Attack of the flying monkeys!

I don't know if anyone remembers or not, but back in April things finally came to a head with my dad. He's a textbook Narcissist, and things had been getting progressively worse with him for a long time. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was when he got super pissed with me for not showing up on Skype when we hadn't arranged to talk. Yes, you read that right: no plans had been made to talk, and I didn't get on Skype. That was my 'offense'. Hmmm. He sent me a crappy email, and I responded (quickly) that I didn't think we were talking that day but would get on Skype right away. He didn't log on at all, I waited for about 20 minutes. He also didn't reply to my email. Whatever, I figured he'd get over himself. Wrong! The next morning I had a nasty email waiting for me, saying that he won't talk to me on Skype anymore and if I want to keep in touch we can just email. Then he said "I hope you have a great life with (husband). I'm going to get on with mine". This all happened April 12th - I remember the date because it just so happened to be CD1 for me (just what I needed that day, obviously!).

Fast forward to Sunday - it was Father's Day. Given that I no longer have a relationship with my dad, I didn't acknowledge the day by sending him a card or anything. I didn't email either - why would I, when he evidently doesn't care about his own daughter enough to grow up and act like a reasonable adult? I kind of expected some fall-out from that, but nothing happened. Yet I wasn't out of the danger period: today is his birthday. Again, I didn't acknowledge it. I went about my day, cleaned the bathrooms, got on Facebook for a minute and there it was: a message from my aunt (dad's sister). Now before I post it here, I just want to say that I'm not close with my aunt at all - I hardly ever hear from her, I send Christmas cards and don't get one from her, etc. Not close, and not in frequent contact. I couldn't even guess when the last contact with her was, prior to today. Here it is (I edited spelling and grammar to make it more coherent!):

Hi Emily, hope you're all well. Just letting you know it's your dads birthday today, he's broken hearted he hasn't heard from you. :(  I'm sure you forgot x speak soon love (aunt)


I have to admit, seeing this message made my heart pound and my hands shake. I don't know what it was - anger, adrenaline? I don't like the effect it had on me, though.

I wrote back:

Hi (aunt), how are you? I'm not being funny but did my dad tell you what our last communication was? He effectively told me he wants nothing to do with me anymore. That was on April 12th. That's why I didn't contact him.
Love,
Em xx


She replied:


No Emily, I haven't spoken to him about you love, was just asking about you when I wished him happy birthday. I thought you had forgot, sorry x


I didn't want her to be upset so I elaborated a little:

It's OK, not your fault. I knew he'd find a way to get to me. Why does he do this? He told me in his last email (which was really nasty, by the way) "I hope you have a great life with Shawn, I'm going to get on with mine". Sounded pretty final to me. I don't want to sound like a heartless bitch, but he hasn't exactly been there for me since I moved here and he thinks I'm supposed to bend over backwards for him on his birthday when he sent me that crap? :(


She then sent me this:

I didn't know about this, please don't say anything, he didn't know I was talking to you. Try and put the past behind you, life's too short. Look at my dad, he died at 57. Sorry I upset you love x 


I just love how I'm supposed to somehow "fix" this messed up situation, when my dad is the one who completely lost it over nothing! Yeah, I just need to go and beg his forgiveness (for what?!) and let him treat me like crap again. Because, you know, life is too short.

Yes, I decided life was indeed too short and that's why I chose to disengage from the craziness. I can't deal with my dad throwing a temper tantrum over nothing - I'm sorry, but he's not a toddler. He hasn't been in touch since he sent that horrible email, and now he's telling his sob story to anyone who will listen? Really? Isn't it funny how he didn't mention the reason why he didn't hear from me?! Yeah, he just wants to make me out to be the bad guy.

I really didn't appreciate that final little guilt trip from my aunt. I think it was a low blow, honestly. My dad obviously doesn't care about me, or how I'm doing. It's been more than 2 months since I heard from him after his hissy fit. In fact, I just checked the calendar and it's been 10 weeks. I remember when I spoke to my mom recently, and I said I thought something would happen because of Father's Day and my dad's birthday. I didn't expect it to come from my aunt, though! As I said, I never hear from her at all.

Well, I haven't replied to her last message and I don't think I will. I don't know why she's worried that I'll tell my dad what she said - if she read my first message properly she'd know there's no chance of that happening. Let her think what she wants. I was tempted to block and delete her on Facebook, but so far I've just made it so she can't see what I post from now on (statuses and photos).

It makes me wonder what my dad's been telling my grandma. I'll admit that I haven't called her since all of this happened. I've wanted to call in a way, but I also don't know what I'm going to say if she brings this situation up with me. I guess since he whined about it to his sister, he's probably told my grandma even more. He's not exactly close to his sister, he talks to my grandma more. At this point it doesn't even matter to me if they "take sides" because they've never exactly been very present in my life. If I didn't call my grandma we'd never speak. Even when I lived in the UK, she never called me. I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't make much of a difference to me if we talk or not. I know whatever I tell my grandma would get back to my dad, though, so maybe that's a good enough reason not to call.

Why do families have to be so crappy? As if we don't already have enough issues with my in-laws! I guess we must have done something terrible in a past life or something! At this point, the only parent we have between us is my mom. My in-laws aren't good people and my dad isn't either. We'll be OK, though, because we have each other. I guess the only consolation that it's taking us so long to have a baby is that by the time it happens, all the toxic people will be long gone from our lives. At least our future children (if we have any) won't have to deal with these crazy freaks.