12-04-2016, 11:51 PM
Based on the entire story you shared, I think you did quite good. Nothing I could think you should feel any embarrassed about, and quite the opposite. I think you probably gave your dad the mirror he needed to work on himself, putting up with the entire thing through the end might've been unhelpful toward both your dad and yourself. You've been honest with yourself and allowed yourself to express how you felt, and that is never a bad thing.
Based on my observations of my own dad who left 2 wives with 2 kids each in a different province before settling with my mother, he does have a work of self forgiveness to do, so I'd say in any future interaction you could seek to have a focus on providing what's needed to help your own dad find forgiveness for himself while not necessarily having a need of this for yourself but to reply to his own need he might bring to you. In the case of my dad, his first wife was suicidal and he wouldn't have taken the kids out of fear she would've killed herself, but in the end he left them to a really shitty childhood and her next husband was an abusive dad too. A few years back one of my step sister asked him how he could've left 4 kids back there and this did weight a whole lot on his conscience. But I know she did not create this guilt in him, this catalyst was meant to bring up on the surface things my dad escaped facing within himself, and I think it was required that he'd get told this to be able to process these things now that he grew older and is not bound by what made him act as he did in the past.
In a similar fashion I think you were called to say the things you said to create movement in what needs to be processed, to allow healing to occur. If you feel healed and balanced about it all, I think that's what matters most for you as it is your personal work that no one could've done in your stead. I think you went out of good will and I don't think this initial intent was lost.
Based on my observations of my own dad who left 2 wives with 2 kids each in a different province before settling with my mother, he does have a work of self forgiveness to do, so I'd say in any future interaction you could seek to have a focus on providing what's needed to help your own dad find forgiveness for himself while not necessarily having a need of this for yourself but to reply to his own need he might bring to you. In the case of my dad, his first wife was suicidal and he wouldn't have taken the kids out of fear she would've killed herself, but in the end he left them to a really shitty childhood and her next husband was an abusive dad too. A few years back one of my step sister asked him how he could've left 4 kids back there and this did weight a whole lot on his conscience. But I know she did not create this guilt in him, this catalyst was meant to bring up on the surface things my dad escaped facing within himself, and I think it was required that he'd get told this to be able to process these things now that he grew older and is not bound by what made him act as he did in the past.
In a similar fashion I think you were called to say the things you said to create movement in what needs to be processed, to allow healing to occur. If you feel healed and balanced about it all, I think that's what matters most for you as it is your personal work that no one could've done in your stead. I think you went out of good will and I don't think this initial intent was lost.
![[+]](https://www.bring4th.org/forums/images/collapse_collapsed.png)