Quote:
Originally Posted by seesaw
My stepmother would say the same thing about my father, that he was warm and attentive, but that's anything but the case. My point is just that you can't know the whole story of their childhood or the dynamic of their relationship with their father.
That said, I'm probably just reading into this because it triggers me a bit thinking about the situation with my family. You probably do have a good handle on the dynamic and are fairly accurate. Still, I would let it go. Do what you can to make his holiday nice. In the end, you can't expect anything of others, only plan what you yourself will do. The aggravation and infuriation are just a waste of your energy. Yeah, their behavior sucks but there is nothing you can do about it, so try to brush it off best you can and remember that what goes around comes around.
Seesaw
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Your stepmother would have no right to say anything about how your father treated you growing up. She wasn't there.
All I know about my boyfriend's past family life is what his kids and ex-wife have told me. I can't know anything more, since I wasn't there. They are the ones who have told me that things were pretty nice. Now . . . obviously . . . his wife couldn't have been totally satisfied . . . . since she divorced him.
Divorces happen for lots of reasons. I don't pretend to know why the marriage didn't work. The kids (adults now) have straight out told me that they thought their father was a jerk for quitting his job, after their mother divorced him. Two of them were adults when that happened. His wife left him for another man. When that happened, he fell apart emotionally and drank too much. His kids say he should have just moved on with his life.
He ended up homeless, and it seems that kind of disgusted his children. They've told me he didn't need to fall apart like that. It caused them some worry (on cold winter nights) and they, very obviously, resented being worried by him sinking so low. In the normal order of things, parents are supposed to worry about their offspring. I guess it can be discombobulating for that to get reversed. I was never really in that position. My parents had a successful marriage and provided just fine for themselves.