After a very emotional week and a tearful birthday yesterday, I finally started feeling a little better this morning. I was happy my birthday was over to be honest, as I didn’t have to think about the disappointment of not having caring parents. I survived the fact that my father wasn’t going to contact me after a year of not talking and that from now on my birthdays and holidays were going to feel a little more empty.
Around 15:15pm today when I was having an afternoon nap, my father actually attempted contact. Luckily I was fast asleep so didn’t hear my phone. It was in my bag on a very low volume and since I hardly have anyone calling me on it, I didn’t think to check it. After about 2 hours, my husband and I went out in the car to head to the shops and I wanted to check the time on my phone. There was a txt message and missed call and I already knew this was unusual. First of all, nobody calls my phone. My 2 friends here in Germany always send me Whatssup messages on my phone and the rest of my friends contact me through social media. If I get any coaching clients that is also via email.
It is incredible to think that after a year of no contact, after no effort to acknowledge me when I walked into his place of work, after the fact that he had removed my photos from his work desk and after the fact that he has purposefully tried to punish me from taking money from our shared account for over a year, he now decided to call me, a day after my birthday! Why?
Why would my Narc father call me to send me his wishes after all this? A normal, healthy father might eventually realise his mistakes, put his selfishness aside, apologise for the way he treated his daughter and do everything he could to reconnect. My father isn’t normal or healthy however and he has proven this time and time again.
Like I said, I missed his call when I was asleep however he had also left a voicemail. I was sitting in the car with my husband wondering whether it would be good for me to listen to his voicemail or whether to just delete it. My husband put his hand on my leg and said,” Listen to the voicemail if you like and then we can talk about it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I listened to the voicemail and it was a very simple message saying ” Happy birthday, I hope you had a lovely day yesterday, wishing you all the best”.
In all honesty, I felt anxious, I felt confused and I felt like nothing had changed, whilst at the same time worrying that the shit was going to hit the fan all over again.His voice sounded calm, collected and genuine, like it used to be before his suicide attempt, before he discarded me, before he hired a lawyer against me. That calm voice was the Dad I had been missing, the Dad that would drive me to work, the Dad that would play basketball with my friends and I when I was 13, the Dad who would laugh a lot and bring kittens home, so my brother and I could play with them.This ‘nicer’ Dad was waking up this little voice inside me saying ” See, he does love & miss you after all”.
This little voice however, was instantly drowned by common sense. The common sense which says that Narcs have an ulterior motive. That they don’t just forgive unless there is something in it for them. That they don’t go from cruel, hurtful & neglectful to warm and forgiving without a reason.
In my case, the ulterior motive is the money that I still have in my savings account, that my Dad wants back. The money that I am sure my Dad would manipulate me for. That even if I were to thank him for his wishes by sending him a message, he would then wean himself back into my life, maybe even fake an apology or come up with some excuses about health problems, his wife treating him bad etc, just so he could eventually ask for his money back…Because he knows I am kind, because he knows I feel others’ pain, because he knows that he can guilt-trip me and get me to do what he wants, like he always did..because after a year of not talking, his narcissistic supply is low and he needs me..because I always made him feel good as I am his baby girl, the daughter he adores..The daughter with a heart of gold, that he proudly told people about.
The problem is that I WILL NOT FORGET the daily pain I have felt in the last year since his suicide attempt and discard, I WILL NOT FORGET the manipulation, I WILL NOT FORGET the constant lying, I WILL NOT FORGET the angry look in his eyes, I WILL NOT FORGET the day his lawyer called me, I WILL NOT FORGET the way he ignored me when I was sitting a desk away from him in his office and I WILL NOT FORGET the day I arrived at hospital, when he was lying in a coma because of his wife’s threats!
It is too big, too much, too unsettling, too upsetting and too traumatising to just fall straight back into the way we used to speak, just so he can eventually ask for his money back.
Even though I spent the whole week before my birthday worrying about how I would get through the day without feeling down in the dumps, now that he has actually made contact, I am feeling suspicious and can’t allow myself to think of him as the Dad I remember when I was younger..
The day my Dad attempted suicide was the day everything changed..He is a sick man, whose obsession with money has destroyed nearly all his relationships and whose 2nd marriage has been an early death sentence.