Caliban's Sister wrote a recent blog about cowardice and triangulation (see sidebar) - this brought up so much for me. I've always said that part of my NFOO's legacy is cowardice. It's sad, but most of us were so terrified of MNfather and Nmother that we could just barely respond to life. We learned cowardice, and some of us were able to unlearn it. But I think that cowardice is part and parcel of narcissism. I remember when I first tested that theory. My father, even into his old age, was a rager, a violent man. When my mother left him (at age 79 - long story), my husband and I went to help him with the house - he thought Nmother was going to come back to him, so he wanted to get some stuff done in the house - we knew she wasn't coming back but thought that we could fix the house so that he could stay there for a while longer. By the time we'd been there for a week or so, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to be able to live alone, but that's a story for another day.
When he would really, really piss me off, I'd take our dog for a long walk - she got lots and lots of long walks, usually to the town cemetery, where she could run and where she discovered RABBITS! Oh, she loved to chase rabbits! One day, as I was realizing that another long, long walk was needed, Nfather started on one of his rants. I was sitting on a bench, putting on my shoes, and as he started walking towards me, shouting and shaking his finger, I started doing what I've done my whole life - looking for the nearest way out. And then something snapped inside me. I stood up abruptly and started walking toward him with long strides - and the man actually backed up! I kept walking and he kept backing up. I told him to STOP shouting and to behave like a human being. When he walked into the kitchen, my dog and I walked out the front door and headed to rabbit country. We were both very, very happy!!
I love this post. The image of you walking toward your father, tall with long strides, and him backing away, is just awesome. It sounds like the words you used were fairly mild, but the message you delivered was BACK THE FUCK OFF. The thing about courage is that if we finally start talking to these people as equals, they are often so surprised that they forget to get enraged. Although later there's usually hell to pay. BUT, the last time I visited my NF, he kept pressing me to talk about my relationship (non) with my NM, who lives 2 miles away from him and his NW. I wasn't going to see her during that visit (it was after the plagiarism, and after she demanded an apology from ME), and he wouldn't stop pressing me to talk about it. I told him the first two times he asked that I was not going to talk about it with him. The third time he asked I told him it would serve no purpose, and he wouldn't understand in any event. He said "I'm as smart as you and I'm capable of understanding it if you explain it to me." I said, no Dad, I don't WANT to talk about it with you, and I'm not going to. The fourth time (this was within two days) he pressed me, I said "Dad, it's none of your business." He said "We're all family, she's the mother of my children." I said, "It's none of your business and stop asking me about it." I then arranged to go home a day early. What was supposed to be a four day visit lasted 2.5 days because he would not respect that boundary. I made up an excuse about having to go home early, but a few months later in a phone call, when he was again pushing me to talk about her, (a woman he's been divorced from for 40 years now), I told him I'd left early precisely because he wouldn't stop pushing. I said "you seem awfully obsessed with her, given you've been married to NW for nearly 30 years." That shut him up.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the image of me being tall!!! I'm glad that you were able to keep NF out of your business - I truly am amazed at how N's really, really want to know everything - and it seldom works out well for the non-N's to share information. And the persistence with which they pursue information - it's exhausting!!! When my son was little, he talked a LOT - one day, I told him that my ears were full of words, so he had to stop talking - it bought me 5 minutes! I've considered using the line on N-siblings...
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