Relationship With My Dad

[tinytherese]

FYI this'll be a long post.


Months ago I wrote a journal entry after going to confession regarding my dad. I've struggled forgiving him, called him a jerk under my breath, imagined hitting him in my mind, and have failed to understand him. When I went to confession, part of my penance was to imagine interacting with my dad and how I pictured it ideally going both on his part and mine. Please forgive me if this is hard to follow. This was written in a sort of stream of conscience mode. Also, you might want to grab some tissues before reading on. I know that I cried writing this.


I desire to be warm, open, and be myself when I am with him. It would be nice if I wouldn't feel so hurt and angered by his words, facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, but I do. I can't properly describe my relationship with him without crying or almost crying. I want him to be considerate about what he says and how he says what he says to me.

According to mom, he brags about me to lots of people but makes sure that mom and I aren't around when it happends. (Mom finds out about this through other people.) And for so long I thought that I wasn't good enough for him. I want him to compliment me to my face. I also want him to apologize for anything that I tell him that I find hurtful and resolve not to say or do whatever it was again, instead of accusing me of being "moody," "sensitive," "tired," or say, "[i]Hellooo[/i] it was [b]a joke[/b]. Don't you have a sense of humor?" I also don't want him to laugh at me when I tell him that I feel hurt.

I remember him giggling while cracking my knuckles as a child. I told him that I was in pain and yelled but he insisted that it didn't hurt and wouldn't stop. Dad grabbed one or both of my hands and I couldn't get free and I anticipated the upcoming pain.

No more being laughed at, feeling judged, or being the victim of his arrogant judgements. He really is the judgemental type. If you are ever accused of a crime, you wouldn't want him on jury duty. He automatically assumes that if you are charged with a crime then you must be guilty. (I found this out from my mom by the way and she knows him better than I do.) He also assumes that if you are overweight then you are a stupid person because anyone with a brain knows that that is unhealthy. (Believe me, I know this. I've heard him multiple times say it.)

If only he could express the male problem solving mentality in a non-cynical way, as if I'm too stupid to not already know to do something in particular to resolve the matter. He doesn't mean to sound that way but that's how it comes out. He doesn't even know me, or else he wouldn't say some of the things that he does. He makes fun of what I like. Is he mocking them, me, or both? Can't my dad seek to discover who I am and show that he loves me no matter what? Actually, not that long ago I realized that I couldn't remember a time where he said that he loved me. Oh, if he were to tell me that in all sincerity, it would blow me away and I would swim in my tears.

I have had those that have exhibited spiritual fatherhood to me, such as Pope John Paul II. I never met him but I have learned so much from him and know that from the descriptions I've heard that he was full of tremendous love for [u]everyone.[/u] Oh, the hearts that he touched, including the hearts of the young, for he believed in them and expected great things of them. We don't call the Holy Father for nothing. How he stressed the dignity of every person, and was a great advocate of human rights, heeding the commandment from Our Lord to love one's neighbor. What a contrast between him and my dad! Pope John Paul II was my real father as opposed to my natural one.

I remember how last summer, dad would stroke my body in a certain way that reminded me of the way that some kids touched each other in high school in order to sexually arouse one another. I told dad that I didn't feel comfortable with it and told him to stop. What I told him about my high school classmates from years ago didn't matter to him. He laughed saying that he was just tickling and that what I said sounded ridiculous. So he continued to do it. I felt like that through this sexual harassment that I had no dignity and that I therefore wasn't even human. What I said and felt didn't matter, so he was in control.

If it were someone else doing the things that he does to me, he would probably hate it but if he does it then it's okay. Why doesn't he realize that when he says and does these hurtful things that he is the only one who is laughing?

What's worse, is that he does similar things to my mother, his own wife. They don't even appear to like being around each other and have so little in common. They bicker constantly. I've heard enough of their arguments to know how dad doesn't listen to her, clings to his pride, and gets defensive about whatever she says, despite how articulate she is. I've heard him raise his voice to her firm but calm one. I don't know why they married each other or how they are still together. I remember how years ago I thought that they were going to get a divorce. Miraculously they haven't. God has spared our family that pain. Mom told me that she often does feel hurt because of what he does and says but seeks to understand him. She has tried to change him but says that this is just how he is and that she accepts it. This is the woman that he mocks in public, claiming that she has drinking problems. The woman whose job that he doesn't even respect, except for the amount of money that she gets doing it. he claims that she is lazy and doesn't work out, yet she runs the household and everyone in it, including him, and doesn't have time for much excercise. He disappears before mass on sunday morning, leaving her to get herself and my little brother ready all by herself and is late because of it.

