It’s like an unimaginative Gossip Girl plot line; son of adversarial, traumatic divorce, grows up as selfish, emotionally absent and philandering husband, has daughter who marries same.
It’s been over four years since everything exploded and I was left with the irrefutable fact that putting myself back together and the inevitable divorce would hurt like hell. Coupled with the knowledge that I had do it alone. And along the way I began to understand why. I know I am still grieving for the little girl that never felt good enough for him. Desperate for his attention, for him to notice me, I translated the fucked-up reality, as love. And every bloke I’ve been with, has been patterned at least in part, on what I learnt from him. Intellectually, I understand the psychology of the relationship, but I can’t let go of a good portion of anger towards my father. Or completely forgive him. Yet I know this would make a huge and positive difference to both of us.
And he’s coming to stay in three weeks.
Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it’ ~ Rumi
Comments
Wow. This is very powerful.
I am realizing similar aspects of my life these days. (How I seek acceptance and approval from men and then equate that with love. Ugh.)
Thank you for articulating this.
I send you peace, light, and healing.
(Just found your blog through Leonie. *So* glad to have done so!)
I can sort of relate to this – my father was only around in a patchily consistent way and I’ve grown up with virtual complete indifference to him. Worry not about forthcoming descent of parent – just go with it and see what happens.
I’m lucky, I have a very good relationship with my very wonderful parents, and yet I married a man who turned out to be selfish, unambitious, lazy slob, and then lived with someone who was just the opposite but then ended up being shallow. I think the reason I stayed in each relationship so long because of my good relationship with my wonderful parents: I’m afraid to disappoint people.
When you say “coming to stay” you mean a hotel right? Because distance is a good thing….
thanks all for your comforting words. i have a theory that the bloggers i love were the slightly un-cool kids at school i alwsys felt most comfortable with :)
Judearoo: exactly Larkin!
Very Philip Larkin. Dont beat yourself up over this, most people carry something similar about with them. Think of all you are and have achieved IN SPITE of it…
Parents do tend to leave deep impressions (is ‘scars’ a better word here?) on their children. As we grow up, we must try and overcome these inhibitions. If we manage to forgive our well-meaning parents at the same time, that’s just the cherry on top.
Hope the visit goes well. :)
You could be talking about my life except a Dad who left before I was born and an abusive grandfather. It took years to come to terms with why I continued to sabotage myself in relationships. The first step to healing is awareness which you recognized
Oh, this is spooky timing. I recently began seeing a therapist because I recognized I was repeating patterns ad nauseum.
So therapist says to me: “We are attracted to what we know and then TRY TO CHANGE IT”. In other words, we recognize the flaws in our fathers and our childhood traumas and so by understanding how hurt we were and still are — so deeply! — we keep seeking out “dad” in new relationships with those “blokes” time and time again so we can fix history with the men who have dad’s qualities. In other words, we try to fix our childhood traumas by replaying them with our new men and trying to fix them.
I don’t know any woman who hasn’t said at one time or another “I really love him but I just wish he would change.”
Make sense? You’re welcome. That will be 90 quid. ;-)
It’s so clichéd, but so true, that our parents become a kind of subconscious template on which we base relationships with others and with ourselves throughout our lives. While it can be a wonderful thing if one has wonderful parents, those of us without such luck must do the best we can to deal constructively with the huge negative impact our parents can have on so many things. It sounds like you’re making a bloody good start on this stuff, sas, and I’m sending you lots of hugs for the weeks ahead. Hope the visit pans out all right and that you can find some peace for yourself on this sometime soon.
Oh sas, you know I totally relate to this.
Wishing you lots of strength for the coming visit x
I struggle with something similar. It hasn’t affected my relationships (amazingly), but I’m only starting to realize how it has shaped me in other ways. I wish I could reach out to him and close a chapter in a way, so I can move on. Maybe this is your opportunity to do just that?
I was reminded, for some reason, of the Andrew Gold song ‘Lonely Boy’ (which says more about my taste in music than anything else). I’m rarely good at insight stuff, seems a bit rude to someone I don’t know, but I do understand the not being good enough for Dad thing. It’s only been in the last few years I’ve felt on equal terms with him. I hope the visit is tolerable.
There are just so many of us. So many horrible relationships as a result. Oddly – or not – I’ve ended up happy in a relationship with a man who is still partly like my father but also is the product of that situation and that mutual experience really binds us.
My father lives three miles away. I see him maybe twice a year. I hope your visit is bearable.
I hope his visit helps in your healing. That Rumi quote is wonderful.