FUCKING LIVID · 8:00pm Nov 9th, 2014
An article that isn't about my pathetic struggle with binge eating?! Gee golly, nothing other than a divine intervention could have possibly caused this.
Well, almost. Replace "divine" with "demonic", and you'd be somewhere in the ball park.
How do I begin this? Well, for one thing, I never quite foresaw that one conversation could alter your perspective on somebody so drastically. From understanding to utter resentment; you know if you've managed to completely jump ship between these 2 states of feeling, you dun' fucked up. And "fuck up" he most certainly did. Who am I talking about precisely? My father.
Now here or there I may have mentioned instances of "a divorce" occurring in the family, and they may have seemed severely downplayed, given it was small potatoes in the context of my previous blogs, like it was something distant that happened and passed in early adolescence or something. Nope - it happened as recently as just under a month ago, and let me just say it's completely broken up the family, and turned daily life into an emotional minefield, where even the slightest things may (and will) set off a total emotional breakdown.
But so what, that's hardly a big deal, divorces happen to tonnes of people, nearly 1/2 of all people who get married, right? Well yeah, you're not totally wrong, but that doesn't mean that they aren't significant in their own ways. And as it turned out, one of these small breakdowns from the mother made me realize something I should have figured out immediately quite frankly - my "dad" is an absolute cunt who I should've never given any sympathy towards.
I suppose we'll need a tad bit of context - essentially, during the run-up to our family holiday to Kefalonia in this June, he became far more involved in cycling as a pasttime, which we assumed was an effort to lose weight and match his competitive cycling buddies, of which there were many. After all, it was what he himself stated! However, there was a small snag in this development he didn't mention - during his almost constant ventures on his bike, he ran into a widowed woman (let's call her... G), and slowly but surely got acquainted with her, shall we say. Remember this - this is important!
During our holiday, on top of running into a few cases of my food aversion, we also encountered upon a few instances of him texting G in private and trying desperately to hide this interaction from us. In one scenario in particular, the mother wanted to check the time, and, after noticing a text from G, instantly had the phone snatched right off of her in a fit of spontaneity. As the holiday came and went, me and my brother noticed continual cases of mum & dad arguing over his recent addiction to cycling, mum constantly questioning him as to why with varying degrees of grief & anger, with only half-baked lies such as "this is my livelihood" and "I want to get fit" as answers. While these were true in their own right, they were true in the same way an MP or political delegates words are true; they leave out crucial, defining details. I'm sure you can put 2 & 2 together to figure out the actual reasons behind these cycling ventures, but I'll spell it out for you anyways: he and G were slowly but surely falling for each other, and used these continual cycles as a means through which to better know each other and spend time with her. Should I mention that Mum & Dad have been married for 26 years, and that he only got to know G for the better part of around 6 weeks?
Turns out that he apparently felt unloved for over a decade because Mum disliked travelling and generally didn't share many common interests with him, and that he allegedly wanted to feel loved and be able to have somebody follow him around wherever he goes, like some lost little puppy. And that while he was feeling these insecurities for the better part of over a fucking decade, he decided to lie to his wifes face for that very time period, and insist that everything was all-peachy while covertly sneaking out to meet with another woman, leaving his wife of 26 years feeling at least twice as unloved. He also claims to have tried to nip this intimate connection in the bud before it descended too far, but given all of the other times he's outright lied and denied blatant truths to us before, both within the past few months alone and over our entire lives I'm not taking anything he says at face value anymore. The mother also got tired of putting up with this shit, and after finding out about this connection and putting 2 & 2 together herself, filed for divorce, and as such, he no longer inhabits our house.
His birthday recently came & went, and he returned from Las Vegas this afternoon to quickly drop off gifts for me and his brother before returning to his temporary accommodation, as if even after completely tearing our family apart, betraying our mother and his wife of 26 years, and pursuing his own selfish whims because of some "mid-life crisis", he could still buy us our affections back. Until now, I was actually fairly ambivalent towards him, and while I hated what he did, I tried to look objectively from both points of view, and understood his decision to start off a new life. Even if he made unbelievably dumb mistakes, exercised outright cruelty towards his wife and spat blatant lies out to my face without me being the wiser, he was still my dad - I couldn't bring myself to hate him, I thought he handled the situation about as well as he could've, and was happy that he didn't totally abandon us, and still offered financial support and transport whenever necessary.
Until Mum came home from work this evening, realized he came over, and as per usual course, demanded to know what he and I had talked about ( a morbid curiosity post-divorce on her end). I mentioned how I asked him if he "had a good birthday" amongst the other things (soliciting, the gifts he dropped off etc), and she completely lost herself for a minute or 2, wondering why I was acting so buddy-buddy with him (it was actually just to make conversation as he was very quiet) and breaking down in tears over how much he had hurt her, and how insulting it was that he decided to spend his birthday with his new partner at the very same restaurant the 2 of them had typically ate at together for years on end.
It was at that point where I emotionally transformed, I had no idea how to react. She was absolutely right, and in my attempt to remain as objective between the 2 parties as possible, I remained positively, retardedly blind to the reality that he just walked out on her for some woman he'd only known for 6 weeks, and kept a circle of lies spinning for months on end to try and hide that while still trying to claim that there was nothing wrong with their relationship. Seriously that was all it took to make me realize how much of a fucking CUNT he really was, and I'm so annoyed it took me until now to figure it out. I tried so fucking hard to be understanding and objective to his side it let me take his own acts of douchebaggery with little more than a shrug and vague contempt when I really shouldn't have been accommodating to him in the absolute slightest. I should've been more like my brother and outright shut him out of my life, who, incidentally, I woke up after an admittedly loud reaction on my end.
Once he came out, the conversation devolved to consoling her as she broke down and poured out her heart and anxieties to her 2 sons, as we sat powerless to help her, but we sure as fuck tried. Which is more than can be said for a certain pitiful excuse of a husband. The longer she went on, the more I realized just how much of a naive gullible idiot I really was - Dad was an "absolute prick", as my bro' continually reaffirmed to her to cheer her up, and even though her emotions are likely bringing out an exaggerated depiction of his vices, they're still goddamn fucking vices.
Congratulations, "Dad", you've caused your former wife to break down in tears constantly at the mere implication or mention of your name and made an enemy for life, to the extent where both her and my brother considered CRIME as payback. I'm not fucking joking - both mum and my bro' contemplated bricking his car or even outright physical assault, and only stopped themselves due to how financial settlements haven't yet been finalized.
You've lost many of your former friends, the respect and love of your former family, and burnt down any bridges that could have salvaged it, and for what? Your own selfish dividends, and a mid-life crisis which essentially boils down to "YOLOSWAG". Dare I even mention that G is widowed herself, and has already been through the cycle of depression, loss, hatred and emotional shutdown herself? And that there's absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that this new relationship could work out, meaning this whole pursuit you abandoned your family for could potentially fall flat on its arse?
FUCK YOU "DAD", this family is much better off without your condescending, whiny, guilt-tripping power-mongering abhorrently dishonest adultering backside. I've been far too fucking nice to you, and it's EXPONENTIALLY more than you deserve. I can't bring myself to abandon you from my life, and frankly I couldn't even if I wanted to, but I'm not going to be understanding to your cause anymore. You're still my dad, but you're also a cunt, plain and simple. I hope you're satisfied with the little mess you've left on us.