Ironic how he's listened to a song before called "A Real Man." How I wish that he would apply the lyrics to it! "A real man knows the value of a woman. A real man has got nothing to prove. He's strengthened by love and the Lord up above." Perhaps he knows at least some of these truths but doesn't know how to live them out.

He grew up in a methodist home where they only went to church on Christmas and Easter and he either didn't even learn the basics of christianity or he never cared to learn. Though it may have been a combination of both. He became a catholic years ago either for his first "wife" (I say that because their marriage was annuled) or for my mom. For most of my life he only went to mass mostly on Christmas and Easter. I remember when I converted from being a luke-warm catholic to being a devout one that I was afraid of my dad finding out about it. He mocks the faith and once insulted Pope John Paul II, mocking him for forgiving the man who tried to assassinate him. Even joking that when the camera was off that he probably punched the man and maybe even cursed at him. I found that to be very disrespectful. To think that Pope John Paul II was weak for forgiving him or only superficially forgave him, oh wow did I ever defend my late holy father from my earthly one. He also made fun of his title, "Your Holiness" in a disrespectful manner. Nobody messes with JP 2 around me.

Some months ago he start going to mass more frequently. I don't know what is in his heart, but this appears to be a good sign, though he sometimes skips because he would rather work out or nap instead. There is so much that he has yet to understand and I hope to evangelize him, but it's hard to warmly do so with him, with what he says and does that I may look very cold to him. Please pray for his conversion. It'll be a long conversion most likely.

What also happened last summer was he asked me where I wanted to do with my life and I said that I was interested in religious education. He may have meant this all in love but what he said to me was discouraging. He asked if I wanted to see this video on youtube which featured an anti-catholic on it mocking catholics of course. I refused and told me that I should be aware of what some people think of catholics. I had already taken a class in high school on apologetics and was already well aware of some of the nasty things that anti-catholics say, not to mention I had been living in the world for nineteen years and had already heard what the world thought of catholics. "You are stuck in the past, narrow-minded, judgemental, enslaved by your own dogmas..." Not to mention I had already been through my first year of college asway from home at a secular school where I encountered many people who did not think or believe what I did. Heck I lived with eight other girls from very different backgrounds and beliefs from my own in a suite.

I knew what the hard-core fundamentalists thought of us from my apologetics class, the often modern liberal heterox beliefs, the apathetic catholics, the doubters of religion, and the catholic haters out there in the world already. He said, "Okay, but I'm just saying" and yet he kept going on and on about how I need to expand my horizons anyway. What I said to him didn't matter. It seemed as if he thought that I was still blissfully ignorant of all of this. I got so angry with him pushing and pushing and expecting me to answer some of the possible objections that we catholics and christians in general are faced with. I told him that I was going to write a book on all of that and that I knew how to refute this stuff, but he wasn't convinced. He asked me what I thought of catholics who don't go to mass and asked, "Well what about (and he named off some of my uncles who don't go)" in an in your-face-how-are-you-gonna-answer-this-you-narrow-minded-person sort of way. I got so upset with him and cried because of the way it looked like he thought of me despite what I was saying. Then the worst part happened, he said that from the way that I was responding to him made him doubt that I could do any work in religious education. I felt so hurt because he didn't believe in me. That was the worst thing that he has ever told me before.

I still haven't totally or maybe not at all forgiven him for that. I can't be open with him or be myself around him because of what he says and does. I couldn't even bring myself to tell him about the chastity club that I'm starting on my campus because I'm afraid that he'll do what he did before regarding the religious education issue and that he'll point out that I haven't had a leadership position before and here I am being one of the co-presidents of a contraversial club on my campus.

The situation with my dad reminds me of a song from the film "Rugrats in Paris" but instead of the title being "I Want a Mom," for me its "I Want a Dad."

"I want a dad that'll last forever. I want a dad to make it all better...and when I have a bad dream, he'll hold me when I cry. ...And when he says to me that he will always be there to watch and protect me I don't have to be scared. And when he says to me, 'I will always love you,' I won't have to worry cause I'll know that its true. I want a dad when I get lonely, who will take the time to fly. A dad who can be a friend and find a rainbow when its grey.

Oh I want a dad. I want a dad that'll last foreer. I want a dad. I want a dad."

