How Shrewd

Some days I could do without. Yesterday was one of those. First, the back story. Actually, most of it with regard to my dad is probably on these pages. But, long story short, he was abused by his mom. The physical and the verbal abuse were known, the sexual abuse was implied, but either forgotten or too hard to talk about.

Backtracking further, I know little about his mom’s story, but know that her mom had multiple husbands who died and she would hold séances in her house to contact them. The one time I visited her as a boy, I sat on the couch and she immediately scolded me, “Matt don’t sit there. Albert is sitting there.” Albert was her dead husband. I was probably 7. It was laughed off by my mom as funny. It’s not fucking funny. It scared the fuck out of me.

So, there’s a family tradition that I’ve had to contend with in this life that isn’t okay. Every generation is faced with a choice to carry on dark family traditions or to take a fucking stand, hopefully taking the family in a healthier direction. My dad chose Christianity. On the surface, it looked like he’d taken the healthier direction. In reality the awful family traditions were allowed to carry on in the dark. And I think it’s fair to say that neither my sister nor I function well as adults because of that.

When your mom abused the shit out of you as a child, you don’t let that woman anywhere near your kids. Period. But, when my dad would be off doing “the Lord’s work”, his mom would babysit my sister and me regularly. She stayed with us for an entire week at one point while my dad and mom were at Young Life camp. My memories of time with my grandma don’t exist. But, from what I’ve been told about it, there’s good reason I blocked out all of the shit grandma put me through.

Therapy has helped me a ton. Writing every day helps too. But, some of the shit I just can’t shake. I’ve hated myself and lacked confidence and assumed people hated me and I’m sure I acted like a dick countless times out of insecurity. But, something incredible has happened these last few years since I have kept my dad out of my life…I found the ability to love myself. Fuck…even to like myself is a big deal. But, I can actually accept compliments and appreciate it when people tell me I’m great instead of living in the shell of self-hatred/everybody must hate me too.

A few years ago my sister was having a hard time. My dad told her that he would do whatever she needed. She said she needed him to tell her what the fuck happened with grandma. He drove around for 45 minutes and came back and said he wouldn’t go there. His adult daughter was dying because of what he and/or my grandma did to us, but even then he kept it on the surface. He cleaned my sister’s house, but wouldn’t go into the shit that would have actually helped her.

It was par for the course for him. He could tell you about the neighbor who “needs the Lord”, but couldn’t get into the actual shit that caused our entire family so much pain. So, in that sense, what did “needing the Lord” even mean other than a place to hide out and keep up appearances while doing nothing to get into the healing and grace and transformation that this “lord” was supposed to promise. What kind of service of the Lord is saving the souls of other people’s kids via Young Life while offering your own kids as a sacrifice to your evil, abusive mother?

Fuck him. And fuck that version of Christianity. I’ve come to hate that word, because my experience with it was jumping through hoops and feeling good if you did good and feeling judgment from men if you did not. Real and grace and people who listen…I found that somewhere else…not at church and certainly not in the space I lived in growing up.

That place we called home was a very uncomfortable place. I hadn’t even thought about it before yesterday, but just the thought of my awful grandma sitting around the Christmas dinner table like everything was normal is nauseating. Fuck that way of life. Fuck the fake. Fuck all the people who put me through that.

One of those people was my mom. We had a heart to heart right before she died. I don’t think I grasped all that she was apologizing for at the time, but she said her biggest regret was never standing up to my dad…and how that decision affected me and my sister. Did that mean she knew about my grandma? Fuck…if so, she’s just as guilty.

I can understand why she never stood up to my dad. No one did. It just wasn’t worth it. And because of that he ran over my mom the same way he did anyone else. He would constantly belittle my mom’s intellect. She was super smart, but any little thing she said that was slightly incorrect he would pounce on. It became a family joke how dumb my smart mom was. It wasn’t fucking funny. It took me years to realize that kind of verbal abuse isn’t okay and comes from a very small person. My dad felt small, so did my grandma and they both preyed on the weak to make themselves feel better.

Well, motherfuckers…I’m not weak anymore. You don’t get to continue your reign of bullshit where you do things like this gem from a family visit..Dad opens fridge. Dad asks whose leftovers are these. Bro-in-law says mine. Dad proceeds to eat the leftovers himself. Just being a dick for the sake of being a dick. That’s the kind of human my dad is. He will run over whoever gets in his way. Including my mom. Including his own kids.

Or people who got in the way of how he wanted to do “ministry”. A few years ago, I told a friend about the realities I was facing about who my dad is and was. He brought it up to his own father, wondering if he had maybe known my dad. His dad responded, “Neil Atkinson? I could have told you he was an ass hole 20 years ago.”

That was a defining moment for me. When you grow up hearing everyone tell you how great and funny your dad is…but you live with another person entirely…it’s going to be confusing and unsettling. It took me until adulthood to recognize the reality of him and how awful my childhood was. When you’re Christian…everything is “fine”. I was told that, so I believed it. But I’ll be damned if my kids are going to grow up thinking everything is fine.

They were forced into the confusion that is my family this week against my wishes by my ex-wife. And it’s unforgiveable. I had to have a long heart to heart with the kids that should never have happened at this stage in their lives. I had to detail some of the realities above. I’m not going to be guilty of saying this is fine. It is not fine. And I explained all of it to the kids.

The talk with the kids went way better than I could have expected. They listened and I answered questions. Confusion got cleared up. And they understand the reality of what kind of person my dad is. And found out some things about their mom that I had tried to keep from them. She forced my hand with her actions. But, the truth is what matters. And here’s the truth.

