I have spent so much time in therapy working through some really complex feelings about my father. I have spent even more time processing the various interactions we’ve had throughout my adult life and just how toxic he is towards me. It’s been a long, painful road.
Lately I keep seeing social media crap about how painful it is for Boomer parents to be estranged from their children. How typical. Like choosing to go no-contact with parents is some easy choice to make. But in my experience, some Boomers love to center everything on themselves. But I am not no-contact with my parents, it’s just very low contact. And why is this? I may or may not have blogged about it at the time, but this is why.
In 2020, my dad and I had a huge falling out. His birthday is in December and on his birthday, at 10:30am or so, I wished him happy birthday on his facebook. I texted him a little bit after that. And asked him what special plans he had for his birthday. He responded with “Nothing.” Great, glad I reached out. I had planned to call him but did not.
Exactly one week later and I hadn’t really heard from, I was poking around reading his posts on his facebook page. Some person had wished him happy birthday sometime before 10:30 and his response was “Thank you cuz. You actually beat our oldest to it, so great job!”
What? I was in a race to be the first to wish him happy birthday? He hadn’t even responded to my post from that day, but he responded to everyone else who had written him. What did I do so terrible or wrong? What happened? I thought everything was just fine, as it had been for months prior. But I was disappointed and heartbroken, honestly. I felt overwhelmed by some weird issue I didn’t even know we had. But then I got mad. What the hell does he want from me? What does he expect from me because I do now know why this keeps happening. He shuts down and treats me like crap for no reason.
We had a fight on the phone a little bit later and then he asked me to podcast with him for awhile. It was fun and it was something we did often and both enjoyed. And after doing that for a few months, he asked me to work on our communication through this semi-religious workbook. He wanted to improve our relationship and stop having these weird fights we have been plagued with for a long time.
So we spent weeks going through the lessons and telling each other things. It was hard at first and I felt uncomfortable opening up to him because I had learned to be incredibly closed off. We worked through a lot and we both felt very happy about the status of our relationship and the work we had put into it…until last September, when he came here with my mother to watch the kids while my wife and I went to DC for a work trip for her.
We invited him to the fundraiser at her museum and while someone was gushing about how much they love me to my father and my wife was telling him that everyone loves me, he had to say something about knowing me in a…different way. That is his code for how horrible and miserable I was as a teenager/child. That’s code for how mouthy and cranky I was. That’s him, once again, putting me down publicly. As he has since I was a child.
When I finally worked up the nerve to confront him about it, he didn’t remember, I wasn’t using the proper communication techniques we had worked on, I had no right to be hurt because <get this> I had hurt them more by not spending more time with them while they were here. And after he said all that, he said “SEE WE CAN BE HURT TOO!”
At that point I stopped talking to him. I just couldn’t anymore. It wasn’t worth it. The reason I hadn’t requested to have a chat about it was because it didn’t feel safe. If he was resorting to the old “I was a huge fucking brat” as a kid routine, then he’s an still an abuser. And I don’t want to stoke that confrontation. So I pulled away.
Like the desperate abuser he is, he then contacted my wife and asked him if I was still mad. At that point I decided to just respond to him and answer back. Yes, I am still mad at you. I can’t tell you anything without you having a huge emotional blowout over what? You hurt my feelings after we put so much work into our relationship and now you are dragging up things that you claim hurt you that you weren’t planning on telling me? Whatever man.
But things weren’t completely done until March, when he acted like a fucking jerk to me, my wife, AND my kids. That’s why I’m done. He acted like he didn’t care to spend time with anyone, he couldn’t be bothered to play a game, have a conversation that didn’t involve him lecturing on some topic he knows well, or recalling bullshit from the long ago past that no one actually cares about. And then he violated something we had talked about back in 2022 as really bothering me. He vowed to stop, but when he did it, I called him on it and he said sorry. Not a genuine apology, just a word. Sorry.
And I am sorry too. Sorry that I now have boundaries that you can’t deal with. Sorry that your life will eventually end and we have no relationship. Sorry that you will never get to know the real me because you don’t care to. Sorry that I refuse to prioritize you over my immediate family. Sorry that I called you a fucking jerk above. But most of all, I am so sorry that you can’t be bothered to heal your pain and deal with the things that have traumatized you.
That’s the reason why we can’t have a real relationship. I won’t cut you out completely, but you can’t be close to me ever again. Your actions are unacceptable, hurtful, and not going to interfere with my peace. You need to take care of your own self and let me take care of myself. We are done. I don’t care if you think it’s all my fault or if you want to blame me 100%. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. You don’t listen and you don’t care. Good luck with the rest of your life. I hope that you don’t feel lonely, but if you do that is your own fault.
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