I've grown up with two biological parents but only one real one and that was mom. Both mother and father are irreplacable. I've got one, yet I need the other one too. I know that we all have God as Our Heavenly Father but I struggle to have a relationship with Him. Does anyone have any advice?

[CatherineM]

Your father sounds exactly like my mother, except for the sexual harassment. I mean completely spookily alike. I have the added peg of my mom having been partially responsible for my father's death while I was still in college. I wish I had some magically advice that would fix your dad. I don't, or I would have used it on my mom years ago. Our relationship has finally leveled to where our only communication is by letter. I can't even have a phone conversation with her without her cutting me down. Nothing I ever accomplished was good enough. She would brag about me to everyone, but me. In letters, I can't hear her condescending tone, and she seems to be more careful with her words in writing. It only took me 40 years to come to terms with it finally.

[rachael]

I can't give you much in terms of advice, but I can tell you that you aren't alone.

Edited February 2, 2009 by rachael

[tinytherese]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1769183' date='Feb 1 2009, 11:20 PM']Your father sounds exactly like my mother, except for the sexual harassment. I mean completely spookily alike. I have the added peg of my mom having been partially responsible for my father's death while I was still in college. I wish I had some magically advice that would fix your dad. I don't, or I would have used it on my mom years ago. Our relationship has finally leveled to where our only communication is by letter. I can't even have a phone conversation with her without her cutting me down. Nothing I ever accomplished was good enough. She would brag about me to everyone, but me. In letters, I can't hear her condescending tone, and she seems to be more careful with her words in writing. It only took me 40 years to come to terms with it finally.[/quote]

Thank you. I noticed how when I went on the TEC retreat that he wrote me such a beautiful letter that I cried. I still have it. I don't know how the man who wrote and my dad are the same.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='rachael' post='1769195' date='Feb 1 2009, 11:23 PM']I can't give you much in terms of advice, but I can tell you that you aren't alone. [/quote]

Thanks. I hope that he doesn't treat my younger brother the same way that he has me.

[Lilllabettt]

I think the central part of healing a relationship is when the one person knows that the other person understands what wrong he has done.

I have seen it in couples where there was adultery. A man cheats on his wife. They decide to stay together, but she can't forgive him. It doesn't matter that he says "I'm sorry." Even if he really is faithful after that and never cheats again, that's not good enough.

The wife wants her husband to understand what his actions did to her. How they changed how she views herself and the world. How his actions made her doubt herself, her sanity, her future ... She wants him to acknowledge the horribleness of his actions and their consequences.

Until he acknowledges that it was a "big deal" and she is convinced that he really believes it, the marriage will not heal. The wife will not let it go, because if she lets it go, gets over it, heals ... she feels that will mean she has agreed and admitted that it was "not a big deal."

Your Dad needs to understand that what he did has hurt you, and he needs to communicate that to you so you know he knows.

You can explain things by trying again to talk to him face to face. Or write it in a letter.

But you have to be at peace with the concept that you can't "make him" understand. Some people become so desperate to make others understand, they do all sorts of crazy things ... self destructive behavior. As if to say "see how messed up you made me? now do you understand what you did?" You don't want to go down that path.

Sometimes people choose not to understand even in the face of dramatic evidence. Not because they're evil and irredeemable ... but because they use that defense mechanism to avoid dealing with guilt. If your Dad continues to choose not to listen or understand, that maybe some space between the two of you is the best solution for now.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1769166' date='Feb 2 2009, 12:06 AM']FYI this'll be a long post.


Months ago I wrote a journal entry after going to confession regarding my dad. I've struggled forgiving him, called him a jerk under my breath, imagined hitting him in my mind, and have failed to understand him. When I went to confession, part of my penance was to imagine interacting with my dad and how I pictured it ideally going both on his part and mine. Please forgive me if this is hard to follow. This was written in a sort of stream of conscience mode. Also, you might want to grab some tissues before reading on. I know that I cried writing this.


I desire to be warm, open, and be myself when I am with him. It would be nice if I wouldn't feel so hurt and angered by his words, facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, but I do. I can't properly describe my relationship with him without crying or almost crying. I want him to be considerate about what he says and how he says what he says to me.

According to mom, he brags about me to lots of people but makes sure that mom and I aren't around when it happends. (Mom finds out about this through other people.) And for so long I thought that I wasn't good enough for him. I want him to compliment me to my face. I also want him to apologize for anything that I tell him that I find hurtful and resolve not to say or do whatever it was again, instead of accusing me of being "moody," "sensitive," "tired," or say, "[i]Hellooo[/i] it was [b]a joke[/b]. Don't you have a sense of humor?" I also don't want him to laugh at me when I tell him that I feel hurt.

