Hello everyone,

I hope you enjoy this story that hits very close to home for me. I love how decisive the advice is.

Please read and feel free to share widely!

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/04/dear-prudence-coroanvirus-shelt...

Dear Prudence,

By all accounts, I had a great dad. When I was born, he left his corporate job to be a stay-at-home father. My father did everything, but my mother complained and criticized him for being a deadbeat. This turned into her calling him “violent” and “gay.” Before long, they were in counseling, and my mother called the police for “claiming he was going to kill her.” She had us testify against him for being a “child molester.” He got a full-time job, but she got him fired. During it all, my father never wavered in his love. He tolerated my mother’s abuse and continued to take us to activities and push us academically. We learned my mother was having a long-term affair and became secretly engaged to someone else.

When Dad finally divorced her, my sister became ruthless, refusing calls and texts. I followed suit and haven’t spoken to him in four years. Though I knew my father was sad, lonely, and suffering, we kids pitted our parents against each other to obtain trips and material items. Eventually, my father gave up. My mom, on the other hand, started being a caring mother. I learned on Facebook my father met a woman and is happily helping to raise her children. It saddens me that we never provided that for him.

Now I am getting married. I want my father there. My mother will be livid. I don’t think a wedding is a place for a reunion, but I feel if he isn’t there, I would, again, have betrayed him. I know my siblings will be equally harsh and I risk being ostracized. My mother still maintains her innocence and claims he “abandoned the family for being gay.” I don’t want to get married to avoid all of this. I am also afraid that my father, rightfully so, likes his new family better. What should I do?

—Estranged Father of the Bride

Please do not invite your father to an event where his abuser will not merely be present but presumably a central figure in your wedding party. The fact that you want your father at your wedding does not outweigh the importance of his physical and emotional safety.

You admit that your mother would be “livid” if he were to attend, and you’ve established a long-standing pattern that’s continued into adulthood of condoning and often enabling her abuse, even as you privately disapprove of it. That’s not to say that you are responsible for your mother’s abuse—that’s hers, and hers alone, and you were a vulnerable and bewildered child for much of it. But you can choose, as an adult, not to help perpetuate further abuse by asking your father to attend an intimate event with someone who falsely accused him of violence and child molestation.

I believe the best, safest, most loving course of action you can commit to is to see a therapist; to stop seeing your mother; and to begin to work out what peace, forgiveness, and meaningful change might look like for you. If you are not prepared to remove your mother from your life, I do not believe reconciliation with your father will be possible for you. To ask him to resume even indirect contact with her through you would be to threaten him with continued abuse. It may be that for right now, the best thing you can offer your father is continued noninterference. I hope he is safe, peaceful, and well. Please do not threaten that safety.

COMMENTS from the SLATE website:

Dear Estranged

I hope your father stays as far away from all of you as possible, cause frankly, you sound like horrible people.

I hope your dad does like his new family better, cause anything would be better than what you and your mother and siblings dished out.

John: Why would you invite your incredibly abusive mother to the wedding, but not your father?  Do not invite your mother, and invite your father. 

If you sisters ostracize you, all for the better.  Get the abusive people out of your life.

Have you written your father an apology letter?  That might be the best place to start.
Then you need some therapy how to stand up to your mom and this lifetime of epic gaslighting.
 

Wow. You guys ALL sucked toward your dad. WOW.

Maybe you could write him a letter apologizing for being such a complete _____ to him.

But don't drag him back into the cesspool of his former existence. LEAVE HIM ALONE. You crapped all over him long enough, don't you think?

You guys really are the children of your evil mother.

 How selfish. SHE wants her dad at her wedding, but is there any reason to believe he wants to be there?

Why would he? Being manipulated by mom as a kid is one thing, but it doesn't sound she's done anything to make amends as an adult.

        - How can he make amends when they won't take his calls?  The LW admitted this.

