one of my best friends. I do admit, I have accepted that when she plans something, it will go her way or I will hear about it for the rest of my life.
(Is anyone else reading this whole thread just to feel a bit better about their own family in comparison?)
His wife had a son who was 11 when they got married. He was also homeschooled. When he moved out of the house at 18 he robbed a gun store with a buddy and did several years in prison.