Gifts...

[catherine]

I like this explanation!

Hope I'm not too hard on you. I don't like to see you suffering!

[iris lilies]

Here is a question to make us think:

Let's say I was a Hindu vegetarian and my dad gave me a stack of bloody T-bone beef steaks. Would you still say: "look at your dad and his gift in a spirit of love and permission to be who he is and not who you want him to be, and the details will work themselves out."?

I dont see this through a faith prism because thats not my approah to life. I see it as common sense to get rid of as much negative feeling as possible, it is better for our mental health. To keep swirling around in my head my dislike and deep hurt in the end hurts me.

If you google " cognitive therapy " and "forgiveness" youll see lots of hits about exercises designed to lead one toward forgiveness for the sake of good mental health.

UL You keep bringing up examples of the same thing. Whether meat bearing fathers or alcoholic mothers, is about retraining your brain ( or heart some might say) to think of the other person and their gifts differently.

[Ultralight]

Hope I'm not too hard on you. I don't like to see you suffering!

You are not too hard on me. And I am not suffering.

[catherine]

I dont see this through a faith prism because thats not my approah to life. I see it as common sense to get rid of as much negative feeling as possible, it is better for our mental health. To keep swirling around in my head my dislike and deep hurt in the end hurts me.

If you google " cognitive therapy " and "forgiveness" youll see lots of hits about exercises designed to lead one toward forgiveness for the sake of good mental health.

UL You keep bringing up examples of the same thing. Whether meat bearing fathers or alcoholic mothers, is about retraining your brain ( or heart some might say) to think of the other person and their gifts differently.

Beautifully said.

[freshstart]

I agree hoarding at a certain degree becomes a form of abuse.

This time did your dad show up to give you this gift? That's an attempt to put in the time, IMHO. Plus, again he's trying to get you something you might like that is small and related to your beloved fishing. Maybe he didn't know you have a fishing flashlight, maybe he doesn't grasp the concept of just calling you to hang. Many people in that generation don't do that with their kids, there has to be a purpose to the visit, i.e.: to bring you the flashlight.

If he was bringing you large, useless items just to make himself feel better, totally ignoring your simplicity, I'd say, yeah, he's a d***. But he doesn't seem to be doing that, he sounds like he is trying to reach out, trying to understand you in his limited way.

I agree you build relationships by putting in the time but I think lots of dads struggle with this. My own dad was honestly an unpredictably violent, mean man until in the 90s he started an antidepressant for pain and he became 180 degrees opposite. He lived close by when i married and had kids but even though he was a changed man, he was not comfortable coming by for a visit unless I initiated and my mother was present. But if I needed something fixed, he'd pop over, fix it and be ready to leave until I said how about a cold drink? Only then did he sit still long enough for a conversation. He was not good about putting the time in. If anyone said I would live with him voluntarily, I'd never have believed it. Now he's forced to put the time in because I had 76 MD appts last year (I don't count them, it was a tax thing) and he is my ride. That's a lot of hours talking, singing, and silence in the car. He's being forced to put in the time and we are much closer much to my surprise. What happened to me totally screwed up my life plan but it gave me some things I never had reason to expect, like a closer relationship with my dad. I sang American Pie with my dad in the car at 7, if someone said this would happen when I was 45, I would've said you haven't met my dad. The truth was I was the one who hadn't met my dad.

maybe you are getting a second chance and the price is a flashlight?

only you know your dad and what you believe to be his true intentions but sometimes they catch us on the sly opening up a whole new path to a different relationship.

[Ultralight]

...maybe you are getting a second chance and the price is a flashlight?

Meh... maybe I am not that interested, if I am being honest with myself.

[sweetana3]

My husband and I do not eat meat (four legged animals). My brother sent us a big gift from Omaha Steaks. We ate the wonderful things that we could and gifted away the rest. Our neighbors got the steaks, my motherinlaw got the porkchops and other friends got the other meats. Brother made a lot of people happy.

[Teacher Terry]

UA: you might be sorry down the road if you don't put in the time with your DAd and there will be no way to change it.

[freshstart]

UA, you talk about them too much to convince me you do not in some small way care, even if it's mostly negative. You did that nice Irish thing for your mom. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you would like them to change and then you would have a better relationship? People rarely change. But your response can change and who knows what will happen with just that one change in response?

for years when I thought my father to be a cold, heartless, SOB and I could not fathom why this man ever had children, this quote got me through a lot of times when I was ready to say "F you, old man" and never see him again: stop going to the hardware store for butter. Every time he did not act the way I wanted a loving father to act, I thought about that statement. At that time, I was seeking something from him, that he just didn't "sell", so it didn't matter how many times I went into something expecting a loving response, I was expecting to find butter at the hardware store and that would never happen.



then he changed thus blowing that theory, but that was better living through chemistry. But honestly, that one statement I have used a lot in life.

[Teacher Terry]

I agree with FS. I have seen life long regrets over these types of things.