An Open Letter to the Father I Never Wanted
Tags: Abuse, Metoo, Parenting, Family, Survivor

Dear “Dad,”

I think what is most upsetting about going through an estrangement, is that you are utterly clueless as to why it is even happening to begin with. Your assumptions are rooted in ideological differences, yet I couldn’t care less about your misguided political views. What I care about is the fact that over the last 11 or so years, you have made no attempt as a parent to repair a relationship you broke. You refuse to accept the reality that your actions have damaged me at my core and scattered me into a million pieces. I hate that it had to take this long for me to become okay with not being your child, especially when I had a stepfather who was more than happy to take on the role of raising the children you abandoned.

Yes, you abandoned us. The moment you made the decision to solicit illicit relationships from girls who were the same age as myself, you abandoned us. You might not realize this but I was awake the night in the hotel with Lisa and Tina (names altered for their privacy, not yours). I don’t care if they were curious, if they were interested, or willing to participate in whatever sexual act. You were the adult. You should have shut it down. You should have never thrown porn on the television or plied twelve-year-old girls with alcohol, one of which was only THREE DAYS older than me. I was awake and I heard more than I wanted to, and I never told a soul what I knew from that night. I was a child; my friends were children.

Your behavior even before then affected my friendships in ways I didn’t even realize until I was an adult. I lost one of my best friends from elementary school because someone saw you being inappropriate with her the summer of us going into sixth grade. Did you catch that, we were in SIXTH GRADE and someone saw YOU being inappropriate with her at the public where you were supposed to spending time with your kids, not using your daughter to manipulate her friends. I was never allowed to be her friend after that, and it had absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. You garnered a reputation for yourself after that which began to circulate among the parents, and little did I know that the reasons my friends weren’t allowed to stay the night with me was because their parents thought that you would be under the same roof. Is it sinking in yet? You were destroying my life before you even wormed your way into prison.

Then there was your family, that for whatever reason, took it out on me that you were locked up. Rusty chewed me out in the high school parking lot following a band practice blaming me and “girls like me” (whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean) for why you were in prison. Your mother would go on the whole way to the prison blaming the girls you violated for why you were in prison. No one, absolutely no one has forced you to be accountable for your actions. Accountability is more than admitting you did something and taking the punishment. It is recognizing that your actions have ripples that impact far more than just yourself. Its attempting to heal the wounds by whatever means are necessary, and it’s trying to do better for the future. You haven’t done that. You play a victim but you’re not one. You created victims. Your behavior turned your children into victims. Your actions turned my friends into victims.

Yet, you can’t see that. You won’t see that. If you ever read this, you’ll comb through every line an attempt to cast doubt and gaslight me. You’ll tell me I’m overdramatic, that you’ve done your time, this was twenty years ago, and I need to get over it — that the rest of the world needs to move on. Well, I was raped twenty years ago, and I haven’t gotten over it. I struggle in therapy to this day, I am medicated for a myriad of anxiety disorders and depression that stem from my assault and stem from your abandonment, from the trauma you and your family caused, and numerous other secrets that I do not want to share but I know you know every single one.

My biggest regret in this life was not letting go of you sooner and not getting adopted by my stepfather. I never did because I was so terrified of hurting you and your family, but it is clear that you nor them never gave a damn about me. I just wish I had known it sooner it. Then I could have felt more confident to embrace my relationship with the mother and father that raised me, I could have felt stronger, and more supported. Yet I internalized the pain because I didn’t want anyone to hurt as much as I did. This is only a small piece of the damage and pain you have inflicted. My brother may never verbalize it, but I have seen the pain on his face when he has fleeting moments of recognition that he is not enough for you, that he is not the son you expected. He doesn’t know it as intimately as I do, and I hurt for him.

You are the father I never wanted, and I wish you never were.

-Me