I remember him giggling while cracking my knuckles as a child. I told him that I was in pain and yelled but he insisted that it didn't hurt and wouldn't stop. Dad grabbed one or both of my hands and I couldn't get free and I anticipated the upcoming pain.

No more being laughed at, feeling judged, or being the victim of his arrogant judgements. He really is the judgemental type. If you are ever accused of a crime, you wouldn't want him on jury duty. He automatically assumes that if you are charged with a crime then you must be guilty. (I found this out from my mom by the way and she knows him better than I do.) He also assumes that if you are overweight then you are a stupid person because anyone with a brain knows that that is unhealthy. (Believe me, I know this. I've heard him multiple times say it.)

If only he could express the male problem solving mentality in a non-cynical way, as if I'm too stupid to not already know to do something in particular to resolve the matter. He doesn't mean to sound that way but that's how it comes out. He doesn't even know me, or else he wouldn't say some of the things that he does. He makes fun of what I like. Is he mocking them, me, or both? Can't my dad seek to discover who I am and show that he loves me no matter what? Actually, not that long ago I realized that I couldn't remember a time where he said that he loved me. Oh, if he were to tell me that in all sincerity, it would blow me away and I would swim in my tears.

I have had those that have exhibited spiritual fatherhood to me, such as Pope John Paul II. I never met him but I have learned so much from him and know that from the descriptions I've heard that he was full of tremendous love for [u]everyone.[/u] Oh, the hearts that he touched, including the hearts of the young, for he believed in them and expected great things of them. We don't call the Holy Father for nothing. How he stressed the dignity of every person, and was a great advocate of human rights, heeding the commandment from Our Lord to love one's neighbor. What a contrast between him and my dad! Pope John Paul II was my real father as opposed to my natural one.

I remember how last summer, dad would stroke my body in a certain way that reminded me of the way that some kids touched each other in high school in order to sexually arouse one another. I told dad that I didn't feel comfortable with it and told him to stop. What I told him about my high school classmates from years ago didn't matter to him. He laughed saying that he was just tickling and that what I said sounded ridiculous. So he continued to do it. I felt like that through this sexual harassment that I had no dignity and that I therefore wasn't even human. What I said and felt didn't matter, so he was in control.

If it were someone else doing the things that he does to me, he would probably hate it but if he does it then it's okay. Why doesn't he realize that when he says and does these hurtful things that he is the only one who is laughing?

What's worse, is that he does similar things to my mother, his own wife. They don't even appear to like being around each other and have so little in common. They bicker constantly. I've heard enough of their arguments to know how dad doesn't listen to her, clings to his pride, and gets defensive about whatever she says, despite how articulate she is. I've heard him raise his voice to her firm but calm one. I don't know why they married each other or how they are still together. I remember how years ago I thought that they were going to get a divorce. Miraculously they haven't. God has spared our family that pain. Mom told me that she often does feel hurt because of what he does and says but seeks to understand him. She has tried to change him but says that this is just how he is and that she accepts it. This is the woman that he mocks in public, claiming that she has drinking problems. The woman whose job that he doesn't even respect, except for the amount of money that she gets doing it. he claims that she is lazy and doesn't work out, yet she runs the household and everyone in it, including him, and doesn't have time for much excercise. He disappears before mass on sunday morning, leaving her to get herself and my little brother ready all by herself and is late because of it.

Ironic how he's listened to a song before called "A Real Man." How I wish that he would apply the lyrics to it! "A real man knows the value of a woman. A real man has got nothing to prove. He's strengthened by love and the Lord up above." Perhaps he knows at least some of these truths but doesn't know how to live them out.

He grew up in a methodist home where they only went to church on Christmas and Easter and he either didn't even learn the basics of christianity or he never cared to learn. Though it may have been a combination of both. He became a catholic years ago either for his first "wife" (I say that because their marriage was annuled) or for my mom. For most of my life he only went to mass mostly on Christmas and Easter. I remember when I converted from being a luke-warm catholic to being a devout one that I was afraid of my dad finding out about it. He mocks the faith and once insulted Pope John Paul II, mocking him for forgiving the man who tried to assassinate him. Even joking that when the camera was off that he probably punched the man and maybe even cursed at him. I found that to be very disrespectful. To think that Pope John Paul II was weak for forgiving him or only superficially forgave him, oh wow did I ever defend my late holy father from my earthly one. He also made fun of his title, "Your Holiness" in a disrespectful manner. Nobody messes with JP 2 around me.

