Dear Gw3n:

You shared that after your parents divorced when you were 3 or 4, you lived with your father and his relatives. Because your father has not been financially responsible, you had to move “from relatives to relatives as his debts have caused debtors to come to our house and collect money in a very scary and abusive way”.

Relatives who were doing well with their family business helped you go to university and graduate and you are currently working. But even though they helped you get to a place where you are educated and employed, your relatives treated you in lesser ways than they treated their own kids, even teasing you.

You managed to repay your father’s car loan in five years, pay the household utility bills, but your father is not grateful, instead, “my father would threaten me if I did not give him enough money.. My dad is verbally abusive and would curse me any time if I do not give him what he demands (mostly money)”.

Your father had a stroke, you and your partner of two years, F, took care  of your father, but as his pattern is, he cursed and yelled at you and at F. You are currently staying at a relative’s house, without F, because your father bad mouthed F and your relatives dislike F as a result.

Your relatives “‘threatened’ me that since F is such a hot- tempered person, if I choose to go with him I better not  come back crying to them (relatives) and beg them for any help.. If I move out the relatives threatened that I never come back anymore”. You asked: “Is it ok to leave everything behind and start my own life?”

My answer: yes, it will be okay. It will be better than okay. In fact it will be very much not okay if you stay in this lifetime abuse. No wonder F is angry- anger is a natural consequence of being abused. Your father abused him-> he felt anger. When we are abused, cursed at, yelled at, especially when we are trying to help the abuser, we get angry.

Your relatives are blaming F because he is not family and they protect your father, because he is family. They mistreated you throughout the years (treating you as less-than) because you were a child/ a very young person, and they protected your father because he was an older person.

The tradition practiced by your relatives, of protecting the abuser and threatening the abused, protecting the adult and harming the child is despicable. It is not a tradition that you should be loyal to.

Your father has no moral rights on you, you owe him nothing.

Leave them all and join F because he has been there for you, he was kind to you. It is not an imperfection on his part that he got angry at your father- it was a consequence of your father selfishness and cruelty.

I understand you feeling guilty. Your feeling of guilt has to do with that filial teaching you mentioned. What we are told as children (to be loyal to  family) sticks, that’s where the guilt comes from. But talk sense to yourself every time you feel guilty. In your case, you owe nothing to your father or to your relatives.

Leave them all in a way that is safe for you and for F. See to it that your father and relatives do not hurt you or F as you leave them. Make a safe life for yourself away from them and do not look back.

anita