So ive slept on it, and feel a little better this morning. The pain is drummed down and gone for now.
Its a long story (arent they all?), and i find it hard to begin.
I suppose the early parts ill try to summarize. Basically, my dad has always been horrible with mney management. He makes wll over 100 k a yr but could never afford his own house and we were always short on things. He never had a drinking or gambling problem and he doesnt smoke so i dont know where the money was going. Anyway, my parents split up when i was little, and his habits didnt change, and i think partially because i socially isolated myself, and he was really one of the only influential figures i was aroudn most, i picked up a number of his habits without realizing.
ok, fast forward to 2007. I had just gotten into my first "big boy" job, and decided i was making enough to get my first new vehicle. I was still single, I knew my hunny at the time but we werent together yet. All was good. Now, if id jsut stopped things right there, everything would probably have turned out alright, but i didnt. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and i layed my first stone right there when i got that first new truck in 07.
So 2009, i get one of those thingies in the mail, basically allowing you to trade in your vehicle for a newer one. Id always wanted a diesel vehicle and thought i was making the right decision, so again, off to the dealer i go, come home with a new vehicle, again. By this time, My babe and me are engaged. Nevermind the fact that on this vehicle my payments went up an extra amount of money to the point where it was eating up 70% of my income. I know, i know, very stupid choice, but at the time, i figured that because me and her were living with my dad, who had told us to stay there untill we were both done school which was going to be another 4 yrs, I figured I had enough time to pay the thign off by he time we were both done, and life would be good. Made sense at the time.
Well, This second truck turned out to be a lemon, we had numerous issues that they wouldnt warranty that drained my savings, and on top of that i discovered they had manipulated the numbers with the bank, so we actually got approved for a loan that i never should have been able to get. Everything was upside down and in a bad way. As in 70 k upside down
.
During this time, my dad got himself a girlfriend. We weer all happy at first, life was good, i was really happy for him, as he hadnt been with a woman since my mother, which is now 20 + yrs. I liked this lady, she liked us, everything seemed to be going well.
Not quite as rosy as it sounds. My dad had no intention of moving in with her for a while as he wanted to ease back into things. His lady started putting the pressure on him, to kick us out regardless of us both still being in uni, and for him to man up and buy a house and ect ect ect.
Now, heres where some of the hurt begins. We weer all talking about this, and blatantly in the middle of everything, she called us "F8cknig burdens" right to our faces. And my dad said not one word to defend us at all. It was just so unexpected, and it stung. Hard. The worst part is i feel now there may have been a grain of truth in it, as much as id rather not admit it.
Now, before i go on, a little more background.
Because of my stupid choices with my truck and gonig to school and my babe goign to school, my dad insisted that we dont pay for anything, save our money, ect ect, trust him to take care of things. I didnt really like the arrangement but he really wanted things that way so i let it be, even though i asked him multiple times if we could help out, and said i could easily pay for our impact on the house. He insisted everything was fine. I had no way of knowing otherwise, and he never said a word about anything being wrong.
Up to this point, My dad and my wife had been pretty close. But his failure to say somthing, ANYTHING, when his gf was reeming us out right in front of him really hurt her. Really hurt her. Since that day shes barely spoken two words to him. Shes polite if she needs to be but she avoids him. I was on the fence about the thing, i was hurt too, and angry, but i tried to let it go.
So then they broke up. Partially because of us being where we were, partially because of other reasons. During this time, my wife and i had decided to say "f*ck it" and decided we would pay for everything we could from now on, regardless if he said anything. So, we managed to get out of my upside down, get into a much better vehicle suited for us now, reduce that rediculous monthly payment, but unfortunately because that loan was upside down, the negative equity drove this one up a little more than it should be, but were doing much better with it. Also paying for everything else we can, and as such i jut know right now we couldnt afford to be on our own. Just have to wait untill i pay this loan off in 2 yrs and im debt free and have income to go towards being able to pay for housing.
