Here are my thoughts aunt lily:
I never wanted to go skiing with my dad. I never wanted to go anywhere with my dad. I have communicated this to him clearly, directly, and repeatedly.
He knows that when I do something with him, im doing it for him. Because he wants to see me. Not because I want to see him.
It is emotionally exhausting to be with my dad.
I can’t believe I have to tell u this but since u think you’re some neutral messenger, I must inform you that you are being used by my father to hurt me. And congratulations you’ve both succeeded.
You have hurt me. and the fact that u think it has anything to do with not going on a stupid fucking ski trip hurts me even more.
You don’t know me. I wouldn’t claim to know you. You didn’t raise me. But I know my father. He he doesn’t feel pain. he doesn’t have empathy. All he has is a fragile ego and a sick need to hurt anyone who doesn’t give him what he wants.
Once I agreed to go skiing with him in aspen, i immediately regretted it. but on principle, I don’t break commitments, and that is why I make so few of them. u don’t know the wrath and punishment I endure if I say yes to lunch and have to cancel for work. It’s been this way my whole life. I dont make any commitments I won’t keep. So after I said I’d go to Colorado with my dad, I spent the next two months of therapy preparing for this so-called vacation.
I said to him explicitly, in January when he started harassing me for lunch: I will see you in march. We will spend a week of undivided time together in Aspen. We do not need to have lunch.
I’m not going to describe to u what lunch with my dad is like so just imagine me giving blood
Ok so I tell my dad i’ll see him in march. And that’s that. Did I expect him to call me on my birthday? sure. did he? No. Instead he asked to see me during the time I explicitly communicated I would not be seeing him. Again, I communicated clearly. I communicated my boundaries. He did not respect them. 7 days in Colorado was not enough for him but these are the boundaries I set.
these are the boundaries that make me comfortable and I really can’t believe u have the audacity to criticize them.
And then u tell me not to shoot the messenger?
Neither of u has respect for my time. Neither of u thought about the fact that I took off a week of work. That I informed my boss. That I didn’t go to Vermont with my boyfriend’s family the weekend before because I thought I was going to Colorado the next morning. Do you guys think I’m some child with no job or friends or responsibilities outside of playing my father’s sick games?? I don’t think you would let ur own children find out they were uninvited to Colorado the night before their flight. You have much more respect for your kids’ time than that.
What are you getting back at me for? Are you getting back at me because u think I should have answered my dad’s text? U think I should have seen him more than once in three months?
Once every three months is more than he deserves.
Had I gotten lunch with him, he only would’ve called more.
My father has punished me too many times to count for exercising my own agency.
I show him empathy, pity, generosity in ways that he will never acknowledge because nothing is ever enough.
I went on a fucking camping trip this summer to make him happy. Because dinner is not enough for this man. Dinner is just a way for him to ask me for more of my time. and do u know what he does after making us wait 3 hours for him at the campsite? He shows up. Says he can’t stay. And goes home. And tells me that Jake and I will have a good time. I looked at him and said we’re doing this for you. we’re here because YOU wanted to go camping. HE wanted to go skiing. And now ur bailing?
He cancels. He disappoints. He makes u think it’s ur fault. and when he’s not doing that he uses u to make himself feel important. He comments on my weight, on my looks, on my mother’s weight. In relationship advice ,he explicitly encourages lying and deceit. Thank god I truly know better and only ask him for advice to make HIM feel good about himself. To make him feel wise. And special.
Spending time with my father is literally the performance of my lifetime. It means cutting off all of my true feelings for an hour or three hours or a week and playing the role he wants me to play OR expressing my true feelings and having them fall on deaf ears or turn into a joke. So don’t tell me I don’t spend enough time spent with my father.
Me agreeing to spend a full week with him is a gift that I have given him on more than one occasion and on more than one occasion he has shown me that he has absolutely no respect for my time.
I will not go into detail for you about the last year or the last five years or the last 25 years because it would give u too much satisfaction with regard to your own parenting and anyway, since as u two are best friends again, perhaps u would still see me as a selfish and ungrateful child who ought to be spending more time with her father.
I don’t need ur judgement of my boundaries. or of how often I see my dad. I don’t need your emotional or financial support. I don’t need you approval. I don’t need another invitation to celebrate you when you have gone out of your way to hurt me.
If u have been talking to him twice a week for the last three months then i can only wonder how long it took for u to drink his koolaid. How long before u agreed I deserved to be punished for not responding to my father who hasn’t called me on my birthday for 3 years in a row because he’s trying to get back at me for not caring about him.
That’s why he’s mad. It’s because I dont care about him. He would rather me hate him than not care. Thats the whole the point of this sudden “he’s not comfortable going to Colorado with Alex because she’s ignoring me” bullshit. It’s to make me feel bad. To make me angry. To make me feel anything so that my dad feels cared about. And I see that very clearly. clearly u dont.
Had I answered the text he shared with u there would have only been 10 more from him that I would then have not answered.
Because my father wants me to reject him. He wants to make me hurt him so that I feel bad or angry and he feels like he matters.
Which is why I am truly so glad u and my dad talk twice a week now. The man needs someone to pay attention to him. And I am so glad to finally not be that person anymore. Not every three months. Not once a year. Since what I offered was not enough for him, he gets nothing. What you believe to be selfish is what I call self-preservation.
I cannot, in good conscience, come to Arizona and celebrate you, knowing that you have utter disregard for my time and disrespect of the boundaries I have worked hard to build. I am however grateful that you and my father have shown me your true colors as I no longer feel I owe either of you anything.
I will pursue a relationship with my cousins on my own terms, you don’t need to worry about that. But I will not contact or respond to either of you from this day forward. It’s a shame. Life is short. Time is precious. I may be young but I know all this well. I am not saying any of this to hurt you, I am doing this to protect myself and to protect my time from toxic people. I will happily be the bad guy if that’s how you need to think of me.
I wish you all the best.