Or how close were you if he's no longer around?
Since I didn't have many nice things to say about my Mom but most of you did, is the opposite true for your Dad?
My Dad was the typical guy that never talked about emotions but loved to talk about how things work (sometimes until you cried). He would be there for me by helping me fix my car or house or talking about guy stuff or just being there as support. So we were close that way. However there was one time he saved my life and surprise me. I was perhaps 19 or 20 and staying with my parents during a school break. I was depressed, having trouble in school, having trouble with a girlfriend and generally about to lose it. One night I woke both my parents out of a dead sleep and told them I don't know what to do, I'm going crazy and I might kill myself. My mother said "no your not" and rolled over to go back to sleep. My Dad said "come here", held my as I cried and told me that I was going to be alright. We never talked about it again but I always felt a special bond with my Dad since then.
My ex and I cared for my Dad in the last years for his life. We were probably closer then, than we had ever been. But he never know my pain.
My Dad... well, he's grown in the last year or two, but when I was a kid things weren't good. He was always very emotionally stunted and immature. Had to have things his way all the time and would throw hissy fits whenever that didn't happen. He would say a lot of cruel things to me and my Mom; jokingly, but he couldn't take the same treatment. He also wouldn't treat my sister and brother that way. This to me almost feels worse than not having a father because, he was physically present, but it was like he cared more about my siblings than me or my Mom. I wasn't emotionally close to him because I hated the way he treated me, but knew I couldn't talk to him about it because he couldn't handle the slightest bit of criticism. In short he was an obnoxious manchild. It took my Mom leaving for him to realize that sometimes it's necessary to think about other people's feelings.
But that was then and now things are different. I find him a lot easier to get along with now that I don't live with him, really.
My parents divorced when I was two, and I didnt see my dad too often. He would dissappear for weeks and no one would know where he went. He was a drug addict, and when I had to go visit him I hated it. I was always scared. I loved him still I think but I hated what the drugs turned him into. So, we never had a really good relationship. I know he loves me, and he's been trying to reconnect with me recently, so Im going to try giving him a chance.
I didn't meet my father until I was 11. The only reason I did meet him is because by a freak coincidence he was working part time at a new pizza place near the house my mother and I moved to and he delivered our pizza. He never tried once to seek me out before then, and even then he fell out of my life again before I turned 16. The only good to come out of my relationship, or lack thereof, with him is that I discovered I had 3 sisters (a step sister who is a year older than myself, 22, and 2 half sisters, aged 18 and 11).
My father is a drunk and a drug addict, always has been, always will be. I have learned that I am better off without him in my life, and I hope that my sisters can accept the same. I don't understand why other people in the family keep in contact with him. I guess I can't fathom unconditional love in the sense that you sacrifice everything about yourself and others around you for the sake of a person who is a waste of carbon. I refuse to try to love someone that is uncaring, unloving, hurtful, violent, and who steals from those who so readily give.
I am glad that I didn't spend much time with him, and it hurts to know that my younger sisters were stuck in such a violent and dangerous situation for so long.
Sadly my father died when I was five years old, ironically shortly after I had given the first signs of my trans-ness.
The photos I have of us together suggest our relationship was good, but I do wonder what he would have done if he had lived. Ironically his death may have made my path through transition easier because my mother remarried and my step father had already brought up two daughters. So he knew the signs, so to speak, and quickly recognised that I wasn't fooling.
He could be jolly annoying with his passive aggression - but he was a pussycat and he knew how to bring up girls ;D I was his third.
My father was a kind and caring man, but he was also very demanding and strict with me. He taught me discipline and led a life of self-denial that left a deep impression on me. He sacrificed everything for family. I carried his lessons into my life and buried my transgender feelings and basically became what everyone else wanted except for me. He mellowed quite a bit later in life, but I was still never able to talk to him about the thing that bothered me most despite the number of times he asked "Why are you so sad?" because I knew he would not understand the answer or at the very least be very disappointed. His love for me would not have been diminished, but I don't have any idea how long it would have taken him to accept me. Especially since the cost of being me would eventually break up my family and deny my son a full-time father. Things that would have brought him great sadness.
