Sorry for the length of this. I'm really a wreck.
I’ve reached a point where the stress from my NM and codependent father is starting to affect my health, so I have to decide if the time has come to go total NC. I went NC from my mother several years ago, but am now thinking that I may have to distance myself from my codependent father as well.
All of my life, my father has failed me, but I’ve refused to see it. He always sided with M, believed every lie about me, and hurt me over and over again. Every time he failed me I gave him a free pass, telling myself that he was under M’s control and couldn’t help himself. I wanted SO badly to believe that my dad loved me, but the reality is that he did some horrible things to me, including leaving me to starve in a roach infested apartment after I left home at 18. The whole time I was struggling to survive on minimum wage and food stamps, and taking the bus to work, he was giving my brother (the golden child) hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every week . . . a luxury apartment, brand new car, car insurance, college tuition, acting lessons, even private archery and figure skating lessons to support N mother’s dream of turning him into a celebrity.
My NM is terminally ill, and F has managed to convince himself that he will die shortly afterwards, with no one to take care of him (a “sympathetic death” is actually plausible, since for the last 50 years, his every move has been dictated by M).
Consequently, they have both started making burial arrangements and are dividing up assets. When my mother learned that she was terminally ill, she had the will redrawn to finally include me, not as an act of love, but as an act of retaliation against my brother’s N wife, who M hates even more than me. I’ve always known in my heart that my brother was sole heir, but finally hearing it come from their mouths drove it home, and REALLY hurt. Still, I managed to shrug it off, because I never wanted their money, and certainly never expected it. The will is meaningless to me, and in all honesty, I have serious doubts that it was changed anyway. I asked my sister (who has been named executor) if she has seen the new will, and she told me, “Mom wouldn’t give me a copy but she told me what was in it.” Nuff said there.
But the final cut came last weekend. There was only one thing that I had ever asked for, EVER. My father is an Emmy winner, and I had been asking him for years (decades) if he would leave me the Emmy. I was so proud of him for winning it, and having worked in the entertainment industry myself, it would have meant something for me to have it. I would have really truly treasured it. Well, my sister emailed me last weekend to tell me that he gave the Emmy to my brother and his N wife (same N wife that they didn’t want inheriting anything).
When I read her email, well, I don’t even remember what happened. I ran out of the room in tears, and the rest is a blur. My husband said that I ran into a wall and fell down. The next morning I had terrible aches and pains, and an injury to my hand. I’ve never had this happen before, where the stress was so severe that I just blacked out. Hubby had to stay home twice last week to take me to the doctor, one time for heart palpitations, the other for dizziness. In both cases, the doctor said I was probably on stress overload. My headaches have also become so severe that I’ve been in need of higher doses of pain meds, and am in danger of addiction if something doesn’t give.
I now feel that my health is at risk if I allow them to continue to get under my skin. This is harder than hard for me, because I love my father, and have spent 40 years trying to convince myself that he loved me, and that he only hurt me because he was brainwashed. But the decision to shut me out of the will, and to give his most treasured possession to my brother, those were HIS decisions. Sure, M may have influenced them, but he had at least 50% say in this. The decision to give the golden child his Emmy was definitely his alone.
Hubby is fed up with my family drama and wants to call my father and confront him – ask him why/how he could do this to me. I talked him out of it because I know my dad will just go into his Dustin Hoffman Rain Man routine and start yammering about buying underwear at Kmart. But the other side of me says that one of us needs to confront him so he knows how upset I am, so he’ll at least know the reason why his phone calls are no longer returned. I still love my dad, but how can I face him or talk to him, knowing all these years he had excluded me from his will? He has THREE children, not one, and to make his favorite child (his son), the sole heir is beyond cruel. It doesn’t matter if their estate is five dollars or five million – it’s wrong.
Sorry that this is turning into a long-winded vent. I’m just so unbelievably stressed that it’s reached a potential life-and-death situation for me. My doctor has warned me that if I don’t get the stress under control, that something “very bad” could happen.
My mother won’t be around much longer, and F will be left alone, and I feel badly about that. But I also don’t feel that I can face him again, and listen to his small talk, after he hurt me so badly. How can I stop feeling sorry for him and do what is right for ME?
Kathy
