Dear Seaturtle:

Thank you for appreciating my (failed) effort to incorporate an emoji as meaningful nonetheless.. and you are welcome!

Again, a reminder of how I normally (and here, today) read and reply: I read, quote and reply to one part of your post before reading what comes next.

“I read your whole post first, and feel like we are on the right track, I think I have entered a new stage of facing this trauma and projection of it onto N“- excellent!

“The beginning of this year started with me blaming N for my feelings… Taking responsibility is my new stage“- more excellent and so very well worded, I am impressed!

“The illusion of the projection of F into N is very convincing and often hard to argue, I am suspicious and find little things that points an arrow/projects something F did into N. It is hard for  me to tell if it is a projection or if he is actually behaving similar to my father“-

– Problem is that N is actually behaving similar to your father at times: every person, and particularly every man actually behaves similar to your father in many.. male-human ways. Add to it that both N and F speak the same language, the words they use are the same English words,  But in certain ways (words and behaviors), N does not behave similar to F.

“How am I supposed to truly know the difference between manipulation/dishonesty and truth?“- identify in detail F’s dishonesty.

Picture working in the garden. It being Fall, leaves are everywhere. All you see is leaves. You can’t see the ground. You then rake the leaves and place them in one pile. Now you see a pile of leaves in one area, and the ground everywhere else.  F’s dishonesty is like the leaves covering everywhere. Identifying them (seeing exactly what he did t you) is like gathering his behaviors in one pile so that you can see the ground (N’s/ others’ behaviors).

“I had to take full responsibility for feeling transactional (a new word that has popped up in the vocabulary about my dad and very accurate) and abandoned, this feeling of taking responsibility has a very specific feeling to it. It is humbling, it makes me feel weak“-

– Your father is responsible for causing you to feel transactional in the relationship with him because of the words, expressions and behaviors.  I want to take time out and quote from a website I just came across (goal cast. com) regarding Transactional Relationships:

“Transactional relationships are built on the idea of reciprocation. Both people in the relationship are focused on what they are getting out of it and they expect the other person to hold up their end of the bargain… In family relationships, transactional elements can come into play, too. Typically you’d see this between parents and children when parents bring up the idea of how much they’ve done for their kids and voice an expectation of what they believe they should receive in return. (Love, affection, respect, more phone calls or visits and so on.)… While typically we don’t want our relationships with people we know and love to be transactional, there may be times when transactional dealings with loved ones are a necessary evil. For instance, when new parents are in the throes of caring for an infant… one person cares for the baby for two hours while the other person takes a nap. Or one person takes on kitchen chores while the other handles laundry. Dividing up household and caregiving labor this way can help couples make it through this challenging time. The Bottom Line on Transactional Relationships: What it all comes down to in transactional relationships is intention. In the new parents scenario, for example, both people need to be clear that the intention for having a temporarily transactional relationship is to help each other out and be able to attend to their needs, and their baby’s needs. In the workplace, colleagues might intentionally team up to help each other out with favors so that they can both benefit and reach their career goals. When these transactional-seeming relationships are collaborative instead of competitive, and mutually beneficial instead of self-serving, they cease to be purely result-oriented and toxic. As partners, colleagues and loved ones work together in a healthier way they can achieve common goals and strengthen their bond, rather than strain their relationship.”-

– Between your father and you (as it was between my mother and me), the transactional element was not between equals, as in between adult work colleagues, or between two adult parents. It started as and was between two very unequal people: a father (an adult in a position of total power over a young child) and a daughter (a child, a subject to a father’s power)). Therefore, the transactional relationship between parent and child cannot be collaborative and mutually beneficial: it is not something both sides (parent and child) decided on together for the benefit of both sides. Instead, it was something imposed on the weak child by the strong parent, with the intention (in the parent’s mind) to benefit.. the parent. Also, unlike in other contexts, it is never clear to the child what is expected of her day in and day out, how much and .. for how long.

