Since Isla was four years old Father's Day has been for lack of a better word, a shit show. Holidays, birthdays and special days like this always brought out the worst in our co-parenting skills. In my retrospective opinion, it was a day for my ex to create chaos, inflict guilt and play head games .
This will be the first year I have not purchased a gift or card for my ex with my daughter to give her father. Things are too far estranged now that I finally feel no pull to try and create Father's Day magic between them.
A gift, a card can't do that anyways....being a Father means putting someone else's needs before your own, it means loving unconditionally...that's where the magic happens. Unfortunately it didn't happen for her.
I remember one Father's Day in particular (to pick one shit show above 10 years of them), when Alex completely ghosted Isla the entire weekend. We always agreed that Mother's Day weekend would be my time with her, Father's Day his no matter how the every other weekend schedule lined up (basic co- parenting). This particular year he requested very last minute asked to have her up on the Wednesday before Father's Day . I had said sorry no she had dance Wednesdays and we had made plans with a friend afterschool but Friday afterschool she would be ready for him to spend the weekend.
Well Friday 4pm rolled around, the handmade necktie card she had crafted at school along with a store bought present we had picked out together was put on the hallway bench not to be forgotten when he arrived. When he was over an hour late (not out of the ordinary he did things by his own time regardless of court drawn up documents or friendly agreed upon timelines) I sent him a text asking what his eta was for pick up. No response.
Friday turned into Saturday, Saturday turned into Sunday..Father's Day. The tie card continued to sit on the hallway bench ready to go should he show up. Of course he never did, this was pay back for not bowing to his last minute demand during the week. This was an opportunity to create a story that he was not allowed to see his daughter on Father's Day.
Whether he had other plans that weekend and decided having a five year old wouldn't work in those plans; or whether he sabotaged his own special time just to manipulate the custody story favouring him as a 'victim', I really don't know. What I do know is that it left a little girl and her tie card feeling abandoned, unloved and asking where her dad was? On Father's Day of all days. It would be the first of years and years chaos ... of showing up unexpectedly and disappearing without explanation. It would create a relationship with no trust, no reliability, and now as a teen abandonment issues.
Sure as the tide, that week after his timely disappearance he began his berating of how I had stolen his Father's Day weekend from him. Text after text gaslighting me into thinking somehow I had miscommunicated, inadvertently made Isla not want to go with him for the weekend. It was madness. I knew what had happened and yet the story he was telling left me questioning my own truth. What I didn't realize was that he was constantly manufacturing his own truth to rectify the story in his own mind and to create a paper trail for his lawyer....even if it was his own assortment of lies.
As I write this I wonder how many women (and men) are saying "oh my goodness this is happening to me and I thought I was going crazy". I'm here to tell you YOU ARE NOT!
I'm not sure if Mother's Day and Father's Day resonates with me as it did as a child. I know and see too many people that struggle with these days, including my own child. I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful dad and my other three kids have been blessed with a great dad too , and for Isla a bonus dad and positive male role model. But each year when this weekend rolls around it's a trigger for both her and I, we prepare ourselves as best we can for what the dialogue and mood will be...this year is no different. For my daughter Father's Day does not mean special time together, it's a time she is reminded of what's missing in her life. So maybe on these special days we remember, above anything else, kindness.
"Don't think I'll find forgiveness as fast as mom did And, God, I love you, but you're such a dipshit Please fucking fix this
'Cause you were all I looked up to
Now I can't even look at you". ~ S . Carpenter
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