My(25m) Father and step mom didn’t show up for me when my mother was dying. They went on a vacation to Crete instead. I’m pissed. And I might be cutting them out of my life for good.

Okay so this is a pretty complicated story because I’ve lived a complicated life. I feel like I’m getting prepared to write a book so I’ll do my best to focus on the important points and what the fuck has happened in the last 5 months.

For some back story. My parents divorced when I was very young. After the divorce My mother married a rich abusive asshole. My father ran off with a spiritually bypassing wife who was with another man.

My mother(65F) got majority custody of us(my sister(30F) and I) and had this rich man pay our way in life. He bought a family essentially. My father on the other hand became suicidal and weak to his emotions because of the custody and divorce. He became very poor with his new wife. They become hippies, the toxic kind of hippies (look up spiritual bypassing, I’m not shitting on hippies here) they also adopted this notion that money is evil and they won’t try to earn it. They end up house sitting and struggling to keep jobs.

I still saw my father regularly when I was young. I became close to him. I still love him. Unconditionally. That’s what family is about. But around the time I got into middle school he started vanishing, I saw him less and less. Him and my step mother went to Thailand, California, and Crete several times. Going on vacations and taking jobs in these areas 1000s of miles away. I didn’t really understand because I was young, but since I spent so much time with him in those young developing years I grew very found of him (distance makes the heart grow fonder)

Essentially I put my father and step mother on a pedestal of perfection because I thought they were a great representation of two people who love each other very much and can make a great family. Truth is, they loved each other and frankly sucked at being parents.

I was comparing their love and lifestyle to the way I lived. I spent the majority of my time with my mother and step father. Living with my step father he abused me regularly, physically and mentally. He was rich though. Life was a luxurious torture growing up.

Eventually the rich man wanted to isolate me and my mother completely. My sister at this point had gone to college in a new state. (My mother didn’t have much say in what our step father decided because she was sick with lupus for 15 years of my life, we thought this might be it for her at a young age, luckily this rich man had enough money to cure her. He loved her atleast. Possessive love. But it was enough to save her life for a bit longer)

(To reiterate how much of a peace of shit this rich asshole is. At 10 he beat me then brought me to my sick and dying mother of lupus, And forced me to say good bye to her like it was the last time I’d see her because of the Disease)

Okay so back to it: eventually the rich asshole got in legal trouble in the state he was living. So he fled the state with my mother and I to a different state. 8 states away. I was 14, had to leave everything I knew. He isolated us from all parts of our family(his whole side of the family isolated him because of what a peace of shit he is)

Now I’m a new kid in a new state. With an abusive asshole and a mom who’s almost got over lupus. My father is no where to be seen. He’s not really working. He’s just following his wife every where. I’m 14 and scared.

I spend 5 years keeping to myself, working out, getting good grades which I’d never done before( I had no other choice but try to be successful) i succeed! Fuck yes, I get into college I’m starting a new life. Making my own decisions not ordered by my dictator step father. Suddenly my mother decides to divorce the rich man. She’s healthy finally and is sick of his abuse.

He moves back to our old state to take care of his racist father( literally counted 47 racial slurs at one of our Christmas dinners) his father has 2 million in stocks, and took everyone out of his will except the rich asshole(partly why his whole family hates him and his racist father)

I have to drop out of college. It’s just me and my mother finally, not being screwed by that man anymore. My sister finishes college and joins us. It’s just me, my mother, and my sister now. No rich asshole. And I’ve barely heard contact from my real father or step mother. We are now paying rent with our mother and us to get by. (Divorce went bad too, rich asshole had everything in his name so he essentially got away with leaving the half paid house and 1200 checks every month)

Okay so now history with real father. I barely see him. Most of our talks are through texts emails or short calls. He’s a Quaker now, as well as his wife, and they both fight their battles with the phrase “I’ll hold you in the light” I thought it was a sweet phrase until I started hearing way to much.

A year or so goes by. I’m 22, I moved out. I’m working still and trying to go to school part time. Suddenly my mom gets kicked out of the house and needs to sell because it’s too expensive. We help her move. Then she gets the news she has stage 4 ovarian cancer. Life fucking sucks at this point. My father and step mother are now giving me my “space” (the same space they’ve given me almost 10 years now) the only message I get around that time is an article about a college near them 8 states away from my mother. Which ticked me off. Why would I want to move away from my mother while this is going on?

