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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Can't figure out my dad
Post Info TOPIC: Can't figure out my dad
itsgot2bgd


Veteran Member

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Posts: 81
Date:
Can't figure out my dad
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Hi all,


I have been reading the posts and recently joined the chat room (as Elsie).  I have really enjoyed the meeting and the board as they have given me alot of wisdom.  But, I'm still struggling with an issue with my dad and I can't get peace with it.


I want to have a relationship with my dad.  There's this wall of discomfort about him when he is around me... and it makes me so nervous that I don't know what to say.  He has a great relationship/friendship w/ my step-brother and his wife.   My stepmom and he are always doing stuff with my step brother and his wife & kid, but rarely with us. We have tried blended family activities, but my step mom in the last 2years has pulled away and is no longer trying. In fact, she is initiating doing more separate things... and I don't understand how my father just stands by and lets my step mother dictate how things are.


We had my dad and my step mom over for dinner last weekend for a belated father's day dinner.  I prayed so hard for serenity and peace... hoping I'd be happy, friendly, and really enjoy this dinner. I wanted it be be honoring to him despite the fact that he hasn't been a good father or grandfather to my kids.  I had a beautiful table, I had expensive steaks, we had pleasnt conversation...  To get through the dinner, I told myself and my husband, "I'm going to treat them as a family friend...no expectations, no resentments." So, things are going well when zing!  The topic of vacation comes up.  I share that we are going to the beach and when.  Turns out my father and my stepmom are going to the same beach at the same time we are... but they are staying with my step brother, his wife and kid. I didn't know they were going tothe beach (2 years ago, when we tried a blended family vacation, it was such a disaster. My step mom said they couldn't take the heat anymore and they probably wouldn't go to the beach again. HA!)  I try not to react and say with a smile, "Wow!  Maybe we'll bump into each other!"  Neither my dad or my step mother respond to me.. not even a "yeah, maybe."  You know that awful feeling when you're left out there hanging?!!  I heard in my head "Family friend" -- I know it was God reminding me of my way of not having expectations of my father. But it was still hard.


How could they not respond?  How can a family be a family and act like this?  Why are they acting like this?  Doesn't my dad know how much it hurts me when he doesn't respond to me??


My husband just can't understand how my dad can go to the beach with my step brother, who is not his blood, with his kid, who is not really his grandson and know that I am at the same beach with his own blood relations (my children) and he doesn't make any effort to make any contact with them.  They are staying only 15 blocks away from us. How will I explain to my child (who is old enough to see that he's being left out) that his grandfather does not want to spend time with him?  Yet he spends time with the other kid? 


Tonite in the meeting (in the chat) someone shared that hope was the reason he/she had gotten into trouble...that along with it came expectations and then the resentments.  For me the hope is followed by expectations of what a normal person would do,  then having the experience of disappointment from my father, then the hurt and confusion, then the resentment.  The worst is the mind games I have to play to try to make sense of it and the mind games they (my father and step mother) play with me.  They say they love me/us.  They say I'm being too sensitive. [Am I?] They say they don't do anything more special with my stepbrother, yet they spent father's day with them and made excuses when I invited them over.


NOw. The beach thing.  My husband and I still can't get over how they could come to my house for dinner, eat a great meal, and then not respond to me when I say, "Wow, maybe we'll bump into you at the beach."  Why!!???  Why didn't my dad even say, "Hey, we should get together for breakfast or lunch."  How could he sit here and act that why?  Was he afraid of giving me a little hope?  Maybe he knows how a little hope makes me expect something of him...


I don't know if this makes sense.  I'm just so sad, so disappointed. So confused. Is it wrong to hope that you can have a relationship with your father?  Is it wrong to expect and hope that he'll love your children as much as you do and want to be with them and know them --instead of visiting them once or twice a year? It's so sad. Pathetic.  It's like I don't exist to him...and yet he has this great relationship w/ my step brother, his wife and son.  Why them, not me -- his own daughter?