So anyway, they broke up. My dad swore every which way to sunday that they werent going to get back together, they were just friends now, ect ect. I didnt really care anymore and didnt bring it up. I tried to patch up my relationship with my dad the best i could, but things never felt the same after that. My wife still doesnt talk to him much at all, avoids it if she can, and i dont blame her. During the course of the year, id asked him if he realized that we were both pset with him, and he just said yes i do. And not another word on it. When all 3 of us would be home he would never ask us about it, or try to talk to us so we could get started on trying to patch things up. I would try to do so on my end but he always avoided the subject and would go out somewhere for a long while untill we had gone to bed, then come home.
He had started seeing her more and more again, insisting all the while that the werent getting back together, they were just friends, ect. Id asked him outright if they weer an item again and if so to just be straight with me about it, that id be happy he's happy. Again, he said no. So i let it rest, thinking it was wierd to be friends with an ex.
Then this trip to Italy comes up that hes away on right now, and the night before he admitted to us that they were again, an item. We had a big convo about i, luckily calm. I basicaly told him im sorry for everything that happened last yr and anything we may have contributed to it, that while i wouldnt have picked her im happy hes happy. but i also said i didnt trust her, that i wasnt trying to hurt his feelings by saynig this, but that after last yr i didnt know if i could ever trust her again. He said he understood that and didnt blame me at all, but that she swore things would be different this time and she wouldnt be rushing to try to move in with him and she would leave us alone. I replied to him that frankly, her word carried very little weight with me, and that i wanted HIS assurance that things would be ok untill we could get out. He promised they would. I said wanted to believe him, i really did, but that after last year when he didnt say a word when she was reeming us out, that id have to believe it when i saw it. He said he understood, we hugged, and that was that.
So now me and my hunny are just keeping our heads down, working as hard as we can to get out as fast as we can without committing financial suicide. We have things we have to do first, but were lookiing at at least a 2 yr timeframe. Nothing to be doen about it unless i get a crazy raise or win the lottery. Luckily my wife never expected me to share her feelings about my father and she was quite suprised when i told her how ive been feeling. even though shes angry with him she said i should still be trying to patch things up, that her anger shouldnt be mine. Her and me have never fought over this and things have always been solid. I have to say that girl must really love me, because if she married me for money she sure got the wrong guy.
So, in recap. I have to be fair, i think there were alot of things that could have been done different on my part to avoid what happened last yr. I would have been paying for things much sooner if he had just been honest with me, but i had no way to tell anything was wrong. EVery time i would ask he would just say oh yea everythings good son! dont worry about it. Meanwhile his girl is getting upset with him for it and we had no idea.
What im more upset about is the fact he lied to me about seeing her. I would never have told him to NOT see her, i want him to be happy and im not the person to stand in the way. But i would have appreciated him being honest about it instead of trying to be sneaky and lie right to my face when i already knew what was going on. I think thats a big part of what im angry about and hurting about, is being lied to. That and the fact that hes known for a whole year that were both upset and hurt, and instead of talking to us about it and trying to patch things up, he ignored how we felt, went back to her and tried to hide it. Whether or not he meant to, it feels basically like hes sending the message that he just doesnt care.
So yea, im feeling pretty raw, i have some days better than others. I just dont know what to think anymore.
A huge part of this is my own fault. Starting in 07. If i had A. just stuck with the first vehicle id got, or B. not gotten a new vehicle at all, we wouldnt be in the financial black hole were in right now, and we could be out on our own and not in this mess. So that part i take full ownership over. Its easy for me to say i didnt know any better, but really i think i should have. They say hindsight is 20/20. I didnt have the money management skills i should have, but i learned alot from this and when i get us out of this situation ill make sure it never happens again. I screwed up.
Im not punishing myself, but i try to make sure im the devils advocate on everything. there are 2 sides to every story, and somewhere in the middle is the truth.
I want him to be happy, and i want them to go on. I just would have appreciated honesty up front. I dont trust her because of what she said to us and what shes said to my dad about how she feels about us. One thing ive learned is most people dont change, they just get smarter. So im always on guard now. My relationship with dad doesnt feel at all ike it used to. I dont know if it ever will, which hurts the most. In a way its like losing the only parent ive got left.
Sorry guys, ive been penting this up for a very long time. Now that ive typed this out im exhausted. Going for a coffee.
More soon if i can think of anymore.
