The Prodigal Father. What to do?

mrcow

So how are you feeling now that you have sent the email and got the reply that you did? Are you glad you sent it? Or wish you hadn't?

This is obviously eating you up, but I can't see a way round it. He should want you for who you are - on terms that suit you both. Anything else shouldn't be acceptable and for you to still want it, although understandable is doing you more harm than good.

As i said earlier in the thread, your relationship with your daughter is surely more important (or not?). Why you think that your father will change after all this time is what's confusing. He sounds just as self centered (note the unspecified "health conditions") as always. To think he'll change towards you (unless there is something he wanted) isn't rational.

GotToChange

I think that I felt it was fairest to be honest about how my life is (he would see this as blaming him) - if only to stop further nastiness (you would think...); I couldn't really see a way forward if our "relationship" was to be nothing more than exchanging pleasantries (given his inital - certainly out of the blue - attack on me back in the summer, which gave a new meaning to deep and meaningful and certainly harked back to history, which is something he WILL NOT tolerate from others -i.e. me).

I don't know if I am glad that I told him "the truth" - in my world, that wouldn't prompt the kind of reply that he sent to me. But I do forget that this is typical for him (I have found recently many letters along the same lines - one of which was just before my wedding - too many years ago to count) and how could I know for sure that he hadn't changed. These health concerns that he mentions (something that has done in the past also) have to remain a mystery - which would mean that he would want to know nothing about me beyond the superficial. I know that I have never know it but is this really all I can expect from a Father/Daughter relationship.

My relationship with my daughter has been a casualty of my own "dysfunctionality" - although I was the perfect mother (under fraught circumstances) for many many years and certainly her entire childhood. She has certainly turned out better, stonger and more successful than I so I feel a little comforted by that. I have written to her from my heart and am happy to say that - without meaning it to - my communication with her is the polar opposite of that which I have had with either of my parents. She too has had to deal with a s****y Father who has more interest in himself, his girlfriend and HER children than his own daughter; he is a pig of the highest order. He also has an overbearing Mother (much like my own Father) whose good intentions only mask a domineering nature - supporting her son to the nth degree without real consideration of the longer-term consequences. My daughter and I got caught up in that and I wasn't strong enough to withstand it; I have not acquired the necessary strength over time so am still failing my daughter in some senses but I know that I have done all I can this Christmas to let her know that - despite every single negative influence or factor in both of our lives - she is loved by her Mother and always will be.