I will try to hope for me instead of hoping for him as was suggested in the meeting... maybe I need to hope that I can get to the point where I realize he has nothing to offer me; maybe I'll get to the point where I'll stop grieving the loss of the relationship between he and myself and my children. Maybe I'll hope that I get to the point where I feel completely free of him and the sadness... and hope that the other relationships we have in our lives will be enough. 


anyway... thanks for being here and letting me share...


fondly,


Lee Ann


aka Elsie



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Lee Ann
iwishuheaven


Veteran Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 46
Date:
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Lee Ann:

This sounds alot like my mother-in-law. My wife and I have 2 beautiful daughters (ages 3 and 1 1/2) and they always seemed to exclude us on any family outing ever since we had kids. They would always go places with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who have no children. My wife got sick of being left out and got togeher for coffee with her mother alone and called her mother on it. Of course the MIL denied it and they argued a bit. my MIL ingnored us for about 2 weeks and we made sure not to give in and call them. Sure enough after the 2 weeks she called us and wanted to get together so she can see our girls. That whole conversation was never spoken of as far as I know but now we are included in everything. Even if they know we can't go they still ask. I am not saying this is the way to solve your problem but I thought I would share our story with you. There is hope out there I think you just need to speak to your dad alone about it and maybe let your father know that you want your him to spend more time with his grandchildren.

Mike.

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itsgot2bgd


Veteran Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 81
Date:
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Dear Mike,


Thank you for taking the time to think and respond.  Unfortunately,  1 1/2 years ago, I had a phone conversation with my father during which I confronted him.  I gave him all kinds of examples of times when we felt left out or hurt or treated differently.  He denied them all or didn't respond.  I even went so far as to say that I was glad my stepbrother's child has a good relationship with him -- but my children also deserve a relationship with him.  I asked him if we were doing something wrong, if he didn't like my husband/children/home.  He said it was nothing and that I was being too sensitive.  When I told him that the kids need him (they don't need gifts), he said he knew but nothing changed.


This past spring, I invited my father to have lunch with me via a personal email.  He forwarded it to his wife who responded to me: "I think having lunch with your father is a great idea. I have never stood in between you and your father." My father never responded to me.  What is that? Was it wrong to say that I wanted to have a relationship with him and even though I'm 44 I 'd still like to think I was his little girl.  Not that I am his little girl - but you know, implying a close relationship. I was so sad when he didn't respond and infuriated that he sent a personal email to my stepmother.  It's like some weird head game and I don't know why it's happening. Did I do something wrong? It makes me crazy b/c I think I'm acting normally and then I get a weird response and then I doubt myself. Then I think I must have some internal defect that my own father doesn't want to have a relationship with me or my children.


I just don't know.


The only thing I think I can do is let go of him.... but I hate to do so for the sake of the kids.  However, I have to question what they get out of the few interactions they have with him as compared to the major head tricks it plays on me.


Anyway, it's worth praying about.  I do want to do the right thing so that when he dies, I have no regrets.


thanks again for your thoughts and your experience, strength and hope!


Lee Ann



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Lee Ann
Gailey


~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 895
Date:
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{{{LeeAnn}}}

Don't really have any ESH to offer as I have never had to deal with a step parent.

I think you should just pray to you HP to please open your eyes as to know and feel the love that your dad has for you. Pray for acceptance of your dad traveling his own path. For him to forward that email to step mother... it seems he might just have some kind of problem dealing with his decision making on his own. I am sure it has nothing to do with his love for you but more to do with the relationship he is in and his own problems.

You are so right to pray and let it go. You must do this for your own well being and that of your own children.

YFIR...Gail

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Gail
nycbt


~*Service Worker*~

Status: Offline
Posts: 810
Date:
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Welcome to MIP. You are not alone. There a lot of people who understand.


 


 


 


World Service Organization Website –


 


WWW.al-anon.alateen.org


 


Alanon meetings 1-888-425-2666


Chat room is open 24/7 there here the link to www.mipchat.net or http://www.12stepforums.net/chatroom2.html 


 


Here are some things that have helped me since in the program.


 


 



  • Go face to face meeting & online meeting.
  • post on the board here on the site. I have gotten a lot of good feed back.

 


·        In this program u learn that u have choices. In Alanon we don’t give advice but only suggestions.


 


·        Set support system.  people do not judge. You need someone who can go for coffee on a bad day, or pick up a phone and call when in trouble. The support is what is important when you first this program.


 


 



  • Have a sponsor. Someone work one on one with you.

 


You don’t have to do this the minute u come to the program but I suggest that u do it when u can. It help.


 


 Meeting schedule: meetings are in here and run approximately 90 minutes from: Monday-Friday, 9 am and 9 pm EST, Saturday: 10 am and 9 pm EST, Sunday: 10 am and 7 pm EST. Topics are selected by participants at meeting time. UK +5 hours, central -1 hour, mountain -2 hours, pacific -3 hours. Open chat all other times.



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Hey everyone watch me grow. I go thru good & bad times. each day i am getting stronger.
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