Scout's QLC journey #2

[Rita]

I think once we start doing the healing work, we realize how it was not just our MLCer whose trauma caused the rupture. Likewise our own traumas may have be the reason we were attracted to the MLCer, to play out that wound all over again. I always thought I was dating men who were nothing like my dad or nothing like my family; now, looking back, I find it terrifying to realize that I ended up marrying someone who would become the spitting MLC image of my mother.

I had/have the same problem with my parents, that physical block that I even felt was a repulsion toward them. I used to beat myself up for it and sometimes I still do. But all kids WANT parental affection when things are not disordered, so it must really go deep for both us and surely, like Robin WIlliams says in Good Will Hunting, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.

From my far vantage point reading your story I would just tell you to be easy on yourself and not read too much into your dad's behavior. You seem to have quite a lot of expectations of him; expectations are why we feel disappointed each time these things happen. Maybe you can practice some of what you are learning here -- more than what you have already done, I mean -- just in terms of not thinking anything you do or say can change your dad, and just accepting that reality as you GAL.

I would also say that many grandparents don't have any memory of what babies need as far as schedules, etc., and usually see our mothering as being overly focused on the kids. My dad is the same even now that my kids are tween/teen and he knows that they have experienced so much loss, he will even say he doesn't want to go on a vacation with us because my choices "revolve too much around the kids." Some of that is just normal grandparent stuff and some is your dad's NPD or whatever his clusterB disorder is!