I mentioned a few days ago that I was agitated about an email from my father-in-law. Paul’s parents split up when Paul was in college; evidently it was (a) a relief and (b) a long time coming. I’ve met Paul’s dad once, and he’s….he’s a…he’s a difficult man. He’s in his sixties now, but pretty much all he does is self-analysis. His only topic of conversation is how his journey of self-discovery is going, or why it’s everyone else’s fault that his life turned out the way it did. He even has a theory about a childhood illness that he claims made him into a different person than he was “supposed to be.” There’s no reason to believe he ever had such an illness, or that he was ever anyone other than the asinine idiot he has carefully nurtured over the years.
The first evening I spent with Paul and Paul’s parents (they’re divorced, as I said, but amicable enough to get together for an evening when Paul and I visited briefly on our honeymoon), Paul’s dad sat in silent state of what turned out to be self-pity–the entire evening. Paul and his mom were prepared: Paul’s mom knitted, and Paul had a book. I’m still angry with Paul (it’s been nearly ten years) for not preparing me. There I sat like an idiot, trying to fill the silence with perky remarks no one responded to. I should have wished everyone good night and left the room, but I was too paralyzed by the intense discomfort of the situation.
Paul’s dad contacts us once every year or two. Sometimes it’s a one-time email/call, sometimes there’s a flurry of them. Then they cut off abruptly, and we don’t hear from him again for another year or two. He doesn’t respond when we let him know about the birth of a new grandchild. Sometimes he’ll contact us six months later to complain about how bad he feels for not responding. He’s made no contact with any of his grandchildren, or shown any interest in them at all. They are not him, so he’s not interested.
Every time I’ve had to talk to Paul’s dad on the phone, I’ve ended up sickened by his excuses and his self-pity. He talks ONLY about himself. He takes EVERYTHING personally. When we had newborn twins and sent out a general email to the whole family and all our friends saying that we were going to let the answering machine pick up calls because it was too hard to talk on the phone right now, he professed himself “very hurt” by this, and said he felt “rejected.” He feels so very, very victimized and sorry for himself over the break-up of his family, even though it’s clear that he was the main problem. He says he shouldn’t be held accountable for his bad behavior (he used to disappear for hours or days; he would give everyone the silent treatment for hours, days, or weeks; he would be “emotionally unable” to either work or help out around the house; he had at least one affair), because he “wasn’t emotionally able” to deal with marriage and family. Whatever, jerk.
ANYWAY. He got in touch again last week, by email. This time he tells me that the reason he’s not in touch is that he doesn’t know who he can “trust.” He says that when he gives updates on his life, they get “twisted” and people put “spin” on them to make him look bad. I don’t know what the hell he could be referring to. He says that he would like to have a relationship with Paul, but feels rejected by Paul. He explains the various elements of his personality that make it so very hard for him to keep in touch with his own children unless they jump up and down saying “Yay! Yay! You’re talking to me, I’m so very very excited and grateful!” He explains once again that his IQ is very very high, and that a psychologist told him he functions at a lower level than his IQ, and that there “must be a reason for that.” Note: I’ve never noticed that he seems particularly intelligent. Mostly he seems paranoid and mentally unstable.
He didn’t send this email to Paul, only to me. It is clear from the email that what he wants is for me to comfort and reassure him. He wants me to tell him that I totally understand why he’s chosen to estrange himself from his children and grandchildren. He wants me to tell him he’s totally wrong and that Paul is LONGING for a relationship with him, and that I will talk to Paul and explain his dad’s actions in another light so that reconciliation will be possible. He wants me to tell him that yes, he’s very very smart and such a good boy in every way. Well, screw that. He’s a total loser, and I can’t stand him, and at this point I don’t even want him to have a relationship with the kids because that would be so much work for me and would involve so many explanations to the children about why Grandpa suddenly dropped out of touch for a year. And also, he’s right: Paul doesn’t want a relationship with him.
I worked really hard on my reply email:
Hey, Pinehole Dear Phil,
Surely you must realize I’m not going to tell you that you did the right thing by choosing to estrange yourself from your children and grandchildren for what appear to me to be purely selfish reasons. Surely you must realize that at this point, nobody cares what you do or what you say. Your family doesn’t waste breath discussing you one way or another, and if you think people are “spinning” your words to “prejudice others against you,” I suggest you get your medication adjusted. The only prejudice people have against you is the prejudice you yourself have inspired with your words and your actions. I barely know you, and no one has had to “spin” anything for me to understand what it means that you drop out of touch for years at a time. And don’t try to get my sympathy in any way: I may be only the daughter-in-law so you feel safe talking to me, but those are my babies and my husband you’re ignoring, and they matter infinitely more to me than you do. If you think I’m going to take your side over theirs, you are seriously whacked. I’d give up your life to save one of their fingers.
You’re so worried that everyone is saying bad things about you, and you consider yourself “out of the loop.” In your needs-more-medication imagination, Paul and his mom and sister dance happily in a field of flowers holding hands, while poor poor Phil is all alone through no fault of his own with no one to care about him. Leaving aside the issue of who it was who left his family behind and then chose to rarely contact them ever again except to explain how bad they make him feel, I can tell you that Paul doesn’t contact his mother or sister, either. I’m totally in charge of all contact with his family. You can imagine how much I love this, considering what a bunch of crazies you all are. You imagine, I suppose, that I’m constantly emailing Paul’s mother and having long cozy chats with her on the phone, while sending you only the “bare minimum” of a huge monthly pile of photos of the grandchildren you don’t show any interest in, plus every two weeks a long chatty email keeping you updated on our lives which you also don’t show any interest in. You will be glad to know that the emails and photos I send to you–the ones you never acknowledge in any way–are the exact same ones I send to Paul’s mother. There, do you feel more “in the loop” now?
