|
Thank you everyone for posting your stories and experiences. Like the other posters, I am here to share my story. I have been trying to find a place online where I could contact others who understand my situation, as I have never met anyone in person throughout my 25 years of life that understands it.
My father has NPD and is an alcoholic, and pardon my French, but he is an SOB. I was in therapy for over a year dealing with my unresolved emotions surrounding his abandonment of my siblings, mother, and me before my parents divorced when I was a baby. My older sister is the golden child, as she can do no wrong in his eyes, and he will give her anything and everything she wants. He actually keeps his promises with her, but he does not do this for anyone else. I have never confronted my father about my true emotions, as it scares me to do so and because he would just act like I was overreacting, say "that's in the past," and put the blame on me. I was previously able to cope with him and stay in contact with him every now and then, but I have recently become unable to--having deliberately not spoken to him in months now--because he recently went back on his promise he made to me a few years ago about providing each of his daughters (there's 3 of us) with the same amount of money for our respective weddings. Well, low and behold and as predicted, although he provided my older sister (the golden child) with a VERY nice wedding and said he'd do the same for me, he recently went back on this. All the while, my stepmother (his 3rd wife, by the way) is just enabling his narcissistic behavior by flat-out telling me that she is going to "stay out of it" because this is between him and me. She knows he is a narcissist.
This isn't about me not getting the money for my wedding; I can do without that. This is about me, after he went back on such a significant promise to make to a daughter, finally realizing that he is never going to change. Something inside of me has changed, as I do not feel myself hanging on anymore to any hope of him finally becoming the true father he's never been. Thus, I have essentially been grieving this loss that, up until now, still had a glimmer of hope behind it.
My older sister has a fabulous relationship with him; she calls him every week. So that makes me unable to turn to her because deep down I resent what she has with him and I hate that, in my father's eyes, I will never be as good as she is. I can't talk to my other siblings about it either because they are hurting too and cannot be objective about it, and my mother just goes on a profanity-filled rant about how cruel my father is. And now she is refusing to work with him to pay for my wedding even though she cannot afford to do it herself. She originally told me she would, but now she won't because of how belittling he is to her (which I don't blame her for--but still, once again I am left helpless without anyone mature/healthy enough to just PROVIDE for a daughter like normal parents are supposed to do).
I will talk to him again at some point. I have to- he's my father and he will be at my wedding. All I know is that, for right now, I am unable to talk to him. I have nothing to say to him, yet at the same time I wish he knew all the things I've never told him. But I'm scared. Clearly, he still has power over me, and he knows it, which he likes. I cannot win.
Anyone have any advice for how I can cope with this/heal/approach the situation? Thank you all in advance.
Metta,
Liz
|