From: wey@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (william.e.yoder)
Subject: Letter Got Wrong Results!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 13:29:45 GMT

The day after Christmas I sent a letter to my father that I felt I had 
to write, but now I'm not sure I did the right thing. I guess I am 
looking for advice on where to go from here. A little background follows.

I've always said that my father was a cross between Archie Bunker and
John Wayne. For the last forty years, he has basically verbally abused
his wife, my sister and myself and now his grandchildren. At times, it
was worse than others, but basically he can be a grouchy pain in the
butt! A friend of his for 30 years has always nicknamed him "Grumpy".
For the last 5 years, since we moved back to the local area, he and 
I have had a fairly decent relationship, because I overlooked 
a lot of his crap. I won't get into a lot of the details, but from what I
have been able to gather, he never had much of a childhood of his own.
Now at 75, I wanted to let him know that I didn't appreciate his behavior
anymore.

It had become uncomfortable for my wife and 2 daughters to even go down
to their house. He does not make you feel very welcome. It used to be,
when they came up to our house for dinner, he was okay. Now, however,
he comes in and turns the TV on and watches the news. I heard his 
response was something like "What am I supposed to do? Stand around the 
kitchen and visit?". 

My sister has been going to a counseler for nearly a year now, and a great
deal of the emphasis is on overcoming her feelings toward him. She 
hasn't told my father that she is going, but she has told my mother. 
In fact, her counseler told her that she should do exactly what I did, 
write him a letter. She is trying to deal with the fact the she has never
been close to him, and also the fact that deep down, he hates women. He
always looks down or puts down his sister, his wife, his daughter, 
and his daughter-in-law, the four primary women in his life. His father 
was a lot like him too. 

And what about my mother? I feel that she has a martyr complex. She is the
first one to complain about him. We grew up with her always being the
middle man. I can remember so many incidents where she would hide things
that happened with us from him, "So your father won't find out". She also
spent a lot of time making up excuses for him, to us, while at the 
time, she was putting up with his crap. There was never any physical 
abuse, but plenty of verbal abuse to go around. 

I finally had enough of his behavior. He was especially grouchy the week
before Christmas. Two days before Christmas, we went down to their
house to drop off their gifts, as they were going to my sister's for
the holiday (5 hours away). He was not in a good mood and we couldn't
get out of their quick enough. On Christmas morning, I realized that he 
had given a gift to everyone but my wife. What an ignorant thing to do.

In the letter, I let him know that I was hurt over his attitude 
toward my family in particular and also to the rest of the family. I also
said that I did not appreciate him giving gifts to everyone in the 
family but my wife. I am expecting a little more respect from him 
toward us. I also said that the only time I feel welcome at his house was
when he needed something done. The letter was not meant to anger or be 
disrespectable. I wanted to let him know that I can not tolerate 
his behavior anymore. Life is too short to get pissed off over little 
things. I also said that personal possessions mean little if he does not 
have anyone to share them with. I told him he has a family that he can be
proud of, and that he sould enjoy them.

Well, the day the letter was to arrive, he called me up to help him 
do something at his house. He could tell that something was wrong at asked
me. I asked him if the mail had arrived and he said no. I then told him 
that he was going to get a letter that day, and I tried to tell him why.
He said I was crazy and that my wife put me up to it. I told him that she
had nothing to do with this and that it was something that I felt I had
to do. Well, I guess all hell broke loose when the letter arrived. I 
called them on New Years night to wish them a happy new year and I could 
tell that my mother wasn't right. My sister had called the night before
and everything seemed fine. No mention of the letter was made. 
When I mentioned the letter, she said that she did not want to talk 
about it. 

After talking to my sister last night, my worst fears came true. Not only
is my father upset to the point that he does not want to see me again, 
unless he receives an apology, but my mother is burned up too. My sister 
talked to them for quite some time and found out that he does not feel
that he has ever done anything wrong!! You would laugh if you knew how
ridiculus this was. What I don't understand is that she is on his side
and is madder at me than anytime in my life. There is nothing in the 
letter that she can deny. She has to totally deny reality to behave like 
this. I feel sorry for the hurt I caused them, and in hindsight, I might not have written the letter at all if I thought it would have caused this.
However, I do not feel guilty for what I said.

I don't know where this is going to lead. I am going to call a counselor
that my wife went to, and I value and trust her opinion. I am confused
as to what to do next. My sister said that my dad said  that my mother 
is going to meet me and "set my head on straight", whatever that means.
I don't think that I want to talk face to face with them now. Maybe I need
to let some time pass first, for them to cool off. 

If this story sounds familiar to anyone out there, I would be aprreciative
of some advice. Just writing about it helps some.

Thanks,
Bill