Venting

I made the rash decision to start communicating with my Dad via email. I thought I was over my anger, but dealing with him in even this far from intimate fashion stirs my long repressed hostility. Then I get angry at myself for getting angry at this ineffectual and worthless human. It's a bad cycle. I have been holding back in my email messages, but I'm finding it harder and harder to refrain from unleashing my frustration. I'm going to vent a little of it here (and my wife will be hearing about it as soon as she finishes running), but I know it's not going to help all that much. I need to tell him what I'm feeling. That's the only way these feelings ever begin to go away.

My dad keeps mentioning how he's gotten over his anger. I never had an issue with his anger. I found it so unreasonable and purposeless that it never really got to me. I was never physically intimidated by him, I'm several inches taller and a good fifty pounds heavier than he is so I was not physically threatened. He definitely has a short temper, or had if you believe his claims of reformation, but I could have lived with that. What I can't live with is the constant neglect and indifference. I'm tired of everything being about him. I want to matter, to be a priority, to be important to him. That's not happening anytime soon.

The emails I've been exchanging have been all about him. How he's changed and wants a relationship. How he has done all this work on himself and is now this calm and centered person. Give me a break. You're still a selfish asshole. That's the problem. Your needs trump all others. Even this stupid shamanism thing is just another plunge down the rabbit hole of his favorite subject, himself. He wants to tell me all about what he's done. He can't bother to ask me what I've been up to, what I'm doing, what I'm interested in. Nope, it's all about him.

Where does my anger come from? I'm sure it goes much deeper than this, but it really became obvious to me after my parents divorced. We were moving my mom out of the place they lived together and into an apartment. Did he come help? Of course not. He came, sorted through some boxes of albums, took a few, and left. I had to to lug all of his shit up to the curb. Asshole. He hooked up with this obnoxious women that everybody in my family strongly disliked. I asked my dad not to bring her to my college graduation. He brought her anyway. I asked him to come talk to me without her. She came with him anyway. My feelings were totally disregarded. I was ignored and dismissed. His new woman's son claimed to have been molested at my wedding. He wanted to turn my wedding into an inquisition of this guy. That was the last straw. I stopped talking to him for awhile after that. I haven't had regular contact with him since then. These things seem kind of petty laid out here, but they're just strong examples of a behavior that has been livelong. It's hard to see without the context of growing up with a narcisstic father.