The most important relationship that any girl has with a parent is the one with her father. As today is Father’s Day, I felt that it was only fitting to discuss the relationship that I had with my own father that formulated the person that I am today.
First of all, I would like to make it perfectly clear that I loved and respected my father very much. But, my father was raised in a very strict environment and that is the home that he created for us. I was the middle child with an older sister and younger brother. My brother was only 15 months younger than me so I was never really the baby. As for my sister, she was the first to experience everything so that it wasn’t as exciting by the time things were handed down to me. Of course, this included clothing as well as just about anything else that you can think of.
The biggest thing that both my sister and I faced with our father was that he was extremely concerned with our appearance. For my sister, at a young age (under 10), he put her on an exercise regimen that included sit-ups, etc. Since that didn’t work for my sister, he decided that he would put me on a diet and if I didn’t lose 10 pounds by summer, I was not going to be allowed to wear shorts.
The other big thing for me was that my father, and later my brother, never felt that I measured up to my potential. Nothing that I could do was ever good enough. When I got great grades in school, it was expected, not rewarded as they were for my brother and sister. When I became a cheerleader, my parents never once came to any game or to any parade in which we marched. When it was college time, there were three of us in school at the same time so I stayed at home to go to college and worked every day after school from the time that I was 16 so that I could pay for my own education. My reward was that there was never enough money left for me to get new clothes, etc. after they got those things for my brother and sister and paid for them to go to college out of town.
As a result, when I found a man who was interested in me and gave me attention, I was “grateful”, I guess. I finally had a male who thought that I was something special. My dad didn’t seem to think that I was special so I would show him. And when I got married and my dad told me that I was not welcome in his home if I brought my husband because he did not approve of him, well, that was the final straw.
Although I didn’t experience any abuse from my husband until after we were several months into the marriage, I could not bring myself to let anyone know. After all, I had once again proven my dad right by not being smart enough to know what I was getting myself into. It was up to me to either fix it or be smart enough to find my way out of it. What a mess!
I never did figure out what was going on at the time that I was in that relationship but I did learn so much about myself. Although it took until the point where I could not stand the abuse any longer for me to leave, I am so glad that I had the presence of mind to do so. And the most interesting thing is that it was my mother and father who were there to move me out the day that I left. How ironic!
I would love your comments.