It's been awhile, eh? Shocking news, too!!!

Yes, I know it's been quite a while since I've posted. A gazillion things have been going on...as usual lol.

I have some very good reasons, though. I haven't known quite what to say or what, if anything, I should post about. To say that there have been some personal issues would be an understatement.

About 2 months ago, my parents who have been married for 41 years separated. My dad, as I've written about before, is a very difficult person to live with. He was, and still is, a manipulative bully that always thinks he's right...about everything.

My mom finally had enough and asked him to leave...he refused, but luckily my sister and brother-in-law were there at the time and reinforced her decision to have him leave on that night. In fact, they (my parents) had been visiting my sister and brother-in-law and they were coming back from Florida and apparently dad was a real jerk on the way home and I suppose that was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and so since his clothes were already packed, all he had to do was get in his car and go.

For now, he is staying with one of his sisters and my uncle and my mom is at home. Dad still kind of comes and goes as he pleases, which is a serious point of contention since they have been counseled and it was agreed that he would call mom before he came over. He says that no one is going to tell HIM he cannot go to his own home whenever he wants to. *sigh*.

He needs some real therapy, and some anger management therapy on top of it all. He just can't see that he hurt us (my sisters, my mom and I) and continues to hurt us. He thinks that everyone is against him but what he just doesn't get is that we WANT him to get help and we WANT our parents together. Even mom wants him to come home, but not until he sees that the way he has treated us and her all our lives was wrong.

He doesn't know what love is or even how to love. He thinks love is controlling everything and everyone in his life and if they don't do what he wants then they suffer his rage. Rage that gets out of control to the point of physical and verbal abuse.

I truly love my dad, and though I am trying not to take sides and have told him that I'm not, it's so easy to understand my mom's and be angry with dad. Right now I can't even talk to him because he is so toxic to my life.

Even though over the years I begged mom to leave him or make him leave, which she refused to do (because of us mainly) and because she thought she was doing the right thing by staying by his side to support him and help him, even though she finally did make him leave, it still hurts me to see them going through this. It hurts because I want a loving family. I want the family that I never had. I want this to be a wake up call to my dad so that he can get the help he needs so that we can be the type of family that discusses things together, not what we have always had which has been conflict, strife, abuse, and pain.

At this point, I'm not holding out much hope that dad will get his shit together and take responsibility for his actions, both past and present, and stop blaming everyone but himself for his problems. Mom is kind of taking it slowly and I don't think she will take the first step towards divorce, though. I think she is waiting to see what will happen.

To me, this is just not on. I think she should file separation papers and get on with things to force the issue with dad, but she says she's trusting in the lord to make things right and if dad doesn't make any changes then he will be the one that makes the moves. I honestly don't believe that he will, though. He's just not like that and it's just not his way. He waits for others to make the first move then blames them for not doing what he wants.

I don't know what else to say right now, except I'm seeing a therapist....well, I've been seeing one for a long while now to deal with those childhood issues so they stop affecting my life. I feel betrayed, confused, and then again I'm also GLAD they aren't together anymore and deep down I hope mom does get a divorce from him so she can finally have a peaceful life without all the shit dad brings to a relationship.

I guess that since I've been through a divorce, but then I'd been thinking about it for quite a long time before I did anything about it, I understand why mom is holding out hope.

My phone bill is pretty high, instead of 5-8 hours of phone calls per month to my family it's more like 5-10 hours per week now...slowly going down since I'm not calling mom every single day to make sure she's ok. Even though she instigated the separation, she's taking this very, very hard as she wants more than anything to have back the man she married.

Namaste to you all