Its all linked so I'll just launch into it. Weightloss and management stable, lost two pounds last week. I actually "managed" my weight for the first time in that I had a nice weekend including a night out with the boys putting the world to rights after a funeral and some nice dinners. I gained some weight so I reigned in the consumption and increased the excercise and brought it back down and into control (losing 2lb).
I still can not accept what is going on with my Dad and I am slipping into short bouts of depression lasting about 2 weeks when recieving emails from him telling me how wonderful everything is in his new life. They leave me unable to function and unable to sleep, leave me prone to bursting into tears which is not a good image for a rugby player. Last week I spent everyone of my 6am 2 mile yomps crying all the way round. Basically he did very little to help the transition when he went, not even making the effort to see me properly because he didn't want to go more than an hour away from the airport, I could spend hours whinging but I won't.
The trouble is that my clients at work are beginning to notice, my wife is having to provide a lot of support and the bouts are getting closer to each other and more severe. My wife (her father died an alcohoilic at 40 and treated her badly so this is difficult for her), gran, and sister have all been supportive and understanding in my inability to handle this - they have all had their own problems in this area. I sent my dad the following email on Friday. I don't feel regret but I do feel guilty for making him feel bad, its not nice but I have seen what proper depression can do to people and I can't risk letting my self slip into it and result in losing my house or wife or something. A boy needs a father and I never had one, its difficult but not uncommon and has left me with a lot of problems. I really don't want to lose contact with him, but then again I can not continue as I am therefore I need to do something and unfortunately this is the only rational way that I can proceed. Taking control of the situation has immediately helped, especially with regaining some emotional stability.
Hi Dad,
It has been a year or so since you talked to me about the move to Oz, I get the impression that you are now pretty settled and secure so it is probably the right time to let you know that I am still having a lot of trouble coming to terms with it. The situation remains a pre-occupation with me and is a cause of great sadness which will stay with me to the end of my life; unfortunately it is really beginning to affect me with /, at work and at many other times so I need to do something about it. When /’s father died she was referred to a Councillor and given anti-depressants, my symptoms are very similar and my “episodes” are beginning to become more acute. As I have previously said a lot of my difficulties come as much from what happened a long time ago combined as with this latest development. I could write an extensive email about the whys and wherefores but this would achieve little as nothing is going to change, I have tried to talk to you about it but you really don’t appear to have real empathy. The impression that I get is you have to do what is best for yourself and you are happy to assume that other people can fill in for you back here as far as your first born son is concerned.
As kids we hardly saw you and although we had some good times Hong Kong the situation was not always the rosy picture you often paint, and as teenagers your younger family took priority as they do now and this is understandable. Over the past 6 months its fair to say that I have come to the reconciliation that although I am sure that you do care for us this has never really translated into anything more that it being nice for you to see us a few times a year if it was convenient, you pointed out you didn’t see as much of us as you hoped but I don’t remember a huge effort to address this. I did think that we were starting to get somewhere more recently with your trips down to us which I enjoyed and I was expecting that with ! and " grown you would perhaps be able to make up for your lack of presence during our childhood to become the fantastic grandfather that I know that you could be. Unfortunately this will not be possible with a visit once every once and a while. Maybe my expectations were too high but I don’t think that they were too unrealistic. My angst on the issue is probably because my perspective of the last 30 years must be wholly different from yours; children just assume that parents will come through for them in the end. The long and short of it is from my perspective is that you have taken a considered and reasoned decision that your time, presence and legacy are best focussed on £, ! & " at the almost total exclusion of us, this is your decision to make so I can’t really complain about it too much.
Act in hast and repent at leisure has lead me to stay relatively silent on the subject for over a year hoping that things might change and lead me to feel differently and to be less affected. However, this has not materialised, in many ways it has got worse and as you are entitled to make your own decisions, I am entitled to my right not to like them, and I really don’t. I have approached the subject repeatedly from every angle, trying to put myself in everyone’s shoes and still can not comprehend why it is necessary to repeatedly put yourself on the other side of the world, in a completely different time zone’s and, intentionally or not, effectively wash your hands of what is left behind.
Whilst I suspect that you had significant other drivers influencing you this time that I probably have not been made formally aware of I believe that you need to understand that the actual reality of the situation for me is the same, through no fault of my own I lose out on my father again at a time when my aspirations for the future were so different. Unfortunately this time it is also different in that you are not coming back and there will not be a brighter future for me to hope for in this area. As you have told me I need to do what is best for myself and family, currently this is to shake off the pre-occupation with this situation therefore, for the foreseeable future, I think that it would be better for your to get on with your life without contact with me and vice versa. This change will only really be symbolic as there is little substantial difference between sending the odd email, Christmas and Birthday card and not, but receiving these things from you highlight the situation and make sad, triggering the episodes which affects my life and those around me negatively. As for visits, how many more times do you expect to see me again in your lifetime anyway? It can’t be more than a handful at most so this is probably the most honest way to progress. It is probably a paradigm shift for you this is the reality of your decision to leave from my perspective.
No doubt this email will be a little shocking and will be subject to much scrutiny and debate, culminating something along the lines that I am either having a breakdown, attention seeking or just being selfish and you are the victims in this. Whilst you do this, and drawing on the experiences of your own childhood, put yourself in my position and run through a few key life events from my point of view. Maybe this will help you to understand. I have said before that most of your reasons for leaving this time were rose tinted, more designed to ease your own consciouses than justify to others your decision. I no longer see any point in grinning and bearing it and pretending everything is fine as I was expected to as a child, so I am choosing not to and in the process of this hope to improve my own situation.
One note of regret on my part was accepting your furniture when this end point was a possibility, apologies for that, it is something I wrestled with at the time.
So, best of luck, as I have always said I hope that it works out for you over there and the door is always open to the kids if they want to come back at any time travelling or permanently and need a place to get themselves straight. I expect that they will be reluctant to look me up by the time that this is digested and discussed at family dinners with no one to defend my position or to even understand it. I will let you know if I have a change of heart in the future but these feelings are not new and are unlikely to change in the short and medium term. If any grand children do make an appearance I’ll make sure you get a photo.
Please understand that this is not up for debate or negotiation and there is nothing that can rectify this, it is a product of everything past and present. Please resist the urge to engage /, \ or Gran to mediate, this would be grossly unfair of you as the decision has been made, all of them have been through more than enough already around this situation and the ones that have preceded it.
Anyway best of luck with everything,
Bye