He died in May before I could tell him the truth about me. However, his death jolted me into realizing that I needed to be true to myself. I consider it his last gift to me and I still tear up at that thought. I hope wherever he is now he can fully understand the pain I lived with for so long and why I am doing what I am doing.
My dad really is one of my best friends. We share a lot of the same hobbies and have very similar personalities, so we end up hanging out together quite a bit. I'm not out to my parents yet, so he does slip into "father and his daughter" mode sometimes. It'll mean a lot to me if he'll ever be able to see me as 100% his son.
When I was a kid he was an ogre he was always extremely angry and aggressive he would frequently call my sister names and go balistic at us for the slightest thing and would frequently throw stuff around or lock us in our rooms.
He and my mother seperated when I was 13 I was gripped with my depression and gender dysphoria learning of his departure made me happy and I didn't say goodbye.
Still He left me his old razor it was one of the old 1970's ones where razorblade replacements came in a box. I begun self harming shortly after that with the razors provided
I had nearly no contact with him throughout my teenage years bar the occasional visit where I just ignored him. I actually hated him for a very long time and I really sincerely envied pepole who's dads were dead.
6-7 years later he came back into my life he was classically apologetic for the past but wanted a fresh start. I rejected him I didn't feel I needed him and didn't want to know and I was passive-aggressive whenever he was around me.
My sister attempted to forgive him but from what I know things were strained and he lacked acknowledgement of just how cruel he was.
When I started coming out to pepole and begun transition I never told him although he noticed my body changing. It was through my sister he learned of what I was doing.
He came to me about it and he was a complete <not allowed> during that conversation where he would laugh and be sarcastic about me and my appearance making various ignorent transphobic statements compairing me to a drag queen. I snapped frustrated at him talking to me like that. I told him to "go <not allowed> off and die." and that he knows nothing about me and won't ever.
From what I gather he must have felt bad and watched alot of documentaries and read alot of books on transsexuallity because next time he approached me he was alot more sensitive.
he went on to acknowledge that he'd done alot of things wrong in the past but he can't go back and fix that but that he'd always want a relationship with me if I so choose. wheather I be his son or daughter
Given that now my mother pretty much hated me as a result of my coming out I saw it as a choice... One parent or none.
I decided I might aswell try I had little else to loose.
Things aren't brilliant and I don't love him, I still feel strange about the past but he helps where he can and is sympathetic with my struggles offering help in the form of car trips, He suggested names (although I didn't go with his suggestions) and he calls me by my new name and choosen gender pronouns. and offers advice of dubious quality with predicitments I find myself in.
And for that I'm thankful.
Some interesting storied, some happy, very happy, some have sad parts, but seem to have ended overall well! Seems like overall if all y'alls parents survived, that they accepted who you are!
Hum, I do not have a relationship towards either of my parents really anymore. Amongst all the other events that created the imperfect being that I am, I blame poor parenting to. I had not discipline in my life, but that does not mean it was not hard. My mother and father seperated when I was 5 years old, and from that point on, me and all my brothers played red rover come on over going back and forth between them, so we never got much of a chance to be a whole family, though sometimes all my brothers were together at some points, and I think at one point my mom and his boyfriend moved in with my dad. My mom had one terribly drunk boyfriend after their seperation, and they have been together in an abusive relationship until recently when the man drunk too much and slipped and fell on the corner of a table and his brain bled out.
Throughout the little time I spent with my dad in my childhood, he kept getting new girlfriends. My father is hedonistic, and he advocates it. He always urged me and my brothers later in our lives to go out, party, enjoy life, sleep with many women, do drugs, which is what he does. He is, or was addicted to coke, I do not really know, would get drunk a lot, and have prostitues or go to cat houses, even when he had a girlfriend. He was better at keeping everything he did a secret though, so we never knew as kids that he even did coke, until we found a nasal pump full of it.
