I would like to start off by saying that I share these stories with you to show that despite these situations I have managed to keep moving forward. Everyone has their story, that could either stop them from going on, or pushes them to go further. I hope that by sharing these stories, you learn to embrace your hardships and see that you can grow from them.
My father loved me, it was a different love but now I see that he loved me. When my parents divorced I lived for a few years with my father. He raised me, would pick me up and drop me off to school every morning. Worked a low paying job to put me through private school. My father was strict, VERY STRICT. The sight of my father would make anyone scared. I hated him for being so strict. I wasn’t allowed to do very much with him growing up, he was all about school. (as any parent) I wasn’t allowed to go out with my friends, after school activities were a big no no. I was always getting punished for things that didn’t make any sense.
Somehow everything I did in his eyes was never good enough. I constantly searched for approval from my dad. Still to this day I think. What I didn’t know at the time, that I know now is my father loved me. Despite it all, he is my father. I always looked at him as the super strict parent, whom I could never have a real conversation with, other than when he was disapproving of me or when I was getting in trouble. He provided for me above and beyond to ensure that I had everything I needed. Now I can see how difficult it must have been to raise a young girl as a single father. I could see that he must have felt that it was a big responsibility and he did the best he could to make sure that I would turn out ok.
When I got to my pre-teenage years, he told me that I could not live with him any longer and I had to go live with my mother. He felt that at a certain age, young girls should grow up with their mothers. There were certain things he couldn’t teach me about being a woman. I also grew up resenting my father, because of my parents divorce. I thought it was all his fault, and that if he only tried a bit harder than they would still be together. The thing about my father is he is very stubborn and has a very hard exterior so being a young girl growing up, it was hard to search for his approval in his words. It was never said, it was shown by how much he did for me. Again such a difficult thing to see as a little girl.
Just as with my mom, I stopped talking to him for 5 years, didn’t go see him. He remarried and moved. I grew up and still he didn’t approve of anything I did. He still had never told me he was proud of me for anything. So I took some time away from him too, so that I could build my self esteem on my own. After 5 years, I called him again, still feeling as though in his eyes I was never good enough or didn’t amount to what he wanted me to be. I took me a lot of time away, and a lot of work on myself to not get affected by his words when he would tell me that I wouldn’t be anything in life. Those words coming from your parent can really have a toll on you. Still I was determined to prove him wrong, I was convinced that he was wrong and that I would show him.
As with my mom, I am not sure when that moment came that I saw things through a different light. It’s not to say that I didn’t feel the pain, it’s not to say that his words didn’t hurt me. I just realized that while I was holding on to this pain, time was passing me by and we were getting older. I realized that I still didn’t have a good relationship with him. I realized that I needed to let go of this to actually move on. A few years ago, I took a trip to go visit my father in his new house with his new family. He was so happy to see me, that alone made me see that despite whatever happened he was still my father. While at dinner, my step sister was discussing her first car purchase with my father, and he was giving her advice on what kind of car to buy and what to look out for. I saw that he had changed, he was doing things with his step children that he didn’t take the time to do with me. It made me really sad that he could never be that father with me.
After dinner, we all got in the car as he went with my step sister to look for cars. I had my sunglasses on and I was holding back the tears. Where was he for those moments in my life? What happened that made him change? I felt that I didn’t belong anymore, the dad I knew never did any of those things with me. I held my tears back until he dropped me off at the train station. When I got there I broke down and cried because I saw that he had a family and I felt like an outsider. Later on what I realized is he made an effort to change. Although he didn’t say sorry, I could see he was sorry because he was working harder on the relationship with his step children then he had with me. Maybe he learned from his experience with me.
I have never told my dad how I felt about everything, everyone said I should write it down. So here it is. I am letting go. These things affect me in my relationships with men every day, they say you learn how men should treat you by the way your father treated you. I can say yes to a certain degree, but that is another post on its own.
One thing I learned through writing both of these stories is, no one has children knowing how to parent. People do the best they can, given the situations they are in, with the knowledge, experience and personalities they have. Love isn’t always shown in the obvious ways that we think it should be shown.
