Sorry to interrupt my blog with anther very boring post about my dad. My first post regarding my dad registered a grand total of 1 blog view, and I think that was just from Anginae. But I can’t really leave this part of my life out of here right now. It is just as significant in my life as coming out has been, and in some ways more so.
Let me disclose something else about my dad before I go any further. I work for him. I am the 4th generation working in a family owned small business. I see my dad on a daily basis. Of we aren’t really speaking at the moment, so work is just a blast right now. I’m looking for a new job at the moment (yet another fun challenge to add) so things are really up in the air. But let me digress for a while and go back a ways to try and get this story closer to present day.
If your really interested, please read my post Dad, Part 1 of…... It was long and boring so I’m sure you won’t want to, but check it out if you like.
I’ve had issues with my dad in step mother basically from the beginning. Many of these issues were really not out in the open, some of them were. Basically at the age of 8 I was given a chance to go live with my mother instead of living with my new family that my dad had married. I took the chance and it changed my life. I have always been resented by my step mother and my dad for making that choice. I know this because they told me to my face (when I was a young kid mind you, not recently). My father and step mother in particular hate my mother. They spent many years basically trying to turn me against her and convince me to come back and live with them. She cheated on my dad and left me and him when I was two. My step mother thinks she is scum and in no way deserved me. At the time, she was probably right to some degree, but my mother was a changed person, and was aware of her mistakes. When I went to live with her they thought my mom was a slut and told me as much. The told me how she used to sleep around with guys, part and get drunk. They told me they were afraid I would bring an STD into their home. I don’t not recall my mother being around many men as a kid. I can remember her dating a couple of different guys, but if she slept around a lot she kept it well hidden from me. She only dated guys for a couple years before she finally met my step father.
But father and step mother took every opportunity that I was around them to question me about my mother’s happenings. They made it very clear that I hurt my father by choosing her over him. That I could have the life my step brother and sister had if I would just come to live with them. That I chose the parent who ditched me and my father, instead of the one who was there for me.
I of course see things a bit differently. I have played the last 25 years over in my head countless times. I’ve tried to figure out exactly what it is that made me choose my mother over my father. I’ve come up with many different answers, but as I get older, those answers start to become more clear.
I love my father, very much in fact. But my father is not the same father when he is with his wife and step kids. I think my dad has always basically been ashamed of how I turned out compared to my step mother’s kids. I am in no way as good as they are, and I never have been. He’s always been self deprecating when I comes to the job he’s done as a father, and I know he wishes I was more like them. My dad always made me defer to them. He’s always made sure that I never got in the way of their lives or their family. What they had was special and I was not to interfere with that. I don’t expect him to treat me better than them, but I’ve always wished they thought as highly of me as they do my step brother and sister. I’ve always wished I could be as good enough for them but I never have and never will.
Good lord writing all this makes me sound like some whiny little brat. I’ve always wondered if that’s really what I am. I should just suck it up and get on with it. Tough love is just that. I’m not supposed to like it. They were just trying to make me a better person. But I don’t feel that way. I think they didn’t get what they want and they made me pay the price for it.
Well I feel like I’ve rambled on a bit about this long enough now. I’m sure none of this makes any sense, but all this that I bring up is front and center in my life now (on top of everything else). The next part of this may be how my latest confrontation came about and how it may be the beginning of the end of it all for me and my father.
Sounds like your dad and my dad took parenting class together. I don’t have a step family to be compared with however. I hope you don’t really think of yourself as less than the rest of the family. I suppose if you come out to your dad he will blame it on you mom? Good luck!
1. Don’t give a damn to the count on your entries, many check your blog as a whole not post by post
2. it was pretty hard to put myself in your shoes cos I was very close to my parents (not like your step siblings). I think your dad has no right to compare you with kids that have nothing common with you, you’re what you are and you don’t look like a failure to me but a bit confused that is very natural with your situation.
I can’t wait to read how your father reacted knowing about your sexuality, but I doubt it will be anything positive.
What about your mom? have you told her?
what does she think?
I can empathize with you, even though I have no similar experience.
Maybe you can take your 3rd to the last paragraph and think of a way to present it to your dad. If you can do it in a non-judgmental way and in the right context, it won’t sound whiny.
And who knows, maybe your issues with your dad have something to do with why you feel you are gay.
“writing all this makes me sound like some whiny little brat.”
On the contrary: articulating your feelings is how you deal with them. I think that this was a pretty brave post. Good for you.
Your father is a victim of that bitch step-mother of yours. I feel sorry for him. Thank God for your step-father and mom.