Well, I haven't used this platform in a good long while, so it is interesting to be back here once more. I don't visit very often, mostly because it is full of my old memories, some of which lead me to be almost paralyzed and obsessed with the nostalgia they generate in me. But, recently I had a particular event happen, and instead of handling it in the adult manner by talking it out or some such, I figured I could avoid having more issues by simply writing all the thoughts and feelings in one fell swoop, thus allowing me to excise my large amount of emotional stress and try to move past things. So here we go:
My parents, after 32 years of marriage, have gotten divorced almost exactly one month ago. Well, at least, that was when I found out about it. It's a bit of a wild ride, but I'll try to express the situation as it stands and then try to write down how I feel about it afterwards.
I get a phone call on a Monday, I'm winding down after work, just trying to play a nice game of Slay the Spire. It's my mother's phone, and I could very clearly see that. But the voice on the other side of the phone was not my mother, but instead, my father, with my mother in the room, silent as the grave. He proceeded to inform me that they were getting divorced, more specifically, that "your mother is giving me the divorce that I asked for". He tells me that he is a big jerk (his actual words I will not type here) and separating is the better option for everyone since it would keep us from further hurt, and that mother will be taken care of. He does not elaborate further. Mom speaks up and corroborates most of what he says, though she does mention that there are many more details that would be expressed later. I'm basically speechless, but I don't have anything I can even begin to say due to that fact, so we bid goodbye, and I sit on the couch in stunned silence. I tell my wife what I just heard, and her jaw about hits the floor. She's familiar with divorce, so it is much easier for her to deal with since she has dealt with her parents divorce several times during her life. It is much easier for me to bear this with her help, even if, as I will explain later, I am very clearly not okay with this turn of events.
I then receive several phone calls from my sister, each of which giving slightly more context as to what has happened here, but unfortunately, they raise more questions than answers. Apparently, as I am told, my father has mentioned several reasons for his decision, some of which could be considered very alarming. My father has rejected God and the church, (he was raised LDS, as were all of us, though both sides of the family are converts starting with both Grandparents) and since God was the reason he married his wife, he thinks it is not important to keep himself attached to her. He also stated for similar reasons that he doesn't believe in love anymore, and that he has been unhappy in his relationship for the past few years, something I find out from my mother the following week. Apparently, he has been undertaking therapy, which is totally good for him, an excellent source of help for him, and he has been diagnosed with sociopathy. (Sociopath is definitely something I would have highly considered him to be, myself, but that's beside the point.) During his time at the office, he has spoken with his therapist about how unhappy he is, and that it has been bad enough that he has considered leaving the country, and even suicide as options for escape. So, obviously, a more appropriate and less life-threatening solution was given: divorce. Yeah, that's a bit heavier than the average divorce, I would imagine. But the hits just keep on coming from here, don't worry.
This series of events has been taking place for NINE months, as it started as a thought in March of 2022. My father mentioned it to my mother, and then waffled back and forth on it for some time, thinking that perhaps he might change his mind, or that things would get better, and he'd hate his life and relationship less. He spent more time away from home during the last year than I had ever seen, only being home on average once a month, and for 3 months' time, being home only once during that span. He didn't, and just a few days before Christmas, the court date was met, and the divorce finalized. When the proceedings were ongoing, even in front of the judge, they were told that if my mother objected to any of these things that were discussed as part of the divorce agreement, it would be nullified and the divorce would not go through. My father told my mother that if she did not allow this to go through without any opposition, he would be forced to peruse his first two options instead. So she allowed this to happen, since the alternative is obviously worse, having no husband due to him having fled the country and left her high and dry, or having died by his own hands. So she sat on the whole thing for NINE months, the only individual who even knew about it outside of my parents being my older sister, who was forced to keep it a secret just so Mom could have someone to speak to about it as it ate the both of them up from the inside. I would have loved to have had the information much earlier, so I could have not been broadsided like this, but I understand being kept out of the loop. She asked that we treat him the same as we always have, she believes that something has forced this decision, that it has been influenced by something else. That maybe he is suffering from sort sort of illness that he doesn't want anyone to know about, or that he's into something that has required him to divest himself from his relationship with my mother. Except... it hasn't. All the things I have mentioned are true, but... the only thing that has changed is the letter of the law, that he is no longer considered by the government to be married. He still calls my mother once a week or so, he still has to come home to see my brother who is still younger than 18, he still has to pay for her stuff and everything. He just wants to be alone, I'm pretty sure, and that his only ties to the past 32 years are a few days a month, a couple of phone calls, and the rest is just numbers on a page that he can care for and then leave it be until it pops up again.
