I haven't seen my father in more than 16 years.
If you've known me for at least that amount of time, that wouldn’t surprise you. My dad has always had a sometimes there, sometimes not presence in my life. When I was very young, he worked a difficult job with wacky hours, and didn’t always make it home. Sometimes, perhaps he wasn’t working, and he didn’t make it home.
He and my mother had at best a strained marriage for all sorts of reasons. They got married young, had kids quickly and struggled to pay the bills. They separated when I was in junior high, and divorced several years later. He remarried, and his new wife often pressured him about his commitments – financial and emotional – to his former life. There were periods of time when my siblings and I didn’t hear from him even then.
We stopped talking the last time, this one by more of a general agreement, right after I got married. We had a falling out about his new girlfriend and his family, and their involvement in my tiny wedding ceremony.
At least, that’s how I remember it. He may have a very different and certainly valid recollection. There's all sorts of blame to go around when it comes to what went wrong in our family.
If you've known me for at least that amount of time, that wouldn’t surprise you. My dad has always had a sometimes there, sometimes not presence in my life. When I was very young, he worked a difficult job with wacky hours, and didn’t always make it home. Sometimes, perhaps he wasn’t working, and he didn’t make it home.
He and my mother had at best a strained marriage for all sorts of reasons. They got married young, had kids quickly and struggled to pay the bills. They separated when I was in junior high, and divorced several years later. He remarried, and his new wife often pressured him about his commitments – financial and emotional – to his former life. There were periods of time when my siblings and I didn’t hear from him even then.
We stopped talking the last time, this one by more of a general agreement, right after I got married. We had a falling out about his new girlfriend and his family, and their involvement in my tiny wedding ceremony.
At least, that’s how I remember it. He may have a very different and certainly valid recollection. There's all sorts of blame to go around when it comes to what went wrong in our family.
My dad does, however, acknowledge the general framework of our past – he and I began talking again intermittently about two years ago – but I haven’t asked him to confirm details or asked him to explain why any of it happened. I don’t think either of us is ready for that.
But when he called me, he did admit to this: He said that he wrongly put other relationships in his life ahead of his relationship with his children.
I think that’s part of it. I also think he doesn’t much know how to relate to his children. He has always wanted a very traditional, family-ties kind of relationship, but we have never had a run-of-the-mill family. And I think it would have been difficult to deal with three tweens/teens even if there isn’t a divorce involved.
All of that is to say this: In the end, I know my dad’s a pretty good guy. He means well, even if he doesn’t always do good. (I sadly report that he currently isn’t returning my calls.) I don’t always like him, but I can say that I don’t want to regret not having tried to rebuild a relationship with him. I want to give him and my children the opportunity to know each other. And I think that, should I peel away all the years of armor I built up to keep from getting hurt, I probably would say I love him.
Maybe it won’t take another 16 years for me to be able to tell him that.
But when he called me, he did admit to this: He said that he wrongly put other relationships in his life ahead of his relationship with his children.
I think that’s part of it. I also think he doesn’t much know how to relate to his children. He has always wanted a very traditional, family-ties kind of relationship, but we have never had a run-of-the-mill family. And I think it would have been difficult to deal with three tweens/teens even if there isn’t a divorce involved.
All of that is to say this: In the end, I know my dad’s a pretty good guy. He means well, even if he doesn’t always do good. (I sadly report that he currently isn’t returning my calls.) I don’t always like him, but I can say that I don’t want to regret not having tried to rebuild a relationship with him. I want to give him and my children the opportunity to know each other. And I think that, should I peel away all the years of armor I built up to keep from getting hurt, I probably would say I love him.
Maybe it won’t take another 16 years for me to be able to tell him that.
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