My dad is bi-polar, as kids, him yelling at us was something that happened on a daily basis. I did not really start living with him until I was 10 years old, before that he had my two older brothers for a while before me, so I do not know how he was. But he never took meds, but he never beat us or did anything physical against us. It was all mental anguish, verbal abuse, he would say things he did not mean, and I know that because he called me a retard when I was 14 or so, and it hurt a lot because the last year I fractured my skull and lost most of my memories and could not focus as well to me. I went off to my room, and when he calmed down later, he asked what is wrong with me, and I told him the name he called me. Then he denied it and went back into rage mode. He was a nice guy when he was not angry, and he supported the lot of us much better than my mothers [she never worked, and her bf worked and McDonald's, but spent most of his paychecks drinking like 2 gallons of Mickey's a day]. When I lived with my mom he would send us boxes of gifts ever year, and we always looked forward to it, me and my younger brothers. Usually little toys and dolls, sometimes he would buy us games though.
He eventually realized the truth that he had to get on meds. He is much better now, I rarely see him go into a fit. I believe one of the BIGGEST problems in our family is that he is bi-polar, and all of my brothers took after him and were also bi-polar, and to top it off, they were body builders. So at one point him getting angry and yelling at all his kids would piss off my older brothers, and whoever was there at the time or struck first layed waste to him every time, and then he would get physcially violent, but in the time it takes him to recover from getting rushed by one of my brothers, they are usually gone by then. Most of my time with him, my brothers had friends, girlfriends and jobs, so they were always gone, and I was left alone for him to yell at. I felt like Cinderella. He was also very messy and a packrat, so he was always telling me to clean stuff, but the house never got better because it was full of random junk, so you could hardly walk around.
But something convinced him to get on meds, maybe the fact that one of my older brothers had a daughter, so if he throws a fit, he will jump on him immediately and kick him out of his house. Maybe he realized all his kids left him and it is his fault. I do not know what he does now, he stops by every now and then and then will vanish to unknown places, mostly with his current gf though.
Vent vent vent, overall, I do not know, his head was screwed up, like a guy who is a belligerent drunk, but is cool when sober. But being bi-polar was just one of many problems. The rest are more sources of annoyance than hate, so I am okay with him.
I do not really know my mom, because my injury occured after I moved away from her for the last time, so all my past memories of her were shattered or fragmented. Nobody really knows that I can not remember things though.
My father was a drug lord. He was a soldier on the wrong side in the war on drugs.
However. He was a good man to his kids. He only disciplined when we truely deserved it. He was very kind to me. For years he tried to make it ok for me to come out as gay. Never directly saying so he talked around it an aweful lot.
He was not exactly right about me being gay. Well I am a lesbian. lol
Dad would have blown up when I came out as trans. Then a week or two later he would have apoligized and told me to be the best woman I could be.
I miss my father. He was my daddy.
I'm not close at all with my dad. My parents divorced when I was 8. When she was working late he would send me to bed forgetting to feed me and try to send me to friends houses at 10 at night. Since the divorce (in the past 12 years) I've seen him a handful of times and he ignores my calls when I try to talk to him until his mother calls him and makes him call me ::)
my dad undoubtedly loves me as his daughter but can be insensitive and a bit thick sometimes...that's something i can get over with anyways...
the only problem we have is that i somehow feel that he was disappointed in me turning out not to be a son, and thus some of his expectations of me will not come true...which is why i am always trying to out-do him and refusing his help...guess that's an issue i have to work on...
My Dad was beat by his dad and my dad beat me and my 2 brothers and 4 sisters and soon my mom divorced him when i was like 11 and then i didn't see him until i was like 30 yrs old and he was still a drunk and finally when he was around 70 he stopped drinking so i went to see him off and on but he never agreed that he was a bad person. Heck he was too drunk to remember. I did get to have him die in my arms in 2007 when he was 89. I then buried him at a Veterans cemetary. He served in WWII.
