agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Carolyn: Eight years ago, my dad cheated on my mom and ended their marriage. A month after the divorce, my dad married his mistress. While her adult children were in the wedding party, neither my brother nor I were even invited. I didn’t meet her until a year later, when I was told she didn’t feel comfortable with me staying with them in the house I grew up in, and they demanded I leave. The one other time I have seen him in the years since, she insisted on chaperoning the visit.

Now my dad insists he wants a relationship with me, but he reaches out only sporadically, and only with superficial emails — updates on his favorite baseball team, etc. — as though nothing has happened. He rarely answers my calls, and when she is in the room, he will usher me off the phone as quickly as possible.

I have written him exhaustive emails telling him how badly he has hurt me and how I need more of a reckoning to move forward. These have been met with unwillingness to engage.

I am tired of being hurt and sad. I don't want to lose my dad forever, but I don't know how to reconcile if he doesn't want to put in any real effort. I live abroad, so a low-stakes in-person meeting isn't possible.

Is there a third option that is neither cutting him off completely nor accepting this status quo?

— Still Hurt

Still Hurt: Abuse.

It's not directly about your relationship with him, but the possibility your dad married an abuser might change how you view him and the quality of his effort. The hallmarks are there in your description:

· She’s isolating your dad from his people;

· She is so controlling and possessive that she supervises him with others she finds threatening, instead of managing any perceived risk with trust and communication;

· She finds you threatening solely based on your place in his family tree, and not on any knowledge of you as a person;

· She applies self-serving standards in making these decisions, deeming her children suitable but not his.

His sporadic, superficial attempts at contact also fit the profile of someone grasping for ways to contact you that don't trigger a spousal crackdown. He quite possibly screens your calls because he knows he can't answer without paying dearly for it.

Obviously your dad has a lot of bad behavior to answer for himself. No excuses. But there’s also nothing to say his now-wife’s possessiveness and control weren’t already in force long before they wed.

So here’s what I suggest: View your father’s actions through the lens of his attachment to an extremely controlling person. It might explain what has seemed inexplicable to you, like his professing to care about reconciling with you while mustering only a sporadic effort toward it. It might explain why “this status quo” isn’t actually the face-slap you’ve believed it to be, and instead grounds to stay patient and in touch.

Do some reading on abuse — chapter 10 of “The Gift of Fear,” by Gavin De Becker, or the flashcard version from One Love. See for yourself if this third option fits — and if it does, then consider he’s not holding out on you, he’s just giving what little is left.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/06/25/carolyn-hax-father-divorce-mistress-abusive-relationship/

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I really don't like this answer at all. Maybe it's my own issues popping up, but I don't think an appropriate response to "my parent has hurt and betrayed me and their behavior is continuing to hurt me and I am very upset about it" is ever "you need to sympathize with them more! they might possibly be suffering too! let me speculate at length on all the ways they might be badly off and in need of your limitless, unconditional support and affection! how selfish of you not to be willing to pour yourself endlessly into the pit of their lack of care for you!"

Who knows, maybe the dad is in a bad relationship. He didn't write in. The person he abandoned wrote in, and deserves better advice than "the person whose feelings matter in this situation is not you."

I think it's clear from what's described that Dad is not in a bad relationship, but is experiencing domestic abuse and has been systematically cut off from outside relationships.

I... don't think that's as clear-cut at third hand as you do, I guess. It's a possibility, but just like you can't diagnose people from anecdotes over the internet, I don't there's enough evidence in this letter to assert anything with confidence about the dad's life, feelings, or struggles. But even if Carolyn Hax's speculation is absolutely correct, it's still true that the advice is not answering the question asked - about LW's options and LW's feelings.

The advice pretty much says LW's feelings don't matter and the only ethical option is to bury them in favor of being the dad's support system, which would not be LW's obligation even if he is being abused. "Set yourself on fire in case it might keep your father warm" is bad advice.

I agree. It sounds like he’s an enabler, because he is not the only one being abused here, and if we want to blame the new wife, the enabler shares in that blame, even if he is suffering abuse. The enabler is absolutely complicit in throwing LW out fo the house. There is something he gets out of sharing in her abuse, and he has a choice to support the abuse or to oppose it, and if there’s any time to oppose it, it’s for his child. He is complicit in her abuse and has put himself in a position where he takes no responsibility for it because “she made me.” Sorry, that doesn’t fly.

LW is in an abusive relationship with her father and needs to get out of the relationship and stop reaching to get a door slammed in her face. Being abroad is the perfect time to distance herself, detangle, and get help with accepting she did not deserve this abuse and neglect from her father and process her loss and that she deserved so much better.

WORD.

Even if Dad is being abused that does not negate LW's pain. (I could rant for days about this concept)

"Is there a third option that is neither cutting him off completely nor accepting this status quo?"

No. There is no third option.

Her value judgement of the status quo may shift according to whether or not LW thinks the dad is an abusive relationship, but the status of his freedom to emotionally connect with LW isn't going to change: what LW receives from him isn't going to change.

I would recommend that LW stop sending the letters to her dad. Write them, sure, but don't mail them. Just let the letters be catharsis for LW. If the stepmom is abusive, then it's just giving her ammo. If the dad doesn't care, then sending them does no good, but getting it out might help LW.

If LW can afford it, see a therapist, someone who will let LW work through feelings and history and whatever emotional/psychological scars affect the day to day. If LW can emotionally afford it, keep a tenuous connection with dad, but ultimately what's best for LW is that they come to acceptance that they're not going to have the relationship with their father that they wanted.

I don't like that Carolyn didn't answer the *question*. I mean, good, undoubtedly necessary context! (Because not everyone is up on the intricacies of what an abusive relationship can look like from the outside, especially not with their own parent.) Good information! Good reality check! But answer the *question*.

So, yeah. The third option is to work on yourself, rather than him. Learn more about yourself and your emotions surrounding your parents, and your emotions in general. Also, learn more about abuse, and what you can do about it; learn more about your own emotions surrounding whether you *want* to do anything about it. (And for gossakes stop sending emotional letters into a void; if you have to write them, show them to your therapist, instead.)

If and when you can either a) be OK (to the extent it's possible to be OK) with the superficial relationship, or b) you can reach out in a way that doesn't trigger the new wife's suspicions, *then* get back in touch. Because there's not much point until you, yourself, are OK with it. And *if* you think it's abusive (I mean, it's certainly not guaranteed; maybe they're just both jerks), and *if* you want to help him with that, that's great, but it's not *required* of you.

Edited 2021-06-30 13:53 (UTC)

You should be paid whatever Carolyn got paid to write this.

Yes, this! The problem LW described is being stuck on a miserable emotional rollercoaster re: their father. The solution is to get off the rollercoaster, for which therapy and practice with emotional regulation can be really helpful.

Then when it's less of a tangled mess of confusion and pain to even think about the situation, they can think about what their goals are and start planning. At that point what situation the dad is in becomes relevant to LW. Not now, when wild speculation about the inner life of a person who refuses to communicate would just be pointlessly tormenting themself and reinforcing their sense of helplessness.

Yeah, and sometimes it can be a really quick path to the point where they can start planning. It all depends. (Sometimes, depends on how good their emotional prepwork in childhood was.)

But getting internal resources first is Always Of Use.

Yep, this.

+1

Yes this!

I think Carolyn is maybe trying to articulate a third way between LW's two options, but you did a much better job.