Now, my father isn't a perfect man, far from it. His methods for discipline would have been considered extreme, his manipulation of his wife and children would have probably made other individuals leave or be terribly angry or depressed all the time. We all suffered equally under his iron fist, and we all made the same excuses to try to make ourselves feel better. My marriage to my wife has called my upbringing into question several times, and each time, I wondered if perhaps there was something actually wrong with how I was raised. Or perhaps if there was something wrong with me, as I still supported him and defended him this whole time. I figured that the ends justify the means, that he might not have been perfect, but he still made me a better person, a responsible adult. But I feel like that's a bit difficult to fathom. I loved him as my father, and I respected him as such, and I allowed that to change the way that I viewed everything.
He's my father, and even if he did mistreat me and my siblings and my mother, as I found out later, he still made sure we were cared for physically and we wanted for nothing. He was rude to us at times, as he made fun of our size, or told the ladies that they needed to look or be a certain way otherwise they wouldn't be able to find someone who would love them. He told my mother if she got too big, he wouldn't have sex with her. As I found out later, they haven't slept together for several years, and over the past two or three, he even slept on the couch instead of in the same bed as Mom. He told her he hasn't enjoyed being her husband, and by proxy, a father. All those years of time spent doing everything he has, and he's been unhappy the whole time. Like.. what? That's it? 32 years and 5 children, and you just... suffered through it the whole time and didn't have a good time during any of it? What are we to him? Just 5 or 6 nuisances that take his money, make him want to yell or scream, and take up his time instead of just leaving him alone.
He was always very difficult when he was home, as he worked all the time and did not have much time for his children. If he was forced to interact when he would normally be working, he would be very belligerent and he would often make mountains out of molehills. We could not ask him for help, for fear of being belittled and yelled at for not being able or smart enough. He took us many places, we went on his dime across the country many times, we've visited national monuments, took long vacations on car rides across the US, went to Disney World more times than I can count. He paid debts, he settled disputes, when I wrecked his new car on accident, he was more than cordial about it, even though I was still made to pay him the $1500 that he had paid to fix it, and I was only 16. He gave money to his children when they needed it, paid for schooling, for extracurricular activities. He made us better people overall, in my opinion. He gave us everything, and he even taught me a few things. I looked up to him in some manner, I wanted to have his success and his drive as a person and a productive member of society. I watched as he was simultaneously a generous individual to people who needed his help. He made a lot of money, and he used it to do whatever he wanted, which often included a lot of fun for us. He did the things that made our lives better, alongside his own, even if he was difficult to deal with more often than not. I still fondly look upon the memories we created together, the time we spent playing games as a family, the nice car rides with the music blaring and the whole family singing along. The Sunday mornings where I would awaken to him playing the piano, as though it was the best way to start the morning.
And that's one of the things I am having a hard time trying to parse. The fact that all of my memories, good and bad, are just... not important to him. He is the reason I played my favorite game, Tales of Symphonia, with him and my siblings. He's the reason I enjoy so many of the games I do, so much of the media I enjoy, movies and shows I watch, etc. We did that. It was some of the very few things that we held in common, things we could both understand and enjoy. Some of the only things in my life that have brought me joy from our relationship, things that have kept me going and thinking that he actually cared and loved me. And now, that's just gone? It's not important to him anymore, if it were even important at all? What about us? What about how we felt about our parts of those 32 years? Are they just something we have to throw to the wayside now? What are we supposed to do with the feelings of regret and abandonment? What are we supposed to do as the ideal of our parent's relationship is not only revealed as having been mostly fake but now is completely gone? What am I supposed to do with these feelings of inadequacy that I have held for many years, held to a standard that I now can't tell if I should have held myself to in the first place? How am I going to deal with this fallout, that my entire view has been shattered by this occurrence? Have I just been living a lie this whole time, that the person who I'd lived my life, in part, to try to prove myself to, has just been some dude that made me and has just been fulfilling his obligations to the best of his ability because he has to? What am I to him now? Why should I even care? What is the point? Why can't I just pull myself out the rut this has made, and understand that I can live my life for myself, as it should have been this whole time? Did he ever really love us? Does this mean that while he was my father, he was not my Dad, in terms of fulfilling ALL the things that a father would do?