PS: I knew i had to break the cycle to my two sons so i firstly went to NA and AA and got sober for 5 yrs before i even had kids then when i did i made sure i stayed away a bit so the moms could raise them and any of what my dad did to me didn't rub off on my sons. When i transitioned one was 7 and the other was in the other moms belly and i gave control to them as i knew i didn't want any of my GID stuff to affect my sons.
My father was born into a number of problems. He was 15 and 17 years younger than his brothers. Both of whom earned very successful university degrees. With the best will in the world, he just couldn't cut it. Added to that, his parents were prominant in their community, so he was quite lonely as a child. I once went to his home town, when he was in his late 40s. He had never been back, as far as I know. I spoke to some guy in a local shop, it was a very small town, who said he remember him, but seemed more interested in taking up some bullying exercise. I wanted to punch him out to be honest. His family were also Protestants. To people who don't know Scotland or Ulster, this may not seem important, but these people are really quite extreme. It's nothing to do with religion, they just have an ingrained hatred for Catholics. I recall patients, when I was nursing in Scotland, who wouldn't take green medicine. The pharmacy kept food dyes!
He went to war when he was about 15 or 16. Not sure how that happened, but he was posted to India. Like most soldiers, he rarely spoke about it, but I do know he was in Southern India by the end of the war.
Then he married a former nun. And worse, my mother's family were working class.
My memories of him were either as someone who tried to remain calm or explode into outbursts of violence. When he exploded, he often tried to claim that he was trying to impose some deceny and normality onto his family, in place of the questionable standards of my mother.
On about 4 different occasions, when he thought he was alone, I recall hearing him sobbing to himself. I was too young to really understand why and assumed it was somethign I or someone else in the family had done.
What I thought I felt, when I was younger, as love, turned out to be pity. It's difficult to love someone who is so cold and detached.
In my 20s, he once told me it would be OK with him if I was gay. I just couldn't bring myself to tell him I was a girl. His entire life was ruled by his perception of normal. By saying it was OK for me to be gay, was a huge step for him. I once told him, many years earlier, that Cole Porter was homosexual and he almost hit the roof.
He was the first member of my family I cut myself off from. (My immediate family, that is. His brother was a jerk). I took my wife to visit him and his family. My father picked an argument with me, then started hitting me. My wife tried to break us up and he turned on her, telling her that she should just go and forget about me, because I was not worth it.
Between that point and when he died, I never saw or spoke to him again. He wrote to me twice, both times, telling me things he'd done, in third person. That was weird, but not really surprising.
I got a phone call, just after midnight, one evening, from my brother. By that time, I'd cut myself off from them all. He told be, curtly, that my father had died. I was not invited to his funeral. Flowers or a card were not welcome and I couldn't know where he was burried. I just went back to sleep. I know that sounds callous. But there was no relationship. He was little more than a passing aquantance.
I don't feel any annomosity toward him. He had his problems. I'm sure he thought he was doing his best. I sure he did his best.
There seems to be quite a number of drunk, abusive and/or drug addict fathers between us. I feel lucky my father was none of those things.
My father is awesome. He's the one of my parents that I have a good contact with. He supported me in being more "boyish" when I was a kid (and, yes, called me his "kid" a lot, instead of "daughter"). We can talk about issues, and we have good times together, recently we've gotten into British comedy series and are watching them together as a kind of bonding thing. I'm not as close to my mother, and I don't know why, it might be because we don't communicate very well with each other, but father and I can understand each other easier.
My father was a piece of work. To outsiders he appeared like a great guy,but to those in the family he showed a different side. He was a workaholic and spent a lot of time at work. He did keep us fed and clothes on our backs. Other then the weekends i never saw much of him but when he was home on the weekends he showed the other side to himself. In his world he was first,his wants came before many of the needs in the family,he had to have the best and we got the rest. He often seemed to see us as an add on to his life and the kids were mostly there for the work we could provide around the house.