You talk about how bad you feel for being out of touch, but then you immediately start making excuses for it. All the excuses end up being about other people. Listen, pinehole, I couldn’t care less if you were in touch or not. In fact, I prefer it when you’re out of touch. When you call or write, I am agitated for days, wishing I was the kind of person who would say to you after a long period of listening to your complaints and excuses, “Hm, no, it sounds to me as if this is all your own fault, and that you’re being a total jerk as usual.” Instead I say, “Mm-hm, mm-hm” which I think implies that you’ve found a sympathetic ear. Then I’m angry at you and at myself. I have thought more than once that it will be a relief when you die and I no longer have to wonder if I should send you yet another Christmas package that will go completely unacknowledged.
Because you are a difficult and probably crazy person, I’ve had to come up with an actual formal policy regarding my willingness to communicate with you. After years of thought, and many times considering if I should just break off communications altogether because you’re not my father and I don’t see why I should have to carry the burden that is you, I have come up with a policy that keeps me from going quite so nuts. It is this: As long as you keep us updated with email address and mailing address changes, my intention is to continue sending you the exact same emails and photos and cards I send to Paul’s mom, just as I have been. I’m the daughter-in-law, so I don’t have any emotional stake in whether or not you’re in touch beyond the necessary address updates. Frankly, it’s easier for me if you’re not.
You are way too old to be talking deeply about your journeys of self-discovery. This is appropriate during late nights in high school and college, and maybe even into the early twenties, but then never after. Not only does no one care this much about another person’s psyche, you don’t have a very interesting psyche to begin with. In fact, it appears that all you have in there is a big tangle of psychological analysis: you’ve been self-analyzing for so long, that’s all that’s left of you–if there was ever anything more than that to begin with, which my experiences with you have led me to doubt.
You say you feel that various things have led to you not living up to your real potential. You know what? I think your real potential was pretty limited to begin with. But certainly at this point, it is too late to be worrying about it. It’s too late for you to do anything “when you grow up.” It’s also too late to care about your IQ. Your IQ might have been an interesting test result when you were in elementary school, but it’s meaningless now. Your incessant bragging about how high it is only makes me want to argue with you and make scoffing noises and show you many bullet-pointed charts that demonstrate how little evidence there is that your IQ was even high to begin with.
You made your choices during the time you were with your family, and you’ve made your choices since then, and it is useless to try to blame the results of those choices on other people. Oh, you feel like Paul and his sister don’t want a relationship with you? Quelle surprise. Who WOULD want a relationship with someone as self-absorbed and as self-pitying as you? Considering your only topic of conversation with your children is why they can only blame themselves for your departure and why they can only blame themselves for your lack of communication since then, and considering you only have this conversation with them every two years or so when you choose to contact them, and then you sulk because you don’t think they seemed happy enough to hear from you, what the hell would make you believe that anyone would want a relationship with you? You’re a total waste of apartment space as far as I’m concerned.
Normally, I like to believe that most people do okay as parents: some may be better than others, but there aren’t many failures. You, though, are an actual failure. Yes, I mean it: you are a failure as a father. You failed. You did more harm than good. You set a terrible example of adulthood. You did not take care of your children, and you interfered with the care others tried to take. It is a tribute to the strength of the human spirit that your kids came out as well as they did. I mean, there are times when I get very frustrated with Paul, but he’s a normal human being and my frustrations with him are on that level. My frustrations with you run more toward a knife and a scary ee!-ee!-ee! sound as you take a shower.
If you want my opinion–and from experience I know you don’t want it unless it confirms your own sense of rightness and wrongedness–I think you could benefit from a several step program. (1) Go see a psychiatrist. Tell him or her your worries about people twisting your words. Tell him or her your philosophy about family relationships. Get some good medications for a change. (2) I usually don’t like it when people say “Get a life,” because they seem to mean “Get one more like mine,” but in your case I think the instruction could be applied to mean something less critical and more elemental. Stop thinking about yourself all the time. Stop wondering about your feelings all the time. Get out of your Mire Of Phil and do things that matter to people other than to you. Get a job, maybe. Get some friends who aren’t taking you on purely as a charity case. (3) Stop being such an ass. We’re all sick of it. (4) Give up on a relationship with Paul. People say “it’s never too late,” but they’re just being starry-eyed dimwits: there is a point of “too late,” and you’ve passed it. You’d have to change more than humanly possible for him to think you’re not a total waste of time. (5) Stop bragging about your IQ and your potential. Nobody cares, and nobody believes you. You wasted your life; too bad. (6) Stop asking me to support your unsupportable decisions. I don’t like you any more than Paul does; and in fact, considering I have no conflicted familial feelings, I probably like you a whole lot less.
Be sure to leave instructions in your crazy-person apartment so that someone will contact us when you die. Other than that, I don’t see any reason we need to hear from you again.
Sayonara, Loser Love, Swistle
***
Some of you may have noticed that I had to do some subtle editing to my original email before sending it. Most of the editing was because I realized I didn’t want to engage with him in any of the areas he wanted to engage in: I didn’t want to talk about how he thought other people were saying bad things about him, I didn’t want to discuss whether his children would want a relationship with him, and I didn’t want to talk about how I understood his lack of contact or response over the years. Nor did I want to get an email back from him in response to any of those topics. It’s not as if my opinions on the topic are going to make him realize the errors of his ways and become a better person. All I’d be doing is creating strife and unpleasantness.
All I really wanted to communicate was two things: (1) I send you the same stuff I send to your ex-wife so don’t imagine you’re missing out, and (2) I don’t really care if you’re in touch or not. On a read-between-the-lines level, I hope that my lack of response to the rest of his email communicates that I don’t care about his IQ, his excuses, or his justifications for his bad behavior.
