What Happened When I Cut My Emotionally Abusive Dad Out of My Life

Give away what doesn't fit to make room for new and better

12118341506_c2b5e2d82a_k (1)

Ten days before my boyfriend, Chris, proposed, my father wrote that he had “buried forever” our relationship. My “nice-girl routine turned [his] stomach,” and I “lived at an unhealthy level of self-absorption that everyone has noticed.” I read the words and closed the e-mail. My body hardly reacted: just a brief flicker in the stomach, a barely noticeable shake of the hand. My father was angry that I hadn’t shown up at my grandfather’s funeral—the same funeral he had told me he was “concerned” about me attending. The same funeral he had told me I was only allowed to attend for my mother—the woman he had abandoned two years earlier. Really, all of it was inconsequential. I couldn’t attend—I was a bridesmaid in my oldest friend’s wedding that weekend—but no matter. My absence fueled his disgust for me.

I mourned my grandfather with my sister, who also couldn’t attend, and we remembered our grandfather together: the pre-dawn walks with Amy the Airedale, the early morning coffee and porch swinging, the way he referred to grapefruit juice as “battery acid,” how he taught us to play blackjack with pennies while making us promise to “never, ever, ever” gamble, and the time he threw down his feet and refused to be pushed further in his wheelchair until I promised that he would be the first I would tell when I got engaged. These memories were ours; we didn’t have to give them away.

I started to give things away three years ago, once I realized that Christi’s father never called her a bitch. And neither did Tricia’s. Or Lizzie’s. Or Tessa’s. I became obsessed with asking questions about what was normal. Did your father ever slap you across the face? Slam your three-year-old brother’s toys against a wall until they shattered? Did he wonder aloud, when you were seven, then eight, then nine, again and again, what would happen if only your teachers/friends/everyone else ever realized how bad you really were? When you cried in middle school, did your father stand over you, explaining that he wasn’t impressed? Tell your sister, during the father-daughter dance at her wedding, that he couldn’t wait to start a life away from her, from all of us, smiling for the cameras all the while? He left the next day. Until I was twenty-seven, I was terrified someone, everyone, would realize how bad I was. Then I realized the truth. And I started to give things away.

First I gave away the chance of having a happy family. Then the idea of an intact family. Finally, I gave away my father. Things started flying out from under my grasp. Still, amidst everything, Chris remained. He grieved with me, and he remained. When Chris proposed and we started planning our wedding, I realized more of what I had given away: the walk down the aisle with my father, my father’s toast, and dancing with him to “My Girl,” which he used to sing to us as babies.

Then my new mother-in-law sent me a letter. “My Dear Charlotte,” she wrote, “you bring to our family kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, love, and respect for others, wrapped in a sense of humor and readiness for good fun and adventure. You are the daughter I never had.” I read the words and closed the letter. I thought of all I had given away, and I started to take pieces back.

Featured Sponsored Content

Please read our comment policy before you comment.

The APW Store is Here

APW Wedding e-shop

go find all our favorites from around the internet, and our free planning tools

Shop Now
APW Wedding e-shop

Planning a wedding?

We have all the planning tools you need right now.

Budget spreadsheets, checklists, and more...

Get Your Free Planning Tools