He never went to any of our school functions,he would not go to any places that we wanted to go. (For some reason he would say he would go but somehow he managed to either find something else to do or he got sick)
It seemed like he was ungrateful and did not care about much of anything to care very much unless it affected him personally. He ended up pushing everyone in the family away by the end. For the last 3 years of his life i did was primary caregiver bit it was a challenge. He was always right and it had to be his way or no way at all. (My mom could no longer do all the things that needed to be done with him and neither one could drive and for her sake alone i did it).
Being the oldest of the 6 and with my parents both working and trying to run a business by the time i was 11 i was running the whole household,but if everything was not done by the time they got home on Sunday afternoon,he would take it out on me and not on any of my brothers and sisters.
To boil it down to one sentence my father acted like a spoiled rotten brat till the day he died.
Personality wise we were total opposites.
Quote from: Melody Maia on February 15, 2011, 11:51:32 AM
There seems to be quite a number of drunk, abusive and/or drug addict fathers between us. I feel lucky my father was none of those things.
Sadly, that seems to be the case. I consider myself to be quite lucky.
But I would like to add that these two threads are incredably cathartic. I know I've really enjoyed writing down things for the first time. But equally, it is so interesting and connecting, to read the thoughts others have shared.
I want to say thank you to all who have so far contributed to these two threads. It's really good to know more about each of you.
While I was not close to my mom....I was increasingly very close to my dad.
We used to watch TV shows together, go on long walks and talk heart to heart. That was all before transition of course.
Now he and mom don't want anything to do with me.
I am not sure if my mom can ever get over it but my dad may at some point come around.
My father was awesome! Although he died twenty years ago, his birthday was a couple of days ago. I still call my mom on his birthday; we both miss him.
My dad was kind of angry when he was young, until his late forties, I guess. He spent his time working on stuff in his shop, little inventions, collecting all kinds of stuff and organizing it. His anger came out mostly at the world at large, with lots of talk about what "they" were doing, meaning, I guess, Republicans, conservatives, wealthy people, religious people and anyone he thought was being greedy or short sighted.
Then, around the time his son came home from college with an African-American girlfriend (about 1968), he began to look more deeply inside himself. His politics and liberal religious ideas were supposed to make it okay for his son to marry a black woman; but when it was that close to home, he struggled. He and my mom came up with excuses like "What about the children?" and stuff like that. Eventually, they let go of all that stuff and embraced her fully.
My dad was an early participant in the human potential movement that began at Esalen in Big Sur, California. After attending several times, he got in touch with the realization that he lived his life from the standpoint of resentment. Seeing this helped to free him immensely. He began to really honor and own his positive emotions like the love he had for his kids. He had never been physically or verbally affectionate to us when we were small, but after this internal work, he began to do simple things like hug me when I got home, or tell me he was proud of me.
By the time he died (of a heart attack a week after the big Bay Area earthquake of 1989), he had helped hundreds of other people in group therapy sessions to learn to know themselves more fully. He sang bass in the college choir where he was well-loved. He learned to cook and do the laundry. He found joy in artisan blacksmithing which he shared with interested folks at historical national parks. He loved to make up stories for his grandchildren.
Thanks for the opportunity to share. I really appreciate thinking deeply about my dad.
My dad is amazing. He used to always give me special treatment being the only girl in the family (which always made me angry and uncomfortable). I was wondering how he'd take the news when I came out. Well, he jumped on board so quickly it surprised me. He treats me like a son now. Male pronouns, male name/nicknames, telling people I'm his son, etc. In fact I moved in with him because he was way more accepting than my mom. Now I never have to hear about my past, except on the rare occasions he slips up, and then he spends a lot of time apologizing. It's pretty awesome.
I'd say I'm closer to my dad. It's like I can relate to him more then I can with my mom. We do a lot of activities together like working out or shopping. I'm not close enough to tell him anything about me though. I go to my dad for intellectual talk and to my mom for more emotional talk. Its like even though I feel like my dad would be more ok with me being trans then my mom, I would feel more comfortable telling my mom first.
