my father and i

One of the hardest things for me to do is to love my father. It’s not a simple task, simply said. It takes a lot of efforts, pretending and some certain forgetfulness concerning his deeds that caused my family to emotionally fell apart. His actions make me suffer in silence almost daily. Worse thing is, he does not seem to notice it. Everything seems fine, from his perspective - my mother, my siblings, his siblings and relatives. He does not seem to worry about the fact that there may exists anger inside his children, one of them being me, concerning his ignorance.

I love him. He is a remarkable man in most aspects of his life. He is a successful worker in a bank. He is respected and earns quite a big amount of salary and reputation from his employer. He is a workaholic – he’s focused, dedicated, extremely hardworking, smart, posses great leadership skills, rational and fearless. Honestly saying, looking from a career perspective, he is everything I want to be. He used to be my biggest hero and he is still the person I respect the most in life. I am willing to sacrifice my true desires in life just to make him proud of me. He wants me to be a judge, and I will. He has confidence in me; he believes in me and in his eyes, I am a capable person. The thought of making him proud of me pushes me to the highest degree of passion to study law within me. It can simply be said that the biggest influence I have in my life to be a successful independent career woman is my father.

But still, loving him is the most complicated task I have to undergo in my life. My love for him is filled with many other emotions – hatred, anger, bitterness, sadness and distrust. He causes so many negative impacts in my life that I am sure I would be very much happier without. He causes me to lose faith in men. He causes me to lose faith in the institution of marriage. He causes me to think that it is impossible for loyalty between a husband and wife to be long-lasting. He causes me to feel fear towards any romantic feelings to men. He causes me to waste my teen years in hidden nocturnal depression. He causes me to hate going back home. He causes me to never put any hope or trust in him. He causes me to be bitter. He causes my family too much misery. He causes the laughter in my house to be replaced with endless bitterness and fights. He causes me to wonder which family he loves most. He broke up with his own siblings. He lies and cheats on my mother endlessly. He can never be expected to be there when we need him. Indeed, he is rarely present. And there he goes, questioning my declaration of refusing marriage in my life.

I swear I would rather stay lonely forever than get married to a man, risk being cheated and cause my children to suffer the same experiences I did and still do.

However, for now, I would continue pretending that I am not mentally suffering and rotting from inside as that is the only way left that allows me to love him. Once he can actually understand my feelings, then I’m letting it all out and it would be impossible for me to even bond with him anymore. And honestly, I am afraid to lose that bond. Simply due to the reason that he is my father and he is still the man I love most in life. And I have a strong feeling that I am not able to love another man as much as I love him. And that too, is caused by him.