Dear readers,

I’m 26 years old and for 2,5 years now I’m reading websites like tinybuddha and many many books about inner growth etc. I learned a lot about myself, what my problems and partly how to solve them, took courses and I’m willing to attack them :). However I think by far my biggest problem is the relationship to my dad which is causing a lot of trouble in my life.

I was always a Daddys girl. So the divorce of my parents was pretty horrible for me. We left the country (South Africa –> Germany) and started building a new life. That was 22 years ago. I came to realization that I kind of blame the 4-year-old-me for the divorce. I mean, I was a little girl, whose hero was gone. So I thought maybe something is wrong with me, he didn’t like me. So I have to change. It’s not ok how I am. These are the doctrines I lived with. What did it to me?
I started liying so the people like me. I started doing things I actually didn’t like like partys. I did all that because I thought maybe the people like me and won’t leave. But I also started eating, gaining weight because – well – my father still gone, left a hole in me which wasnt filled. In fact I wasn’t the real me.

I moved out as I turned 19 for my studies. So as a almost grown-up I suddenly had to deal with finances. And the parents are obligated to pay a part. My mum didnt have much, she worked parttime and still suffered of consequences of a cancertreatment. So I wanted to ask my dad and thats how I learned how my mum had hidden all the struggles she had with him over the years. He payed so little although he could have done more (I know that because he is running a successful business, has a second wife, children and his holidays are always long and exclusive). Besides that he had written letters to my mother complaining how shitty her upbringing was. I mean: how can someone who is 1239819023 miles away judge the upbringing of someone he hadnt seen for decades? I hated him. But I needed his help to finance my studies. That’s why the contact was necessary. Nethertheless it worked and I could finish a Bachelor’s degree. At the end of my Bachelor I had my first real relationship and that was where I noticed how the whole Dad-thing ruined my relationship. I wasnt me, I was acting , behaving wrong just for the sake of little attention and love. I faked orgasms and til today I just want to have sex to have this attention by a guy, the love of a guy, which I didnt get by my dad. But I also had high expectations which – of course – werent fulfilled. So I became unhappy and ended the relationship.

After that I started searching for answers why I behaved in such a wrong way. I had a second really serious relationship which was like the first and ended the same when I started my master. The only difference: this ex was suffered of depressions, I thought I could help him, rescue him but of course that didnt work.
So by now I’m single, just having casual affairs with sex I still dont enjoy. But Im learning more and now there is this daddything: I went to South Africa in October to get to know my dad, and what can I say? Of course I was influenced by my mother’s opinion. I tried to get to know him in an unconditional way, maybe love him. But this man is a selfcentered man who always thinks that he is right, he thinks he hadnt done anything wrong, he is so perfect, he showed me his life in south africa, a very expensive life and it was like a punch in the face. No no no.
Now I am back and I hate him even more. I hate what he did to my family, I hate how I build shit habits out of that experiences because of him.
Of course I know that I am the one deciding what something or someone does to one. Im more aware of lying and I think Im getting better. But its still present. And in the last weeks happened I got to know that he will come to Germany and such a crap, but just for his own good. I dont want this. I dont want my thoughts dominated by a man who doesnt know how I feel, who doesnt deserve a thought.
Well, so my question: How can I heal this relationship? How can I tell my inner child: It’s not your fault? How can I ban him out of life? Or isnt that the right way?
Thank you