Some months ago he start going to mass more frequently. I don't know what is in his heart, but this appears to be a good sign, though he sometimes skips because he would rather work out or nap instead. There is so much that he has yet to understand and I hope to evangelize him, but it's hard to warmly do so with him, with what he says and does that I may look very cold to him. Please pray for his conversion. It'll be a long conversion most likely.

What also happened last summer was he asked me where I wanted to do with my life and I said that I was interested in religious education. He may have meant this all in love but what he said to me was discouraging. He asked if I wanted to see this video on youtube which featured an anti-catholic on it mocking catholics of course. I refused and told me that I should be aware of what some people think of catholics. I had already taken a class in high school on apologetics and was already well aware of some of the nasty things that anti-catholics say, not to mention I had been living in the world for nineteen years and had already heard what the world thought of catholics. "You are stuck in the past, narrow-minded, judgemental, enslaved by your own dogmas..." Not to mention I had already been through my first year of college asway from home at a secular school where I encountered many people who did not think or believe what I did. Heck I lived with eight other girls from very different backgrounds and beliefs from my own in a suite.

I knew what the hard-core fundamentalists thought of us from my apologetics class, the often modern liberal heterox beliefs, the apathetic catholics, the doubters of religion, and the catholic haters out there in the world already. He said, "Okay, but I'm just saying" and yet he kept going on and on about how I need to expand my horizons anyway. What I said to him didn't matter. It seemed as if he thought that I was still blissfully ignorant of all of this. I got so angry with him pushing and pushing and expecting me to answer some of the possible objections that we catholics and christians in general are faced with. I told him that I was going to write a book on all of that and that I knew how to refute this stuff, but he wasn't convinced. He asked me what I thought of catholics who don't go to mass and asked, "Well what about (and he named off some of my uncles who don't go)" in an in your-face-how-are-you-gonna-answer-this-you-narrow-minded-person sort of way. I got so upset with him and cried because of the way it looked like he thought of me despite what I was saying. Then the worst part happened, he said that from the way that I was responding to him made him doubt that I could do any work in religious education. I felt so hurt because he didn't believe in me. That was the worst thing that he has ever told me before.

I still haven't totally or maybe not at all forgiven him for that. I can't be open with him or be myself around him because of what he says and does. I couldn't even bring myself to tell him about the chastity club that I'm starting on my campus because I'm afraid that he'll do what he did before regarding the religious education issue and that he'll point out that I haven't had a leadership position before and here I am being one of the co-presidents of a contraversial club on my campus.

The situation with my dad reminds me of a song from the film "Rugrats in Paris" but instead of the title being "I Want a Mom," for me its "I Want a Dad."

"I want a dad that'll last forever. I want a dad to make it all better...and when I have a bad dream, he'll hold me when I cry. ...And when he says to me that he will always be there to watch and protect me I don't have to be scared. And when he says to me, 'I will always love you,' I won't have to worry cause I'll know that its true. I want a dad when I get lonely, who will take the time to fly. A dad who can be a friend and find a rainbow when its grey.

Oh I want a dad. I want a dad that'll last foreer. I want a dad. I want a dad."

I've grown up with two biological parents but only one real one and that was mom. Both mother and father are irreplacable. I've got one, yet I need the other one too. I know that we all have God as Our Heavenly Father but I struggle to have a relationship with Him. Does anyone have any advice?[/quote]
Why don't you print this and send it to him? So fathers just can't deal with daughters on any level but in writing.

[tinytherese]

Thank you Lillabett. I'll take what you've said into consideration. I broke down last semester in my interpersonal communications class (one of the rare moments that I've ever cried in public and even then I could have cried more but held a lot back) and my professor recommended me to counseling. It hasn't helped much though.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1769214' date='Feb 2 2009, 12:38 AM']Thank you Lillabett. I'll take what you've said into consideration. I broke down last semester in my interpersonal communications class (one of the rare moments that I've ever cried in public and even then I could have cried more but held a lot back) and my professor recommended me to counseling. It hasn't helped much though.[/quote]
Counseling is not a quick fix, but a long haul. Don't get discouraged.

[kafka]

hmm, I've had similar experiences. I know what it means to be not myself around my family.

I can only give very general advice. Deep down he probably knows he has done you wrong. Now I wouldnt bring up the issue of religion or any of his shortcomings to him. It might only make his heart even harder. Pray for him, and suffer innocently as Christ did.