But... that's another one of the cruxes of this event that is so difficult to bear, I think. He was my father, but he was never one that cared for my emotional state. I couldn't approach him for anything, for fear of being ridiculed or told to go away because he couldn't be bothered to give some of his time and his experience to help me without some form of reproach. He would often tell me I was too emotional, too much like a woman, where I should have been more manly. I would approach my mother with my questions, whether they be for school or for my own needs, she would help more than Dad, but if she couldn't, she would tell me to ask my father, something I would choose to either do and pay the consequences by tempting fate... or I would choose not to do, and instead choose to handle things by myself, which often was the case. This has led to many different things that are present in my current personality and the way I perceive the world around me. I am a different person than he is, aggressively, in fact, and it is difficult to look back now and think about what happened in my life. My wife has called into question my relationship with my father before, but this event has made certain that her points are valid and obvious. My relationship is effectively 4 phone calls a year and some text messages. That's how it has been for... 8 years now. And before that, as a teenager and a child, I avoided him if at all possible, as he was the punishment for when I was in trouble, the discipline for my lack thereof. I can't even understand how I could have not seen this for so long, and that my wife is the one who has to tell me that... perhaps that means that I haven't really had a father this whole time at all. That my relationship with him was barely there, almost non-existent. I thought that I had made strides, that I had finally become an individual that my father could be proud of, I got married, I have worked my job for nearly 8 years, I am the most stable of his children, even. I did those things for me, but I had taken some pride in the fact that, despite my upbringing and all the times he had ridiculed me... That I had become a productive member of society, that I had taken the things that he had taught me and used them to further my life. And now, I realize that it was only just for me, as it didn't matter if I had or not, even if I wished for it to do so. I had fought so hard for the recognition and the validation of a person that I likely never would have gotten, and now I don't even want it.
I'm angry for my mother's sake, I'm depressed due to the series of events as they have transpired, I am in a state because I haven't been able to process all of these things. I am unable to do the things I love anymore, I feel listless, and then I think of all this and I want to hit things or just curl up and do nothing for several days. I want to hit him across the face, just once, one culmination of all the pain and anguish I have had to suffer at his hands for most of my life, and for this most recent insult. I want to, in one hit, transfer all the feelings I have had over my lifetime, and let loose a tirade of all of my feelings in one jagged string of swear words and an unintelligible mess of everything that has ever crossed my mind. But really, I'm just so sorrowful. This has completely taken the wind out of my sails, it has destroyed a good part of my morale, and I am not able to recover it easily. I'm so ruined by the fact that the marriage I had idealized and touted in a world where most of my friends either have a dead parent or have had divorced parents for most of their lives. My friends and family can tell something is so terribly wrong, but they can't do anything to solve it, and it's killing them. It's killing me. I want everything to be okay, to go back to the way it was. I want to have my motivation, my control, my parents back. I want to be able to look back at my memories and not have them colored by the new lens of the fact that none of it mattered to my father. I want to finally be able to make him acknowledge me as a person, as a successful individual, and I want him to finally be able to tell me that I have done well, a sentiment he has never once expressed. I want to be able to live my life, knowing that perhaps I could have finally had an actual relationship with him, to have the ability to speak with him without it being frustratingly awkward or rote. I want nothing more than to be able to cry this pain away, to let all of this out in one or more long series of sobs and cries to let out years of frustration and pain. Instead, I cannot manage it, as I feel numb inside, and I'm trying to convince myself to move past this and into the future where I am back in control and able to function properly again.
I hate this. I kind of hate him, too. But I refuse to allow this to control me anymore. I will use this to make myself a better person, to become stronger and less burdened by my past. I will take this and I will prove myself to be more than I am. I have always been a more moral person than he was. More compassionate and caring, more emotionally in touch with people and empathic. Where he has the drive and the intelligence, I have the intuition and the steadfastness to continue. I will be better than him as a person, as a spouse, as a friend. I don't need money to do that. I will help the people around me, I will be supportive, I will be everything he is not. I will make a change upon all the people I come into contact with, so that when they think of me, they will think of someone who changed their lives for the better. I will choose to be good and kind, to give of myself to those who need me. I will not neglect those who seek my help, I will call upon all of my faculties to surpass him in every area I can. I cannot make him pay for his transgressions, I cannot fault him for doing the things that he is currently doing to help himself be a better person, even if they have clearly been done in a manner that has caused no end of suffering and pain. But I will fault him for doing so without understanding the nature of what he has done, and what the ramifications of his actions have caused.
I'm tired of being angry, of being unable to function properly, I want it all to be over, to finally be gone. And after having written this for nearly 2 hours, I hope that it is enough for me. That I will be able to finally and completely move past this, and into a future where I am unbothered by the actions of my father. To forgive him, to move forward, and to excise all of these negative energies from me. I don't imagine it will be done so quickly, but it should help, since I do not express my more negative feelings very well, and they tend to bottle up and cause me some serious issues. So, here's to a quicker recovery and the knowledge that I need so that I can continue to be better and improve as quickly as is necessary.
--ZW
