Reply to My wife thinks I need to see a therapist, I think I'm aware of my problems

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are so intent on maintaining that talking about your father with “a stranger” would be useless, it seems likely that you know that doing so it would be profoundly unsettling and challenging. The idea of doing this is probably terrifying for you.

Your wife, who presumably knows you very well, is probably correct that you could benefit from talking about this with someone who is intelligent and experienced in messed up family dynamics.

If you are so convinced it will be useless, why don’t you just try it? Prove us all wrong! Prove how you are just fine, and can go it alone, and are too smart to need anything that mere mortals would need.[/quote]

Because I don't want to — I've dealt with it my whole life and have had a lot of time to think about it. I've reached peace with it. It's not my fault, it's not even really his fault. He is who he is, and I can't change it and I shouldn't change it. If me and my family being around him makes him happy, and it makes us happy, I'm all for it. If it causes him unhappiness, which it seems to, and he says and does hurtful things, I have to keep my distance. I don't expect an apology for things he's done in the past, I don't want to change things in the past, I don't want to change anyone who doesn't want to change. I can only work on myself and do good things for my family. It's a sad situation, but I acknowledge my sorrow over it.

What else is there to possibly say about it? And why would I want to drag up every bad memory, every wrong, every dysfunction, when I know that I already have the best possible solution I can have. I talk to my wife about it, I've talked to my kids about it... and, especially with my kids, I let them know they can always ask me about him.

It's not worth the pain to resurrect it. The thing about the situation that genuinely bothers me the most is the belief, from my wife and from a lot of pop culture on the whole, that my unwillingness to continue to dredge it up and explore it means I'm doing something wrong. That's why I'm so interested and still talking about this. A number of posters have said that there is a point at which it is less productive to dredge up trauma than it is to focus on moving on. I'm moving on, that's good. [/quote]

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