Dear dad , Part IV: Will you regret that you haven’t bothered?

When I walk in the door, you only ever greet me with a frown or a grunt. I don’t think you have ever asked me how I am or how my day was.

You don’t know what I do in my life and you show literally zero interest to want to know. I refuse to include you in my life because it’s nothing but pain, criticism, negativity, disregard and disrespect.

After all these years of abuse that has ultimately lead to you being excluded from the love and care within the rest of our family, you still play the victim and can’t admit that this is the result of your own disgraceful and inhumane behaviour towards your own family.

I wish I had had a positive, male role model in my life that I could have looked up to, but to tell you the truth, the only things that you have taught me are: to never, ever end up remotely similar to you; and to fear settling with a man who would make me as miserable as you have made my Mum. I will never forgive you for the way that you’ve broken her; the most important, most selfless person in my life. And I will never forgive you for forever shaking my trust in humankind.

So now I move on in my life to a stage where I can physically cut you from my world and when I’m gone I can’t even imagine wondering about you. The thought makes me feel slightly sad, but I have to remind myself that relationships don’t go one-way, and if you cared enough about me, you would have made the effort to make amends while I was around. I do wonder if you will regret that, though.

I feel relief that I won’t be around you, but I know that the scars and painful memories will always be there.

WitheringTulip