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I don't understand my family (my dad especially)
Before I start, i like to keep my information as private as possible so I'll specify now that I'm from Asia and have never been anywhere near Europe or America.
My family, except my dad, shifted to another country. My dad stayed for work and my sister recently went to live with him temporarily because of her exams. To be honest we never really lived with my dad he had work in another city and would only come by on weekends so there is not much difference. My sister's exams are over so i asked her why she decided to stay longer and she told me to mind my own business. That really hurt me because I miss her, i tried to ignore it because maybe she is stressed and we haven't really adjusted to this new country yet. My dad keeps secrets a lot and he clearly shows favouritism for my sister but it's not like he ignores me and my brother, he just prefers my sister's opinions more. He took my sister outside the city as vacation and that made my mom furious because she asked him so many times for a vacation when we were with him and he would decline even if he was free. I don't know, i don't even know how to put the real problem in words, we have always been a happy family with a few normal fights over stupid things. I want to try to understand my dad and sister but they won't open up and i don't want to force them to either. I can't sit by quietly because my mom is really hurt. There is more than just the reasons I said here as an example. My dad helps others a lot but isn't really there for us. Not like he is a bad dad, he gave us a comfortable life and keeps our lives financially stable, he isn't there as a parent. We are close and joke around but i can't rely on him when it comes to advice. My mom is trying hard to get my brother in a good school and my sister into a college and it isn't easy where i live, she confessed she feels used by my dad. He is barely there and he spends money more on trying to help others. Maybe i am over thinking things and it was unnecessary to type this much but i feel so confused
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No matter what is going on with sis and Dad, it may be good or it may be something bad, but when people react to a simple question with "Mind your own business" I find that harsh and in most cases, the person or people were trying to hide something from me. It could be the case but that is for them to figure out. Now as for never having Dad around, I don't know how he was brought up but somehow he learned to think that providing money instead of his presence and his love and guidance while you were all growing up was the better choice. ON the other hand, remaining at home, having no work and living poor is also not a good choice. It may have been to expensive to move a whole family closer to where he works. Then we have to look at how he makes more than enough money to provide for your family because he has extra to give away to charity. Maybe sometimes he is giving money away when it is needed by his family.
You said your family used to be a happy family. What you describe, if those weere my parents and family, I would not consider it a happy family. For example, my husband and I are very close and c an't stand being apart so my husband would never take a job that takes him away from me. I would never have put up with a weekend husband yet have all my financial concerns taken care of. I don't know if your Mom chose the marriage or it was forced on her, but if a couple are really in love, having only weekends to see each other is not enough to support a life long successful marriage. Then there is not enough time to give to his children. That was his choice and not the best one either. But whats done is done. YOu can't live in the past, no matter what mistakes your Mom and Dad made. You have to remember you can own only your own feelings about something. This means your Mom being upset only over not getting to go on a vacation, is something she needs to work out inside herself. Either she was content being married to a man who was more like a stranger who provided financially but did not love her enough to make her happy. I think that in every family, there is always going to be one person, either the one you grew up in or extended family through marriages, like cousins for example. Everyone I know, including myself has at least one person who is making terrible decisions because the evidence is there in how it affects others of the family. So while he wasn't an evil man, he still wasn't the best man he could be, a very distant husband and father. He was only the man who sired you and provided the basics financially but he is not totally able to be there for you, another human, listening to you, helping to shape you and guide you as you grew up. That can't be changed. Neither can the choices of Dad and sis to not open up, at least not by you. All change in a person only comes when they decide by themselves to look at who they are, acknowledge their weaknesses and where they want to improve and then do what it takes to learn. There are no parents who automatically after the birth of a baby know exactly how to be the best parent. Some have natural nurturing skills but books and other parents can help show a person how to be a better parent. Thats how I learned and how your Dad could have learned. He for some reason did not want to learn, maybe it was pride, to admit not knowing how to be a good Dad and thinking that working hard would be enough. As you know, it was not.
I know that having the heart aches and unanswered questions as to why certain people in my life have chosen the worst possible path ever and how it affects others, if something that I personally have to chose how I will think about or react to.
My ex husband for example was verbally abusive. I left him a month before our 30th year of marriage. My kids were all out of the house and I had enough of the abuse. I could chose to wonder why he didn't do better as a husband or father, why he ridiculed and verbally beat me up. I have plenty to feel bitter about and to hate him but I have chosen to own my own feelings. The feelings can be the lower choices or the higher one of a more evolved soul. I have chosen to forgive him. I am noticing it wasn't only me, all girlfriends he's had after me have left him eventually. There may be something wrong in his brain, some kind of mental disability that causes him to not be able to care about or love other people. Now that I am out from that and have a new loving husband who also sees the incapability of loving others in the ex, we are seeing a pattern that has always been there. He also refused he has problems and always said I was the one with issues. A visit to a mental health doctor showed I was okay but the Dr. had many concerns about him and then he quit going as he truly did not want to change. You can't make someone want to change. So when it affected me so bad, I made the decision, I would divorce him and look for the kind of husband I always dreamed of and I found him. Your situation is not a husband but a father image. You can still acknowledge in your mind he is your birth father, just like adopted children do, but the person who raised you, is involved in your life and mentor to you, isn't always going to be the birth parent. So be on the look out for a male who sees you as a friend, a daughter, someone who can be the male mentor you can look up to. We aren't always born into perfect families. We need to learn to make the best of what is happening, make our own choices that will help fill any voids, take care of anything that you lacked up til now. Not sure if there is just you and one sis and one brother but perhaps, those of you who remain with Mom, could do what you can to pool money together to take a small vacation of your own with Mom. But Mom still has to come to a place in her mind where she is at peace with how her life and marriage turned out. Surely it is not a shocking surprise to her that her own husband never did anything special for the woman he supposedly loved, like take her on vacation. Earning a living and paying for a home, food, clothes, those are a neccessity everyone on this planet has to do. That is not a way to show your love to your family but apparently he thought it was. One has to do the extra stuff, vacations, gifts, doing special things for her that she could have done herself but he wanted to do it so she could relax a moment, complimenting, encouraging, quality time. In fact there is a book that talks about what the different types of love languages there are like giving of gifts or sharing quality time. I did that with my children. Their dad did not. They never thank him for being a good father but they thank me for being the kind of mother I was, involved in their lives, always able to sit and talk and listen to their concerns. In fact I did that every day after school so they could share any concerns they had and there always were some. I know you wanted that but didn't get it. What you can do is decide you will marry someone who not only is in love with you and loves to show you with special events, like a vacation together and decide now that you will be the best mother ever and read up on how to and ask others and also make sure the man you marry has the sorts of beliefs that are the same as your own and that one of them is being active in the familys life and loving them with all your heart, willing to die for them and you can have a happier future than what you have now. I am sorry I haven't any magical advice because as long as anything involves people beyond yourself, all I can advise is what you can do for yourself to be happier, not how to change situations or people for the better because everyone was given a free will to do as they please, whether good or bad.
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