Experience 18 | Honoring my boundaries with my father
I made a conscious decision this year to honor the boundaries I had set years ago with my father. Let me tell you the story …
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As a child from the ages of about five until 11, I believed that if my dad was in my life and in a relationship with my mom I would have a better life. I secretly prayed for and sometimes cried out to God to allow my mom and dad to be together and for us to be a family.
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For many of those years that I had this longing, I hadn’t even met my dad in person; but, from what I understood at that time, my mom would be happier if she were with him. Her happiness had somehow, in my mind, become my responsibility.
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At age six, my mom and I were supposed to move to Oregon to be with my dad. I remember packing our stuff in boxes and my mom teaching me how to address mail by allowing me to write the return and forwarding addresses for said boxes. I remember feeling honored to have the opportunity to play a small part in getting us to where my dad was so that we could finally be a family. I was telling anyone who would listen that I was going to be moving from North Carolina to Oregon to be with my daddy. I was especially proud to tell my mean music teacher that after Christmas I would no longer be in her class; I was finally going to have the family I always wanted. My mom would be happy. I would finally get to meet my dad and live with him. Everything was going to be alright.
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Well, that didn’t happen. My dad decided that my mom and I were not able to move with him. There are specific reasons for the decision that I won’t share because it is a part of their story, not mine. What is a part of my story is the fact that us not going was a huge letdown and it seemed to cause my mother more pain than I’d ever seen her experience before.
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Fast forward to age 11. It was only the second time in my 11 years that I’d seen my dad (the first time was at age 8). He came to visit my mom and I for a week. By this time I also had a baby sister that wasn’t his child. So, technically, he also visited her.
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It was the best week of my life. It gave me the opportunity to see what it could be like if we were all a family. My 11-year-old self prayed and hoped that this would be the start of my parents trying to be together. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. In fact, the trip caused more trauma and heartache for my mom. Again, the details of that trauma and heartache are her story and not mine to tell.
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Fast forward to the years that followed. There were several experiences with my father that caused trauma for me - sometimes directly and other times as a result of how he treated my mom, including, but not limited to, my father allowing his family to talk negatively about my mother and other family members. I started to feel the judgment of his family at age 11. This continued for years and came to a head at age 16 when I overheard my father’s mother and brother saying negative things about my mom and I. Hurt by their comments I called my mother to share with her what was said. She called them and expressed her displeasure in how they made me feel (and it wasn’t a nice conversation). My dad didn’t stand up for me, my mother or my family with his mother or brother. When his mother attacked me after being confronted by my mother, he did nothing. His refusal to stand up for me continued. It even was transferred over to how he interacted with my children.
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In 2012, my son and daughter were supposed to go to Michigan to stay at my dad’s house. His wife decided she didn’t want my kids there so the plans changed to my dad coming to Chicago, where his mother lived, to have the planned weeklong vacation with my kids. My kids were devastated as they really wanted to see where their Paw Paw lived and experience another state. They’d been to Chicago and they were looking forward to going to Michigan to visit and explore. They were adjusting to the transition until they happened to overhear my dad, their beloved Paw Paw, talking negatively about them and me with his mother. They called me crying saying they wanted to come home. Just as my mother had done years before, I called and confronted my father and grandmother. The conversation was just as contentious as the conversation many years before. Following the conversation, I resigned to creating boundaries in the relationship with my father.
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The main boundary I created for my father included choosing when and how I and my kids interacted with my father and his family. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like not getting an answer when he called. He didn’t like us choosing not to build vacation plans that included him and his family. He used many forms of manipulation to try to get us to be in a relationship with him in a way that served his own selfish needs, including calling my mother when he was really upset to get her to call me and tell me about my obligation as a child to be in relationship with my dad. “You only get one father,” she would say when she called. I had to quickly let her know that his position in my life was because of a choice she made; I didn’t have a voice in choosing him. Had I had the opportunity, based on what I’d experienced with him, I wouldn’t have chosen him. He is selfish and narcissistic. I don’t choose to be in a relationship with someone with those qualities. She wasn’t the only person trying to get me to allow him back into my life in a way that was comfortable to him. Nevertheless, I kept telling them all that I had no desire to be in a relationship with him. After years of being disrespected and made to feel unloved, unimportant, and unworthy, I’d made a decision to protect myself and my children from his shitty ass. His character deficiencies were disturbing my peace and keeping me from living the life I deserved. I was no longer allowing myself to engage in such relationships just because he was my father.
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I have chosen, after years of emotional abuse being in a relationship with my father - and his inability to honor previous boundaries set for him, to have no communication with my father. He does not have my phone number. He can’t contact me at all. It’s a boundary that works for the life I am creating. I no longer feel obligated to be in a relationship with him and I’ve had to set boundaries for my mother and others regarding this relationship. Others can have any relationship they want with him; I am choosing to not to have one and I won’t succumb to the pressure to be in a relationship with him just because he’s my father.
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Lesson 20 | Create boundaries that honor the life you want to live. Make sure your boundaries are well-defined and clear. Loose boundaries can keep you in trauma’s web.
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Lesson 21 | Don’t allow the position someone holds by name (father, mother, sister, brother, cousin) to keep you in relationships that don’t honor you or the life you are creating. Make sure you watch the video linked in the preceding sentence. It’s powerful.
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Lesson 22 | Hold tight to your boundaries and don’t allow the opinions of other people keep you in relationships that are no longer serving you. They may be well-intentioned, but they don’t know the disrespect and hurt you experienced. Additionally, you are solely responsible for getting to your version of the Golden Life. Don’t allow people to keep you from reaching that goal.
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#45for45 #honoringboundaries #soul2soles #toxicrelationships