Me and my daddy

[axa]

My mother was an angry, alcoholic, smart, funny, abusive woman, my father was cold, distant, victorian, lived the life of a singel man, conservative, detached.  Their marriage was dysfunctional and abusive.  My mother was the active abuser, violent physically and emotionally, to her children and my father.  I have memories about my father when I was a child, a few, he had little interest in his children, preferred animals. 

As a child I would sit powerless and listen to my mother and father fighting.  She assulted him often and he rarely retaliated.  He had many other women in his life. 

I have always been attracted to men like my father......... Ns, cold, heartless, self centred etc and have pondered this often.  Well, I had an insight recently. I always saw my father as the "victim" he suffered my mother's abuse and violence.  He was rarely violent to us kids.  I knew that being on his side meant extreme punishment from my mother so that was not possible, also in hindsight he could not care less whether I was on his side or not.  I have realised that I saw him as the victim (his silence seemed more "loving" than my mother's violence) and I abandoned him.  I did not love him, I never stood up for him, I did not help him, comfort him.  I just kept away from him.  I have, I believe, internalized this abandonment of him and have been full of guilt.  Of course, I know, a child could have done nothing but this I think is the kernel of my attraction to N problems. 

I think I have unconsciously been consumed with guilt.  I have spent my life trying to rescue my father through other Ns.  I know that in truth he abandoned me as much as my mother did but somehow I saw him as the lesser of the two evils.  As if I a small child was responsible for his well being.  In my adult life I have always been overly responsible.  I am a fixer, I am a rescurer...... I have been trying to save my daddy through all the POS Ns I have loved.  This insight has really brought up for me how abandoned I was by my father, how unaware I was of it.  I knew I was abandoned by my mother and directed all my rage towards her.  IT seems like I was too ashamed to rage at my father for his abandonment of me.  I hid it in apathy.  I kept away from him, I made little of his coldness but that is where my real pain lies.  I have been shocked at this knowing.

I have to go now but will come back to this........ thoughts

axa

[lighter]

Oh (((Axa)))

Little children always think they're the cause of everything happening in their world.

I think all your insights are perfectly reasonable and probable.  You can sit with them and digest all that info then come up with a good plan to change your thought processes.

Make better decisions.

You are a wonderful person and now you're focused on you.  Im so glad. 

[Ami]

WOW   Axa
   What a tremendous insight.. That will be life changing ,.I think that when we have a huge,life changing insight like that,it is the grace of God.You will never be the same again,now that you see this.
   I am so, so ,so happy for you b/c this is the first step in stopping the pattern with men.
   I will write more later  b/c I want to think about it some more,  ,but i wanted to say that I am so happy for you--                                                             Love    Ami

[isittoolate]

hi (((((((((((((((((((((AXA))))))))))))))))))

it certainly makes sense to sit down asnd examine all the aspects of our lives, that we can remember, and see if we can put the pieces together.

I feel like i've been doing that for 68 years but it's really only 53 years, as I became analytical at 15.

I never heard my parents fight. I don't know if they did or not. I just remember my father raging and beating elsewhere. (his children and the animals) Mom did her share of the farm work and I don't recall her ever saying much except "what we should do".
They didn't share a bedroom, yet she was pregnant 7 times--via osmosis?

I think if children don't see a good example of love between their parents, it doesn't bode well for their future...... well for mine anyway. I recall a couple of times that dad tried to put his arm around mom and she turned away. (I was at an age that I expected it was because we kids were in the room.) Now I am at an age that I think if all us lids were there, in the kitchen, would mean all the bedrooms were empty. ;0) 

Love Izzy

[Certain Hope]

I have been shocked at this knowing.

axa

Dear Axa,

Me, too.
I remembered today his use of another phrase. He used to say to me, "I thought you and me were buddies."
No. We weren't. We weren't supposed to be.
He was supposed to be my Dad.

(((((((Axa))))))))

Love,
Hope

[CB123]

Axa,

It occurred to me that your topic here has a lot to do with what Hope is talking about in the thread on lucky to be alive.  So I'm bumping it.

Love
CB

[bigalspal]

Hi CB & Axa,
You're right, CB, it does deserve to be bumped.
It seems in order for an Nparent to exist, there has to be that dynamic going on, like Axa shows us.
Of course, 2N's do get married. Makes you wonder how in the world do they not keep from killing each other?  MY experience has been there will be one dominate N, & one victim.
It's been like that in all my Nmother's 4 marriages.
I'd like to hear other peoples experiences about that & about their relationship with their daddy's. Mine left when I was 9months old, so I can't really add my experience.
Love,
Bigalspal   

[Certain Hope]

CB, thank you for bringing this back to the top...  this topic of Axa's thread  does seem to be at the center of many of my own conflicts and challenges.

And since I only seem to get the tiniest glimpses of these insights at one time, I appreciate the opportunity to return to Axa's original post here and discover what else might leap out at this point.

As a child, I'd sit powerless and watch my mother assault my father's person, too.. but she never lifted either a hand or her voice to him.
She simply rejected him... casting down everything about him which makes him who he is - his style, his mannerisms, his level of education, his menial job (which always did provide quite satisfactorily for us), the house he built for her... everything.
By the time I can remember, I guess she figured that she'd had such success in her attempts to mold me in her image, she'd give him another go.
By this time, he'd have been near 50 years old and not about to be molded.

But he dutifully took her on those long Sunday afternoon drives to look at models of colonial style houses in uptight suburbs.
Rejected: the lovely ranch-style brick house he built in the low-life countrified area which she so despised.

He dutifully did alot of things... but when she insisted on golf lessons, he balked. As I've heard it told, he pitched a hissy fit at the instructor and stormed off the course.
Funny how a little game of golf got such a strong reaction and yet he let her get away with so much other hyper-control. Maybe because the instructor was male...  I dunno. The other place he held his ground was in refusing to further his education. This must have been a real sticking point.

When her attempts to restructure his entire personality got his goat, I was always there to absorb Dad's frustration. Could I sit down at the supper table and enjoy a meal? No... by this time, he'd consumed several shots 'n beers and began his drilling of me on questions to which I had no answer... always with the tone -
"You're so smart - you're getting all this education - you should KNOW this."
I was probably in 3'rd to 5'th grade... and by the time he got done with me, thoroughly convinced that I knew nothing.
So I'd sit there feeling like every bite of food was lodged between throat and stomach while he consumed his meat and potatoes in a style very reminscent of King Henry VIII - vile and disgusting, mouth open, fingers covered with.... whatever. And as the food would begin to absorb some of the alcohol in his system, he'd become more magnanimous.
This was when he'd begin his ritual of tossing more food onto my plate.
Here, have a hunk of meat.
Ugh.
By the way, he did the same routine with my husband on our recent visit.
Not the drilling, but the tossing of more food onto his plate, as though it was his duty as host to tell a grown man to eat more, more, more.
Ugh.

After the meal, mother went silently and stoicly to the sink to begin the clean up. He'd approach her at that sink from behind and wrap her in a bear hug (slimy fingers and all) and she'd stiffen like a board. He'd blah blah blah about the meal being good, "mother"... and I'd hear her hissss* under her breath as he stumbled away... "I'm not your mother!"
 
One of these little glimpses a day is more than enough for me.

Axa, I hope you're alright and will be back... whether here or on another topic.

With love,
Hope