Me (13 years old at the time): Dad, Mom’s cheating on you. I saw her making out with this man.
Dad: Listen here, princess. The guy’s filthy rich, and when you have money, it’s normal to have a hot mistress like your mom.
Me: But aren’t you jealous?
Dad: laughs
I was flabbergasted, lmao.
Men need to learn to talk about their issues in general. My pops was brutal when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I grew up that I finally understood that he was made that way. His own dad basically destroyed him.That didn’t excuse all the terrible things he did but it did explain it. It was hard to be angry with him after that. I felt sad for him. That’s a heavy load to carry all alone.
Yeah. My father’s an angry narcissist, but he was good at telling me that part of what really fucked him up was his mom being a violent alcoholic until right around when I was born. That and how he’d been bullied for being small for a long time as a kid and teenager because he was a late bloomer (he’s a very large man). That insight into him gave him a lot more willingness from me to keep him in my life than he’d ever know, and it helped me as a teenager to pick friends who could talk about their feelings. To this day I still see that angry sob as a small kid who never got taught to control his emotions healthily or how to feel love outside of a self or status focused lens.