I'm learning to like my family less and less everyday. If my dad is being stupid my mom helps fix it. If mom loses it, then we are all FUCKED. My mother has become an angrier version of her father and would rather have a pity party then face the issues at hand.
Dad has some anger issues that he is willing to work on to be apart of my children's lives. MY mother is offended that I would suggest that dad has anger problems and has written me off as her son. At family party's she ignores me and my family, as my dad plays with my girls and has normal conversation with us.
My parents have always had the type of relationship that was quiet or screaming at each other. Not sure the reason they stay together but I'm not going to evaluate my parents marriage issues I have problems of my own.
I guess I'm wondering do I scream to get my point across or just let them go?
This is the letter I sent my parents about 2 months ago and it hasn't been spoken of since. Did I give my mom a reason to hate her son? The names have been taken out so it mite read a little weired.
The reason that we decided to even bring this to your attention was so that when we bring the girls over, you are more aware of what you do and say. Because like it or not, they will love you and look up to you and watch your every move and we always want them to see the positive and loving grandpa that they know.
I love you with all of my heart. You are my father, you raised me. You gave me everything you could and you were always there for me. I would’t be who I am today if it was not for that. I had a wonderful childhood and I had a lot of good times with you and learned a lot from you.
We are in no way suggesting that you are not capable of loving these girls or unable to spend time with them. You can always spend time with the girls when you have time. But one of the childhood memories that I have is that every single vacation was not enjoyable until we got there. Getting ready for a trip and the stress of traveling have always triggered your temper. And so did coming home. This is why we have decided that the girls will not be going on vacation with you guys alone. Knowing this is what triggers you, we cannot risk the relationship that we and the girls have with you over the stress of a trip.
It’s not that we think you would ever in a million years yell at or directly harm our girls on purpose. But witnessing any out of control anger and verbal abuse towards mom will affect them and make them scared of you. We want our kids to love you for the loving grandpa you are. They are too young to understand grown-up problems and it is our job as parents to keep them happy and always see you and everyone that we trust to be around them to be a positive light in their lives. We really don’t want there to be a time when the girls have a reason to be afraid of you because they don’t understand something that you do or say.
Another issue…that my birth father was invited to my daughters birthday party!!?!
First of all, this is a whopper of a rumor and we don’t know how it started, but I will be getting to the bottom of it. ALL invited guests can be seen on the invitation page itself. My birth father is not a part of my life or the life of my children. Why on earth would I invite him to a family party? He is not family.
We would hope that you are still planning on attending my daughters party on Saturday. It would be a shame for you to miss out on our baby’s milestone, you are her grandfather after all. It’s a step in the wrong direction to run from this. This party will be about nothing but celebrating our one year old daughter.
Now it’s my wife's turn:
I want to make sure that you know where I stand because these words come from me. First of all, no one is perfect and I KNOW that I am not perfect. I know you love your family and I appreciate the fact that you both treat me as one of your own. and I have come to love both of you very much. And if it was not for the fact that I have children, this would probably be a non-issue. I know that you and your son have put your past issues to rest because he loves you as much as any son could love his father.
Your son told you that I have been scared of you in the past when you fly off the handle, but the truth is I am not scared of you. You have not done anything to me personally and if we ever did have a confrontation over something, I am a big girl…I can handle myself. We are both adults, and could work things out as such. However, the first time I went on vacation with you guys and saw you explode on your wife for the first time, it did blow me away. It seemed so out of character from the person I had known you to be. But you also have to understand where I come from. I grew up in a house where my parents did any and all arguing behind closed doors. My father is very calm by nature and he never flew off the handle over anything. He would not yell at us and actually sent us to our room for some cool off time before we were punished or spanked. It was his nature to remain calm in chaos and think things through even when the rest of us girls were at each other’s throats. your son is a lot like that also. So this is what I am used to; this is what I know.
So you have to understand that it was quite a shock to my system when I am witnessing for the first time that you are not calm and that you can really get out of control and take it out on your wife. And to shock me further, no one but me seemed to be bothered by it or found it out of the ordinary. When I confronted your son about the incident, he said, “Oh, it’s a lot better than it used to be.” This did not make me feel better, but I realized that we came from two different worlds. I believe our first daughter was 4 or 5 months old at the time so the mama bear came out in me. I told your son that I was not used to seeing something like that and did not think any of it was justifiable, even though it was not directed at me. I also told him that it would not be acceptable for my child to have to witness something like that…and that she would not. My job was to protect her and if I, a grown woman, had that kind of shock, I could only imagine how that would affect my child.
The truth is I did not really think about it again for a long time. But then our daughters got older, and started to understand and learn about the world around her. And we had to realize that she was understanding a lot of the things around her. We knew there would come a day when we would have to make you aware of our feelings if this kind of behavior continued…which it has. We knew it would be uncomfortable and not easy. Half the reason I felt you needed to know about all of this is because I would never want your relationship with your granddaughters to be jeopardized or for them to become frightened or uncomfortable around you over something that could be handled in a better way. I also wanted you to be aware of their presence and consider them in your thinking, before you act.
Love,
us