Hi Inkrid 🙂

I have a pretty straightforward reply, just to warn you. The first part could be a little tough (not sure how you’ll take it, but hang in there until the end).

Frankly, I think the first thing I would do is be sad. It sounds like you may not have a lot of outright fighting with him, but he still hasn’t been there for you when you needed him. Maybe in a financial sense, but not in an emotionally or relationally supportive way. I sense at least a little bit of anger toward him in your post. You don’t have to express those feelings toward him if you don’t want to, but I encourage you to give yourself permission to feel them all the way before you do anything else. You don’t have to act on them, just feel them and accept they are there.

The reason for this is that admitting to yourself that a parent hasn’t really been there for you is a loss, even if you might not be losing the physical person. To admit this is also to admit that he may not change anytime soon, and no matter what you do you can’t control that. He will have to make some choices for himself to engage in the relationship. Letting go of that responsibility is freeing, but it can feel like a loss at the same time because you are giving up the expectation of him being there for you in that way.

Once you’ve released yourself from trying to control his end of things, you can make some decisions for yourself.The other thing I hear in your words is a lot of understanding for him and his situation. It probably is hard for him to reach out and connect if he feels like people are only interested in him for his money. I wonder if this has held you back from expressing your needs to him? You can’t control his reaction, but you can make the choice to tell him what you need and then leave it up to him. Given the family dynamics, will you make a choice about whether or not to recieve any money from him? Will you let him know what you need emotionally from him, or keep quiet for now? Will you keep trying to contact him for now, or explain to him how taxing it is an let him know that if he doesn’t reach out too you can’t keep doing this? Will you let him know why his relationship is so important to you? Will you cut him off, or leave the door open for him to contact you in the future? These are some questions to ask yourself.

I hope some of this helps. Whatever happens, you’re worth a parent’s love. Sometimes parents just have their own issues and are kind of clueless on how to give it. I would focus on giving yourself some of that nurturance first, rather than looking for it in someone else. You know yourself better than anyone; who better to love you than you?

Warm prayers for you and your family,
Jessa

You’re welcome, Inkrid.

That feeling of overwhelming sadness for what could have and should have been when you try to take care of yourself- I think that is the sense of loss I was talking about. Maybe trying to take care of yourself reminds you of that loss enough to bring up the feelings of grief. Grief is a funny thing. We only talk about grief when we lose something physical in this culture, but that’s not really how it works. Human beings can feel a sense of loss over many things, especially something we know that we could have had/needed a lot in our childhood.

On the one hand, I’m sorry it hurts. If you’re feeling a little nuts for grieving when you try to take care of yourself, you don’t need to. I do counseling work and this is actually a very common feeling for people who have had absent parents. There are ‘stages’ or ‘components’ of grief, including denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance, and moving forward (not always in that order). You can look it up if you like, but I guess my biggest message for you is that, as conflicted as your feelings might be, it’s okay to give yourself permission to feel all of them. None of them will last forever, but they will get stuck if you keep them trapped inside and don’t acknowledge them. On the other hand, I am glad you have feelings of anger, humiliation & disappointment. These are a natural reaction to something unfair that happened in your life, and it means that a part of you knows that you deserved better.

My two cents is that this is a situation where processing your own emotions will bring you the most relief. You can’t erase what’s already happened, and you can’t 100% control the future, but you can address your own feelings in the present. I think if you process those emotions first, then whatever decisions you make might have more meaning for you.

This is just my outside perspective, so feel free to take what fits and leave the rest. I hope things work out well for you.

-Jessa

Hello Inky,

I don’t think I would know what I would do in your situation. It’s impossible to fully understand the underlying dynamic. But I could offer thoughts based on my own life and what I’ve witnessed in other people’s lives.

