My father threatened to send me a letter that he will write every Sunday in a snail mail letter to me in the first of these that I got last week. Well he has been good for two weeks now.

Not that these letters are much writing for him. I could type them both here in minutes. They are a half sheet of copy paper with about ten or so sentences on them. I wonder if he is senile or he thinks a real letter has more force in getting me to reply. He attempted one email about a year ago to get me to reply to him.

Not much of an effort. Through out a few sentences.

Anyway every and I mean every communication I have from him mentions something church related. That is his bubble. He breaths Mormon Holy Ghost air I guess.

I find this behavior quite strange. I'm not replying. Let him send me a gaggle of sentences giving me his time in the temple and which of his ten children he interacted with that week.

But I digress. This latest letter had a sad sentence in it. It said that my mother and him were "empty nestores." It looks like he did this on a word processor. Weird. And that because they were they didn't have much to do.

They are old. They are retired. That is why they don't have much other than going to their tales from the crypt temple jobs. Is he senile? He hasn't had a kid living in his house for over a decade and that was a child he fathered at 45.

Strange.

Anyway, this one fact (that they don't have anything to do) makes me want to write him back a letter and say something like - all those years you were super involved in church, your business, your choir, your hobbies, all those people you were constantly helping and your family was an after thought.

I told him when I told him I didn't believe in the church that he had neglected his family and if his church thought family was so important why didn't he get more involved?

It is a little too late now with me. He has plenty of other kids to get involved with that DO believe like him.

Maybe he is just so disconnected from reality that his family doesn't really want him involved. Maybe we were more like a factory than a family and us products when and started our own factories to produce more blind followers of the glorious gospel. Maybe.

Well, I don't feel sorry for them. They made their beds and now is the time they get to enjoy laying in them. Maybe in the last decade (or two if they are lucky) of their lives they can ponder what this wonderful gospel has given them. A disconnected family closer to a corporation than to each other.

Family. Isn't it about time?

Maybe you should tell him what you said.

Good thought. Bad idea. I've tried several times to 'splain things to him. I spent an entire evening staying up until 4AM one night. I mentioned the alienation of his family and all.

Nothing matters. He will listen. My mother runs. She says she will not listen to talk like that and leaves.

His listening only means that he hears. He doesn't listen. He tried to persuade me that I'm wrong, our family is fine, and the church is true. Then we go round and round.

There is no getting through to either of them. They are experiencing the result of following the LDS Church so much that all else pales in comparison.

Temples are the natural place for Mormons like my parents. They gather the people who placed their church before everything else.

Sad.

My parents have done the same. They spent my entire life putting all of their time, money, attention, and energy into their church friends. Now their church friends have either died or moved on.

They are heading toward 90. They still, to this day, don't seem to have learned a thing. They would abandon any one of their children or grandchildren at the ring of a phone. Their church could care less about them. Their glory days are long gone. They have alienated their family in the name of their church. I suspect the church is lying in wait to collect the last of the scraps when they die.

Everybody communicates differently. Lots of people enjoy getting letters and sometimes a physical message is more treasured than an email. It really depends on your preferences. I never thought I cared, but I received a physical letter from one of my best friends overseas the other day and it felt very nice.

So, am I senile?

This is an odd thing to have contempt for. One day, when texting is no longer the most current way to communicate, and when you text one of your kids, are they going to show contempt because it isn't communicating via *insert new way to communicate*? Hopefully not, right?

However, you mention that he has neglected you for much of your life. That certainly is something that could hurt, I agree.

snb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is an odd thing to have contempt for. One
> day, when texting is no longer the most current
> way to communicate, and when you text one of your
> kids, are they going to show contempt because it
> isn't communicating via *insert new way to
> communicate*? Hopefully not, right?

I could care less how. It is the fact that it is for his conscience and not my benefit. I'm the lost sheep. I didn't reply to his email. I guess this is the result.

My mother is in the habit of emailing news and sending letters with reprimands. The only actually letters I've gotten from her are real letters with reprimands.

This is the first actual letter I've gotten from my father. I never got one from him on my mission. My mother's only non-call me to repentance letters were when I was on my mission and she spoke for all of them.

Strange. A tiny letter with church going and who came for conference viewing and a hope that I would reply.

With what? We've never had much of a relationship. When we talk it is always arguing over his opinions. He thinks gays are destroying America, women working are damning their children to Hell, that Satan is found in every corner and we need to be righteous to fight him.

I don't want to enter his world to attempt to communicate. He will never cut me slack. I rebelled as a teen. They never accepted this. They kicked me out for not going to church. There is nothing in their lives bu the church. The read their scriptures daily. They are waiting to go to their Celestial Kingdom. They will never see anything but their own salvation and attempt to save me.

When I was going to church. They would call and ask three questions about me - if I was employed, what was my calling and what the names of my children were.

He's probably invested enough in Mormonism that he actually blames himself for you going to hell or something. It doesn't sound like he wanted much to do with you before hand.

I'm sorry for that. I wouldn't want to enter their world either.

snb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm sorry for that. I wouldn't want to enter
> their world either.

They think that they are promised that I will return to the fold in this life or the next.

When I was rebelling as a teen my mother had many dreams I died. She told he she hoped I would either mend my ways or die.

I didn't. Still alive and kicking and disappointing them.

asking the names of your children. That is what my ex's parents used to do. They couldn't remember how many we had, if they were boys or girls, what their names were, and their ages.

We had ONE SET OF TWINS--boy/girl. Not too hard to figure out. The only twins ever in both sides of the family as far back as they'd done genealogy.

They were two of the most selfish people I've ever known (and it shows in all their children). They "appeared" good mormon for all intents and purposes.

I wasn't raised like your parents are and my ex's parents were--this side of mormnonism always made me a bit ill and I hoped it wasn't how the CK would be. I just hung on for forever family.

I have to say--I thought my parents had issues. This board has helped in more ways than I can count and one is to be grateful for the parents I had.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2012 11:37AM by cl2.

So you have "poison" parents, get in line.

This is your life, do with it as you see fit, with no excuses needed.

Reply only if it makes you happy to do so.

Do you owe them any more than they owed you as a child?

You can turn the same treatment on them that they put on you or you can "just not be bothered". What you can't do is change them, don't waste your time!

Shake off the remains of your childhood, and "parent" yourself. They may have had you during your formative years, but you will have yourself for the rest of your life.

Love yourself. Do the things for your grownself that did not get done for the child that you were. Now, you can give to you the time and energy that you were denied by your parents.

Learn how to be happy. Learn how to truly take care of your needs. While you are doing something for your "self" remember to do something for others. That way you are sharing yourself which is good for you. Make your life about you, and make it worth living.

If your looking for their approval, You most likely will never get it. It sounds like you are trying to come to terms with that. It's not easy to accept that the people who you want the most to approve of you ,never will.

Once you accept it, you then have to decide how much useless wrangling you are going to do in the future. Some? none? Whatever the case, you will have to set some limits to keep from going crazy.

they spend all, and I mean all, of their free time in the temple. And yet lament how they never see their grand children. They completely neglect normal family interaction in favor of the cult but complain that no on cares about them.

They are always trying to guilt us into coming back to church. I am happy to start an argument over the veracity of the church. I am done being nice and don't back down any more. So now they don't go there as often.

That is the only advice I have. Everytime they bring it up fight back. Eventually they really do stop talking about the church (or stop talking to you altogether)

Basically, your father is harrassing you through the mail.

Toss his letters into the circular file.