What you are going to have to do is try to learn how to forgive him, and accept the fact that his is just a human and a sinner, and he is not the first father to fail. You are going to suffer for what he has done to you for a while, but as you get older and as you suffer more outside of your family situation you will learn that life is not ideal, and hopefully you will find discover largesse. You were given a great gift in your mother. Focus more on that for now.

By choosing to be a devout Catholic, you have chosen to follow Christ to a greater degree, and that inevitably means that you will undergo psychological even physical pain. For following Christ is not always the "healthy" path. The Cross was not a healty psychological or physical experience for Christ. But it will pass in time and you and your whole family will be blessed by your endeavors. And perhaps your Dad, will eventually come around by seeing your example. Perhaps someday you will be called upon to help him, even though he didnt help you.

You are young now, and I know how it is and I have experienced such extreme emotions, and suffering. I promise it will get better, but it might take a while. (I'm thirty, and I still suffer). But think of how long life is and if you gradually make progress, you will be stronger than ever in a relatively short amount of time.

[tinytherese]

Thank you Kafka. I just thought of this idea for what to do during Lent, to reflect on Our Lord's Sorrowful Passion everyday for at least a little while at 3:00 p.m., the our of mercy for my own strength and healing regarding this issue, as well as for him. I know that our relationship will take time to heal and even if he really did come to understand, take responsibility for his actions, and apologize that he wouldn't instantly change.

Please pray for many graces for my father and I.

[tinytherese]

Well last St. Valentine's Day while talking on the phone with my mom and when dad wanted to talk to me he got me frustrated again and it took me a while to cool off from that one. I was pacing around going through in my head what I should have said to him in response to what he said because it seemed as if he just didn't get it and was laughing at me again. For the rest of the semester being away from home I just decided that when his cell phone number came up on my cell phone that I just wasn't going to answer it.

I don't remember him cutting me down during my visit home for spring break but I didn't want to open up to him. I realized on of the reasons that I liked being hours away from home at college is that I was felt more free when being away from him and it was a sanctuary. Shortly before I came home for the summer and my family wasn't on campus yet it hit me. It was then that I was nervous about coming home again, particularly regarding the sexual harassment. It seems to be a summer thing for him. He started again last night. Apparentally wearing short sleeves is warrant for it. I remember how last year he made fun of me for feeling violated by it when some of my other family members came for a visit for the Fourth of July at the house of my paternal grandparents. I think that my aunt might have laughed not realizing the full situation. Mom has seen him do it before and I've told her how I feel about it and she's talked to him about it but he still laughed it off. I wish that he'd at least stop this. It's sick.

[missionseeker]

*****************hugs*******************
*


Get out of there. Do anything you can, but get out of there.

[Hassan]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1878545' date='May 30 2009, 04:47 PM']Well last St. Valentine's Day while talking on the phone with my mom and when dad wanted to talk to me he got me frustrated again and it took me a while to cool off from that one. I was pacing around going through in my head what I should have said to him in response to what he said because it seemed as if he just didn't get it and was laughing at me again. For the rest of the semester being away from home I just decided that when his cell phone number came up on my cell phone that I just wasn't going to answer it.

I don't remember him cutting me down during my visit home for spring break but I didn't want to open up to him. I realized on of the reasons that I liked being hours away from home at college is that I was felt more free when being away from him and it was a sanctuary. Shortly before I came home for the summer and my family wasn't on campus yet it hit me. It was then that I was nervous about coming home again, particularly regarding the sexual harassment. It seems to be a summer thing for him. He started again last night. Apparentally wearing short sleeves is warrant for it. I remember how last year he made fun of me for feeling violated by it when some of my other family members came for a visit for the Fourth of July at the house of my paternal grandparents. I think that my aunt might have laughed not realizing the full situation. Mom has seen him do it before and I've told her how I feel about it and she's talked to him about it but he still laughed it off. I wish that he'd at least stop this. It's sick.[/quote]

Have you tried talking to both of them at the same time?

[tinytherese]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1878566' date='May 30 2009, 05:06 PM']Have you tried talking to both of them at the same time?[/quote]

No, but dad once did it in front of mom and she told him off and there he went to laughing again. He's just had this history of being arrogant when it comes to when ANYBODY objects to the slightest thing that he does and attacks them even if they are being as calm and rational as can be. Mom and dad fight a lot usually starting with mom being cool and collected and then dad blowing up about it, even if its over something small. It's all a big deal to him.