I have daddy issues, mommy issues and all kinds of issues 🙂 My parents were/are emotionally immature. My father was an alcoholic and absent in his own world or angry, and my mother has been more like a friend than a mother to me. She doesn’t know how to hug or be nurturing. I realized that all this is extra painful when I think that a parent should be the mature one, nurturing the child and being there. But then sometimes I think that they’re still just flawed people like the rest of us, who also had a tough time with their own parents. Only at my father’s funeral did I find out a lot of the heartache that he had to go through as a child, and compared to his own father, he actually did a better job at being a parent than his own father did. Of course, that’s not going to change things for me, but it is easier to understand why he was the way he was. He never told me, or tried to excuse his own behavior. He was proud and tough, yet very weak and vulnerable.

I’m not a parent, so I don’t know if and how that would change a person, but somehow I am thinking that not everyone will miraculously change from being unable to grasp the concept of love into someone who would have infinite amount of love in them. We have been sold the idea of a nurturing mother and a strong father, and compared to that image, how many regular people can actually live up to the expectation?

Regarding money and fame, I have seen how it complicates lives. I have friends who have grown up rich and are clearly quite lost and emotionally crippled. It changes a person when you are trying to create authentic connections with others and what you get in return is fake ones, just because you happened to be born into a family of wealth. On top of that, people who seemingly have a lot aren’t allowed to complain or show their suffering. They have things most people want, so there’s not going to be any empathy for the regular human suffering. They have to learn how to bottle things up and not show their feelings. If they do show their feelings, there’s the danger of either being ridiculed (“you have everything and you’re still not happy, you should be ashamed of yourself”) or being taken advantage of. Also, men who have rich and powerful fathers and are wealthy not due to their own actions seem to have some of their own issues with manhood. They couldn’t create their own lives and their own wealth. They were given a path and an obligation to be something great without actually having the incentive to go forth and be great. I have one male friend who handles his father’s business, and it is clear that the father is still dominating everything and not allowing his son to do things freely, yet still expects him to do great things. He also has been given money, but it’s still tied to his father, so it’s not really his. It’s not something he earned and made for himself. His being is that of a man who’s been castrated, so I wouldn’t expect him to step up and be a man when expected.

People also seem to not understand that being present is one of the greatest gifts one could give to a child. I think many people think that providing material wealth would be enough. My mother still says to me that nobody has been as loved as I was, yet I really don’t see it that way. Our definition of love is different. So it is possible that a person could think of themselves as being a great parent, doing what they are doing, and still not meet the needs of the child.

I guess my point is that even parents are just people. Personally, I find it really liberating to see my parents as regular human beings with their own issues. If I compare them to the ideal of what we think a mother and a father represents, I immediately become bitter and resentful. Why didn’t they give me what I needed? They should’ve known. Yet clearly, they didn’t, and any discussion about it is just too much to handle. So, I guess it’s better to accept that it is what it is, and take the more compassionate route. If I’m aware of what I need, then I can do that for myself now. Spending more time waiting for mom to turn around and hug me is only going to prolong the pain for no good reason.

Sorry for blabbing on about myself and other people and not about your situation, but it was the only way I could express my thoughts on the subject. I guess it’s such a personal subject, that it’s difficult to talk about it without thinking about my own life. I can understand the pain of a parent not being present, but to harbor hope that they’ll fix it some day is just feeding the flames of the pain.

Ink,

One doesn’t have to be psychic to know when someone they’re talking to has been eating garlic. 🙂 Its just that a cloudy mind “plugs the nose” so to speak. Said differently, if we see our neighbor eating apples (or giving away apples) its not difficult to know what kind of seed grew them.

I’m all for outside the box attempts at rekindling connection. The problem is sometimes when we chop at symptoms, we overlook the causes. Plus, certain actions produce dissonance in intimacy, such as manipulation. Sure, we could get a friend to tell our partner our needs for us, but that doesn’t get us any closer to authentic courage, which is what disperses the fear. For example. Namaste.

Careful with that eye rolling, I’ve heard they can get stuck that way. 🙂

With warmth,
Matt

Interesting… Zen such as that isn’t really my style, but I’ll give it a go. When in Rome and so forth.

Inky, are you sure that you didn’t just spit in the face of the keymaker you begged the universe to send you?

🙂