To the letter writer seeking advice RE her father's wedding attendance: stay out, sit down, and let your father enjoy the life he has now built. You as a young adult knowingly contributed to the cycle of violence he experienced, and I would bet money any contact from you would be PTSD-inducing for him. Bluntly, you made your bed; now lie in it. As Prudie posited, you are seriously considering bringing him face-to-face with his abuser again (a homophobic abuser, at that)--your lack of concern for his well-being speaks volumes. You remain self-centered, which apparently is a family trait inherited from your mother. My advice: get married, enjoy the kind woman you mother has now reportedly become, and let your father live his life and enjoy his new family (whom he does, to be clear, undoubtedly like more than you and your siblings--and with good reason).

LW2: you ARE an abuser. And, as abusers do, when you saw your dad happy and living his life, you immediately want to ruin that.

You want him back and miserable - how dare he be happy! Get in counseling. Work on yourself. Quit blaming your mom, and Leave Him Alone!!!

        - AMEN to this, and as a male survivor of family assault, I thank you. So often the male survivor is dismissed, diminished, and disregarded.

If ever there was the perfect argument for eloping, Estranged Father of the Bride has one. It sounds like she treated her father terribly and now regrets it, but her mother and her siblings are completely devoid of remorse for their bad acts. She needs to ask herself why she even wants them to be part of her special day.  Call off the wedding and plan a private ceremony. Meanwhile, LW should offer a sincere apology to her father for her callousness and attempt a reconciliation that will include introducing him to her fiance.

Re: Estranged Father of the Bride:  Based on what you wrote, your father was a saint!  In spite of an abusive, lying and viciously vindictive wife (your mother!) your father was unwavering in his love and support for you and your siblings.  In spite of that, you all manipulated him for petty cash and material things before you all cut him out of your lives in favor of your mother, who apparently had a come to Jesus moment and suddenly became "caring."  I call BS on that.  You should be ashamed of yourself for how you've treated your father.  Now you suddenly want him around because you're getting married, but as usual, you're worried about setting off your mother and your siblings.  Try learning how to think for yourself!  If you truly want to make amends with your father then do so but make sure you do it from a place of genuine love and repentance for your behavior, not because you want a picture perfect father-daughter dance at your wedding.

          YES re the LW regarding her father. She is still quite self-absorbed and narcissistic.  Even now her primary concern is whether he 'loves his new family' more than her/her siblings. Oy vey. 

Estranged Dad - sit down and have a talk with your father. Please do not take a choice to attend your wedding away from him. Let it be his choice. He may be strong enough to endure whatever happens. Also look inside yourself and make sure you are strong enough too. Unfortunately in life we have to rock the boat sometimes because to do otherwise is not healthy

            If I was the father I would want to be nowhere near that family for the first time at a wedding. If this person cared even an iota, they would start with sending a letter of apology or an email. Just some means of communication that doesn't involve him having to respond. The mother is evil and the children inherited that trait. They have shown no remorse and at this stage in their lives, blaming their mother passes their own blame on. I was disgusted by this letter and Prudie went easy on the LW about their responsibilities. The father owes them nothing at this point.             

           The children didn't inherit an evil trait, they were abused an manipulated children dependent for survival upon a lunatic. This IS the remorse - she literally says she doesn't want to betray her father again.

           The children are as awful as the mom. You can't blame the mother for everything, always. And, people are based on their actions which all of them have been consistently awful. Therefore, they should be left. 

            Well the best way not to betray him again is to leave him the F alone. Let him live his happy life instead of trying to open old wounds or have him relive his sadness that his offspring are terrible

             The real question isn't whether or not she should invite her father. It's why does she want her mother and siblings - clearly terrible people with no sense of remorse - at her wedding.

              She herself has no real remorse, either. Her chief concern appears to be whether or not he 'loves his new family' more than her/her siblings. 

               I totally agree with you - don't take the choice away from him.  It is also wrong to assume he is going to react like a SWJ.  In his generation, people were less    sheltered and more expected to stand up to bullies and problems on their own.  He might have a rougher layer of skin than the average twenty-something year old.

              NO NO NO re LW's father. You are engaging in what is sadly all too common, which is minimizing the experience of male survivor of violence. Would your advice be the same were this a mother rather than a father who had been abused???

Do you not grasp that YOU victimized him, too. You helped murder his soul for stuff, now you want to lay it on your mother and start over like you did nothing.

If I were your father I would tell you to your face that I wish you nothing but pain. Sorry, not sorry.