Back to your quote: “When I take responsibility for feeling transactional and abandoned by N, it cues the same feelings of humility, weak, and scolded like a child. This feeling reminds me of how my dad made me feel, and the familiarity is confusing because it used to indicate me being manipulated, doubt in my own instincts that he was right and my feelings were wrong. So when I need to take responsibility for a feeling such as feeling transactional by N, how do I get the validation that I did the right thing and that he wasn’t in fact transactional?”-

– Your father did indeed make you feel transactional by his words, expressions and actions. He was wrong in doing that day in and day out, year after year, and he significantly hurt you. For you to no longer feel “weak,  and scolded like a child” in the context of N, you’ll need to become a strong, equal adult in the context of your father. If the price of having a relationship with F is that you remain a weak child… don’t have a relationship with him anymore.

The validation that you need will not come from F: he will not tell you that he was wrong all these years (unless he wants to manipulate you through an insincere admission of guilt), and that you were right. You have to .. well, Seaturtle will need to validate hatch having been right all along.

“I actually have a recent example of taking responsibility and feeling this way. The night before thanksgiving…  he was angry at a bad driver and called them the C word. This word makes me very uncomfortable, I have told him this numerous times. I told him again that it made me uncomfortable and to please not. He proceeded to say it again… he kept saying “oh the word c*** bothers you? I am not calling you and c***” just kept saying it. I called him an asshole for doing that… He said ‘words don’t mean sh*t, get that through your head…”-

– This is the first time that I read about N being crude and rude.. a surprise to me. Unlike what he said, words to mean a whole lot.

“He lectured me about how he doesn’t let anything outside of him have control over him and how I should do the same and not let a simple word ruin our evening”-

– The word he repeatedly used, offensive to you (and to many) was not something outside of him: he uttered it from the inside of him.

“He said ‘you get upset about things that don’t matter and I am tired of it.’..  in that moment I felt similarly to when my dad would manipulate me into believing my feelings were invalid“- N indeed invalidated your feelings in this instance.

“Confused I just agreed that a word/letters should not control me. I do actually still agree with that”- N shouldn’t utter a word/ letters that he knows are offensive to you (and to many others).

“But reflecting back I do not agree with him that ‘words don’t mean anything’ what is prayer then… I am tired of arguing with him about these things, we have been arguing more than usual the past couple weeks“- (1) I agree with you (2) I wonder what those other arguments were about…

“Yesterday morning… We went into the grocery store… He also grabbed a case of glass water bottles he liked and when we got to checkout looked at me cause he didn’t have his wallet… Anyways, at the store for the $20 water I pulled out cash from my wallet.. he said ‘um where did you get all that cash?’ I answered… he said ‘no that’s not all where it came from, where did it come from?’…  I said ‘I don’t remember’ he said ‘that’s suspicious you never have money and now you just have cash?’… he then said ‘you never have money and now you do and me asking makes me an a**hole? You know what, f**k you….I am just tired of these little arguments chipping away at our days together and both of our daily energy”-

– So this was one of those other arguments I was wondering about.. I am getting to know an N that I do not like.

I wrote to you: “I know that you did not read ANY of it wrong when it came to your Father“, and in response, you asked: “If I read it correctly before then why can’t I read it correctly now?“-

– a child closes her eyes to what is too threatening to see, so to not be afraid all the time. A child makes believe things are not so bad so to feel safer. It’s too threatening for a child to see that she is indeed stuck for what feels like an eternity with.. a guilt-tripping, transactional father, so she closes her eyes best she can, as in seeing-but-not-seeing.

I wrote to you: “When the part of you that believes your father … sides with the part of you who knows the truth… you will no longer project F into N.“. You asked: “In order to do this do I need to remember all the times I believed him? My memory of exact moments are not very clear and I remember feelings much more“- no, you don’t need to remember what you don’t remember.

“How do I do this, do I need to be around F to re-experience it and correctly label it?“- no. You need to be around Hatch.. or better say, invite her to be around you. Hold her hand, make her feel safe enough to open her eyes all the way and tell you what she sees.

“Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships“, is the title of your thread. Think of Hatch being in your gut. Think of Fear being in your gut as well. There needs to be a feeling of safety for Hatch, so that she is no longer stuck with fear.

Ask Hatch what makes/ made her feel safe through the years, will you? Ask her to speak to you as you type away whatever she says here on your thread (no wrong answers). Let her speak to you in her own child-like words…?

anita