When I started this thread I was thinking solely on the physical plane, but the below clip just popped up in my feed and pretty much ruined my evening. It reminded me how much I've psychologically and emotionally struggled in this life due to having an absent father. It's really painful to be rejected by your own father. Just as I thought I was over it something like this just takes the wind out of my sails and cripples me. It's extremely frustrating knowing that I'll be dead in less than 30 years and probably never be able to forgive my dad. I haven't spoken to him in 3 years and probably never will again. I just don't understand how a man can bring a child into this world and neglect it and pretend like the child doesn't even exist? If I had a child out there somewhere in the world and we were somehow seperated or estranged I wouldn't be able to sleep at night until I had brought the child back under my wing and resolved the situation.
I'm not sure what to do? I suppose there's just some things in this life that you have to accept and learn to live with.
WARNING: Language
My parents were each one of eleven, each one of them had ten siblings they didn't know how to be parents they had no idea what they were doing, they didn't learn anything from their parents as to how to be parents. It showed and quite frankly it kinda sucked, my mom did her best but she ultimately just fell in line with my dad and my dad worked 7 days a week morning to night. The only time I saw my dad really was when he came home from work late at night or when I went to work, he was a business owner I always worked there too and we joke a lot that his motto was always "work harder not smarter". I didn't have a good relationship with my father growing up, actually that's not the right way to put it maybe I should say I didn't have a normal relationship with him because we were close but it just was shitty it's hard to explain. My father was tough, EXTREMELY old world old fashioned and calling him the salt of the earth would be an understatement. I always honored my father he was my father no matter what and it meant the world to me to make him proud but it was difficult growing up with a father who just didn't have emotions towards you unless it was negative and dismissive, I still joke today that my fathers favorite thing to tell me since I was a toddler was "Franco you dumb stupid lazy you not smart like me"....to him that was supposed to motivate me and I heard it a lot
. We lived like shit, not because we had to live like shit but because my father just wanted for nothing. Vacations, family trips, electronics, decent cars, decent house, remodeling, new furniture, decent clothes, just presentable things in general....HA! Those things were for wealthy rich people we couldn't have that stuff, at least that's what I thought growing up anyway. Family traditions, opening gifts on Christmas morning, going to a ball game, saying "I love you" and asking "how was your day son" things like that....yea those things weren't real people only do that stuff on tv I thought. When I became older and realized that my dad was actually very successful he just himself didn't care about those things so that meant we didn't have them and really he didn't need to work so much and be absent if he didn't want to be....I resented him more. He wasn't involved in my personal life he was too busy working, got beat up in elementary school every other day oh well that sucks there wasn't anyone to help or talk to, state wrestling finals I was the only one who didn't have a parent there, school events nobody showed up and I didn't expect them to, parental advice, support and guidance hell even teach you how to ride a bike naw none of that.....really I raised myself the only thing I got from my parents was work ethic and discipline which are not bad things obviously but I definitely didn't grow up the way I saw all my friends grow up in the little leave it to beaver town we lived in. When I needed something or I had a problem I didn't go to my parents I just handled it, there was no point in going to my parents and I didn't expect them to handle it I was on my own and I even hid my problems because I didn't want to bother them with it. Why the hell would I go to my parents it's my problem not theirs, that's just how I was trained and I didn't think anything of it.
That's just how it was, I didn't see it as something wrong that's just how it was. It wasn't until I started getting older when I understood things better that I started to become resentful for it, it's a longer back story but I realized it didn't have to be that way my father and to a lesser extent my mother just chose for it to be that way. My father is a very good man and he always was a very good man anyone who knows him speaks the world of him, he never had ill intent that's just who he was and how he wanted to live so that was how we lived. My father didn't drink he didn't gamble he didn't go out and do bad things he actually lived a very clean honorable life it wasn't anything like that it was just who he was.
My 20's were when it became especially bad, I was angry for a very long time because the older I became and was expected to take control of things in my family the more I realized how it didn't have to be that way at all. I always thought that me and my father were a team and I was always a good team player, when I became older and started doing bigger things I needed my teammate and realized I just never had one the whole time there really was no team....I was on my own. I was never disconnected from my father it was actually the opposite as I got older he needed my help more than ever and for lack of a better and much longer explanation he just kinda gave up entirely and dumped everything on my head just when I was trying to make my way in the world which made me even more angry. I almost don't want to say this and I would never say this to someone who knows me or my family but my father became worthless, he became a net negative to my life and it wasn't because of old age or health he was still young and very capable. The tiny thread of help and support that he gave to me instead of being a total anchor just snapped one day and that was it and it's been that way ever since, he became the embodiment of the total opposite of who I was raised to be, who he raised me to be. Much longer explanation to all of that but I'm already rambling here.
Again none of this is out of ill intent and my father is a very good man who is highly respected and spoke of by everyone who knows him, that's just who he was and who he is, I know I keep saying that but it's the truth. He didn't want bad for me that was just how he did things and all he knew, in his head he was doing right for me. I've accepted that and choose to look at the strength it gave me instead of how it held me back.
In the end the only thing I can say about it is he's my father no matter what. Now that he's old it's actually kinda funny that he wants to pretend he was father of the year, now he cares about traditions and doing things as a family. Don't get me wrong I still get frustrated with him a lot but I've let go of the resentment and I do recognize that he has come to understand that he did wrong which is why he tries to overcompensate now. Watching my dad trying to be loving towards me when I went 40 years with none of that is a real trip, I have to just laugh sometimes. He's getting older and won't be here forever, it still means a lot to me to make him proud.
It did make me strong I will always say that much.
I didn't mean to go into mother goose mode again but I wanted to give some backstory to show you that I understand how you feel instead of just sounding like a jackass and just say "be the bigger man". But now that the story is told....brother can you be the bigger man for your father?
