So yesterday some more issues at the core of my heart came to light. My entire life I have held my mom indirectly responsible for the abuse that happened to me. I have absolved my dad from any guilt. What little girl wants to not see her daddy in a hero light anymore? Last night I realized something. I am angry with my dad.
This is a very new feeling for me. I have defended my dad fiercely for my entire life. And now I am realizing that I felt just as unprotected from him as I did from my mom. My dad is a great guy but he has not much in the line of a backbone. My mom rules her house. He is not the head of his house. She speaks, he does. Sometimes begrudgingly but none the less his hatred of conflict outweighs mine and he always does what she wants.
I told Hubby last night that I was frustrated with something my dad did. Hubby validated my feelings. I thought I was being sensitive. Hubby told me it is my dad being insensitive, not me being sensitive. I started to feel angry. I felt uncertain of the strength of my anger. It has been repressed for so long that I was shocked by the intensity of my feelings.
I am at the difficult reality that my dad is not perfect. He is a good man. But some of the hero status has left him. I would continue to live in denial if I did not acknowledge that he too played a part in this. I am hurt by his actions, both now and in the past. I am hurt that he never listened to what his gut was telling him and didn't stand up to my mom when she insisted that I go over to the abusers house. He never liked those people and yet he couldn't stand up to my mom and defend me. As a matter of fact, they would have been my legal guardians if anything would have happened to my parents when I was a child.
It is a painful realization to know that my daddy isn't perfect and that he too shares in the responsibility of not protecting his daughter.
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