Oh yeah, also, forgot to mention, my dad is the realistic version of Dr. Gregory House
My pops? I haven't seen him in about... six years? Something like that. Since I was about two, I've only seen him twice. We keep occasional contact over Facebook, but that is the extent of our connection. He has the desire to develop a relationship with me, and he is the first adult related to me that accepts me as a man. While talking to my sister, he referred to me as her brother. It was an amazing moment for me, and it almost makes me wish I really had him in my life. He's a cool guy, just doesn't seem like he was meant to have a family. When I talk about him, I brag. He is a professional movie actor, theatre actor, radio personality, and has even trained to be an ultimate fighter.
Not to say I've had no male figures in my life, my mom just happened to pick very bad ones... she never married my father, her first husband was abusive to her and did not allow me and my sisters to have a life, her second husband was abusive to me and my sisters. My mom's most recent man, we are very lucky to have in our lives. He genuinely appreciates and loves my mother and he loves us like we are his true family. It's just unfortunate that it took until I was nineteen before I ever had a positive male role model in my life.
A lot of sad stories here. :( But I am happy to see some pleasant ones too. :)
Sorry, but I guess I'll have to add another to the former heap...
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I'm not at all close to my dad. I avoid him when at all humanly possible. He's paranoid, extremist-religion, egotistical, petty, emotionally-abusive, think's he knows everything, never apologizes for anything, and an extreme control-freak to boot. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.
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I wrote enough in the other thread so I'll keep this brief. I tolerate him and hold my tongue around him because I want to see my family (many of whom still live under his roof), and because I know how abusive he can be toward those around him when the object of his frustrations is out of reach. I'm pretty sure I'll have to remove him from my life completely after I come out (for both my sake and my family's), and honestly, when it happens I don't think I'll feel anything but profound relief.
My dad and I were real close until my parents divorced when I was eight. One of my very favorite things to do as a kid was ask him questions. He seemed to be an endless source of knowledge about anything I was interested in, and he loves talking and would go on for hours, literally. Then my mom turned me against him for a while after the divorce. Fast forward to college and I figured out that my mom is the lousy parent, not my dad. Around that time he almost died too, and he changed a bit- he's a lot more interested in family now.
Overall, we're pretty close. He's definitely a lot sweeter now, and he makes it very clear that he'll always love me and just wants to be there for me, and he'll listen to me anytime. He really is wonderful, and he knows I'm struggling a lot for some reason, and he wants to know why. But he still thinks I should just pray for strength to not give into my bisexual urges, so I'm not telling him about my gender questions any time soon. ::)
I'm more comfortable with my dad than my mum since we've got a lot in common and joke around a lot, but when it comes to very personal things, it depends on what it is. He's a great father.
I'm also very close to my Dad. ^-^
My dad wasn't that close to us kids. He got the 7-year itch and left Mom to care of the four of us. I am the oldest of that brood and was noticing gender differences just before then. He would visit maybe once a decade, but he was in his own world when he did. We had to bring him home for his last 2 years due to Alzheimer's. He was mentally gone by that time and my mother had passed away few years before. We, through a genealogy check, found marriage certificates with 2 other women, besides the ones we knew. He was a recovered alcoholic, working for AA. The head for his chapter said that he was one of the best counselors due to his smooth southern Alabama baritone voice had a soothing effect. He probably used that to woo the women, he was not that bad looking either.
Jolene
I had a strange realationship with my dad.
When I was a kid he beats the s**t out of me, just for being existing.
My parents had a son allready and they didn't want another one.
I was married very young coz it's was the only way to get out of my parental house.
When I had my coming out, I feared my fathers reaction the most.
Hell, he was the only one in the family ( beside my sister) who was very supporting and maked a long trainjourney just to visit me for an hour when I had my SRS.
From the time I had my coming out, he changed hid approuch to me, he was kinder, supporting, to say it in short words, a real loving father.
When he was sick of cancer and dying, he called my name everytime while he was sleeping with morphin and saying that he had made so many mistakes with me and that he was sorry for it.
I've cried many times for what we had missed for so many years, but at the end I was glad that for a period I had a real loving father.
I never forget the pain from my youth but tough I've good memories of my father.
hugs
annette