I haven’t talked to my dad in years. Part of it was the fairly recent bomb that my sister dropped on me about what my grandma actually did to us and knowing that he put me in her care and not knowing if he did anything to us, but knowing he always made me uncomfortable. And part of it is just the reality of there being no room for people like my dad in my life.

Actually, that brought to mind another story about him that I need to tell first…when he got married to his current wife…within a few days of seeing her face to face for the first time (after meeting and talking on eHarmony) they “said vows to one another before God”. I got an email with that quote more than a month after it happened. That is the quote of a crazy person. You can infer what you will about why they needed to say vows so quickly and why the hell they needed to bring God’s name into the equation, but the net result was they got “married” before they actually got married in the eyes of the state. And not only did neither my sister nor I meet her before they said “vows to one another”, but my dad had promised my sister that he would never remarry without her approving of the new wife.

That’s him in a nutshell. He’s going to do what he wants. He completely ran over my sister and then justified it on the back end by saying he knew she’d approve. That’s not how approval works, unless you operate under the shrewd christian principles of Neil Atkinson (that’s the name of his book…for real… “The Shrewd Christian”…pick it up on Amazon dot com and read the forward where he fucking thanks his mom…no shit…he thanks his abusive mother and makes no mention of the kids who paid the price of living with his shrewdness).

So…a month after my dad got “married”, he finally told me about her. Then, proceeded to not invite me to the state approved ceremony, but invited me to the third event in the process…the reception. I passed and haven’t talked to him since for all of the reasons above. He knows this. He knows not to contact me. He knows if I ever change my mind I’ll let him know.

My ex-wife knows this as well. But, has continued to enable him in his attempts to gain footholds in the lives of my kids, which is so far out of bounds. I told my dad not to send gifts to the kids, because it’s confusing to them. His response was to send gifts to the kids via my ex-wife instead. And to send her gifts as well. Whatever he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.

Imagine if my ex-wife's father had an abusive past and imagine she didn’t get along with him…what would it say about me as a person if I went behind her back to make sure that he was in the kids’ lives?

Well, I got to live the other side of that this week. I got a message a while ago from my dad asking to see the kids. I said nothing, because he knows better than to ask. Last Monday, I got an email from my ex-wife saying after a lot of serious consideration, she had decided to take the kids to dinner with my dad.

Uhhh. What. The. Fuck.

The whole email was an absolute master class in crazy. She started by saying she was taking the kids to see my dad and then said she didn’t want to do it behind my back. She already talked to him. She already decided she was doing it…what is that if not “doing it behind my back”. The reality of her email was that she did the wrong thing, asked for permission to do the wrong thing and then when I sent 3 different emails detailing many of the points above and saying absolutely not, she simply didn’t respond and went anyway. When my daughter asked her what I said, she said that I responded to her email and she’d deal with it. She lied. Unless dealing with it meant she’d go to dinner anyway and not respond to my protest.

The confusion the kids experienced because of this little charade is so unfair. The ex-wife even tried to pin that on me, saying she wanted me go to dinner with my dad and the kids and absent that she wanted me to give the kids my permission so that they wouldn’t feel guilty about going. Are you fucking kidding me? She wanted me to give my blessing for her creating unnecessary chaos in the kids’ lives. She then had the nerve to close the email by telling me that I needed to try to consider what’s best for the kids.

My fucked up family history. My crazy dad and the bullshit he put on his children. She brought the kids back into that and wanted to call that "what's best for the kids". The confusion on the kids’ faces as I explained reality to them was painful, because they’d heard it differently from their mom. The logic in her email was about other old people dying. And not knowing how long we’d have them. You don’t go behind my back and arrange for the kids to get back in a bad person’s life just because that guy is named grandpa and he’s old. That’s the same insane “logic” that allows shitty family traditions to continue throughout generations. If he wasn’t the kids’ grandpa there is no way she would want him anywhere near the kids knowing what she knows about him.

And the fact that he went to these kind of lengths to see the kids proves that he’s the same person. There was no consideration as to the negative effects this meeting would have on the kids…the questions and the confusion. It was just…he’s going to do it…and if I don’t want him to, he’ll do it anyway. But, I’m glad I got the chance to explain it all to the kids. And help them to understand why I no longer talk to my dad and why they won’t see him again.

During that dinner he tried to make plans with them this summer in Colorado. And lied to them, saying he doesn’t know why he and I don’t talk. Two texts he has sent me prove otherwise. He sent me one that said, “I’ve been reading your blog. Happy fucking Father’s Day.” And another time he sent a text that read, “You were right to divorce me.” I know. So, get the fuck out of my life and stay away from my kids.

I was shown a complete and utter lack of respect by both him and my ex-wife. But, I’m used to that. I’ve already been disrespected enough by both of them to last a lifetime. That’s why they’re out. But, for them to put the kids in the middle of this shit is as low class and underhanded as it comes. I would have greatly preferred to explain all this stuff to the kids when they were a little older, but even my 12 year old got it, saying something like, “I’d rather know the truth and be kept out of it than to have something happen to me like happened to you and Jodi.”

My point.

Err on the side of caution. Even if nothing would have ever happened to the kids anywhere close to as bad as what happened to my sister and me…you don’t give a bully, a liar, a promise breaker, a manipulator and a phony any kind of foothold in your kids’ world. Just because we’re family doesn’t mean I need to allow your bull shit in mine or my kids’ life. I’m protecting them the way I needed to be but didn’t get protected…hoping to see a kind of health in my kids that this family hasn’t seen for generations. My life is a daily struggle. And I don’t want that to be true for my kids. They’re getting a whole lot of real at an early age, but that beats the hell out of my father’s version of Christianity.