2 and a half years go by. Lots of care taking. Lots of struggles especially in 2020. March of 2020 my Dad and step mother plan to come visit. They cancel because of covid(it would’ve been the first time I’d seen my father in years) August 2020, they call me on my birthday and let me know they are flying to Crete! Apparently COVID in Crete isn’t bad! And they’ll be there until next year in January! Missing the holidays with us(which we haven’t spent a holiday with them in years anyways)! Great news! Going on a little vacation. August 20th I get the news my mother’s going on hospice. We are getting closer to the end. I let my dad know through a text. They eventually go through with their flight to Crete. They are there now.

I’m devastated both me and my sister. We are taking care of our mother full time during the dying process. No child should have to experience that alone. It will always be the hardest moment in my life. I would’ve understood if they stayed in their state because of COVID but going to Crete showed their lack of care. It hurt. I wished they’d of decided to come to us and try to socially distance while we went through hell caring for our mother.

Come September my sister and I are through. We have never criticized our father before for the worry that it’ll hurt his feelings and make him suicidal.. and it was time to stop pretending that the term”I’ll hold you in the light” is helping.

(We lived moderating our parents anxieties compared to how we felt, essentially we were the parents. I shit you not my father one time on an awkward visit said he looks up to me. Mainly because I can keep a job and survive on my own)

We decide to write an email to our father and step mother explaining our disappointment and heartache of them flying to Crete and not coming to see us(or atleast calling more frequently during the last 15 years) we explain our hurt in a respectful way. They respond sad and hurt. They come off as we hurt them and we should feel bad because of it. My father emails my sister blubbering about missing her birthday, being sorry about Crete, and how they didn’t tell her they were going to Crete because they didn’t want to hurt her(BUT HE TELLS ME ON MY BIRTHDAY?!)

We respond with another email reiterating our hurt in a respectful manner. Our father reply’s with a one word answer “Okay” we tell them after this it’d be best if they give us our space while we think out our feelings and the traumatizing work of hospice care with our own mother.

During this our father is posting strange political and emotional posts(like a picture of a Crete shore and water, saying the waters are irritated and blah blah but they’ll find the shore and get calm Amen, whatever bullshit) then our step mother is posting food and sights from Crete all happy like on Instagram (who is now wealthy, money is now a thing they like I guess, she got a PHD in food, cut her dreads off, my father hasn’t done anything in life, essentially our step mother is our fathers caregiver now, he calls her his angel)

Come October our mother has passed. My sister and I are both trying to get the help we need. Counseling, therapy, group shops. It’s hard and we are both trying hard to keep moving forward and honor our mother’s life in whatever way we can.

2 months go by, our step mother reaches out in an email essentially saying our father is real sad, its our fault, we need to make amends, or we will suffer the consequences of our fathers mental health.

We emailed back again POLITELY telling her that we still need more time, and the state of our fathers mental health isn’t our responsibility. And it’s unfair for her to threaten us with those consequences.

We said we’d be open to a mediated conversation in February.

She replied with this word for word:

I will pass along your expression of unconditional love to your Dad. To pick up on your assertion of my reaching out not being fair, perhaps exploring the concept of fairness will be a helpful and elucidating frame for our eventual conversations. Holding you both in the Light. Ever,

So essentially now I think there will be no conversation here on out. And I believe I’ll be cutting them out(already more then they’ve cut themselves out)

All of this added stress. Losing my mother. And having a father like this is difficult. I just need to know if I’m making the write decisions. Every email we sent we thought out respectfully. They haven’t respected our boundaries we’ve set, and our step mother keeps making things worse between our father and her. (Also her son, my ex step brother who I’ve stopped communications with, hit on my sister and made her feel uncomfortable, so we haven’t talked in years, I think our step mother resents us a bit for that)

Anyways. I missed out on a bunch of shit. It’s complicated. My head hurts thinking about it. I left out a lot. But essentially that’s what’s going on.

TL;DR My father and step mother who I haven’t seen in years went on a vacation in Crete for 6 months. Right around the time my mother decided she was going on hospice. We expressed our hurt in their decision. They responded poorly. Now our mother has passed. And my sister and I are not talking to them.

Edit: thank you for anyone taking time to read this. I just needed to get it off my chest.

Submitted December 31, 2020 at 04:02PM by Nealaf https://ift.tt/2KUwKfs