Confrontation with my Father

[ThomasDoubts]

 

Apologies, this ended up being pretty lengthy.

 

Ok, so a little background first would be helpful I think. About three weeks ago, I was in a minor car accident on a back country road I was unfamiliar with. I attempted to avoid a deer while negotiating a turn and ended up in a little ditch. I caused probably $1000-1500 damage to my car, and decided to junk to car, since it was a 15 year old POS anyways. I figured it was a good opportunity to upgrade my vehicle, and it wasn't worth sticking money in the old one. Nobody was injured and I told my dad about it the next day. He reacted in an understanding way, as if it was no big deal, glad you're ok, if theres anything I can do to help, etc.

 

Flash forward to this past friday night. As a passenger in a car with my friend and his brother (who was driving) I was in a second car accident. This one was quite different. My friends brother drives a kinda nice Firebird. Basically, imagine the stereotypical testosterone fueled joy ride, and you'll get the idea. Anyhow, we lost traction negotiating a turn, ended up sideways in a farmers field, the car began to roll, I was ejected (not wearing a seatbelt), and rolled to a stop in such a way that I looked up in time to see the car continue to roll a half dozen times or more coming to a rest upside down. Both my friend and brother were wearing seatbelts and were not immediately responsive when I ran up to check on them. I got 911 on the line as soon as possible and did everything I could possibly do to help them. My friend ended up being airlifted to shock trauma, and his brother driven to a nearby hospital. His brother was released the following morning with 30 staples in his head and 100+ stitches. My friend is still in a medically induced coma, with plenty of injuries, but nothing life threatening. I had what I suspect is a broken finger, and a couple minor bumps and bruises.

 

Having no serious injuries, I had a police officer drive me to my mother's house because I lost my phone in the accident and they wouldn't let me access the vehicle. I obviously told her about it, and we began trying to call around and figure out where everyone was at, and make sure they were ok. Over the course of the next few days, my friend's well-being has been my primary concern. His parents advised me against trying to visit the hospital, since he's not conscious, and instead asked that I check in on his brother from time to time, and make sure he's taken care of (they've been staying at the hospital). I happily obliged, and have been doing so, while trying to talk some sense into him. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference though; he almost killed his brother, and thats done more to change his thinking than I could ever do. He feels terrible and rightfully so, I think the lesson has been learned.

 

My problem begins with the fact that in these past three days, I did not notify my father about the accident. I suspect the main reason I didn't tell him about it, was I knew he'd react unreasonably, hipocritically, and in a manner that would make me uncomfortable. So he shows up at my mother's house about an hour ago and confronts me. Apparently, my cousin somehow found out about my friend and notified every family member in the area looking for me, thinking it was somewhat likely I would have been with him. To make a long story short (or not so short) my fathers side of the family has been all worried about me for several days, unknown to me. I did lose my phone in the accident so communication has been difficult, and I've basically been focusing exclusively on my friend and his brother.

 

As for the confrontation with my father: It was immediately hostile. “What the fuck are you doing!? You can't fucking call anybody!? Nobody can fucking get a hold of you!” etc. I explained to him that I was in an accident and suffered no real injuries, and that the other two were in pretty bad shape. I explained to him that my primary concern has been making sure they were ok, and doing what I could for their family. I explained to him that I have been unable to access the car to retrieve my phone, or wallet, and have been more or less stranded until I can do so (not having a vehicle, as it was wrecked a few weeks ago, and not yet replaced). I explained to him that I didn't think he, or anyone else really knew about it, or had any reason to worry. His response was “what the fuck does that matter!?” He accused me of trying to keep secrets from him, as if everything would be much better if he simply knew every detail about my entire life, and could tell me exactly what is right and wrong, and praise or scold me accordingly. When I told him I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he said “I'm glad you care enough about me, and enough about yourself to not be wearing a seatbelt!” He particularly didn't like that I pointed out I'd most likely be dead right now if I had been wearing a seatbelt (I was in the back seat, which was crushed into non-existence). I was very fortunate to not be wearing it, not that I would generally advise it. Of course, he rightly explained I should never have been in the situation to begin with. At some point the conversation degraded into personal attacks on my underemployment, which has persisted far too long. Personal attacks on the company I keep. Attacking me for not fulfilling my obligations/responsibilities to my parents/family also occurred. I have demonstrated in the past, that obligations to family are/can be retarded, but he only accepts that in extraordinary circumstances. “I never raped you, or beat you!” Well yes, but you did do some othe stupid shit, and relevant to the situation at hand, you did drive drunk with me and my brother in the car for the duration of our childhood. You were arrested for DUI on three occasions with my brother and I in the car as children. “I never fucking killed anyone, or got in any accidents!” Yes, well that's very fortunate. I've not been as fortunate. Projecting, he explained, “If you just get a real job, and a girlfriend, you'll be happy. I don't understand why you aren't taking up these job offers I've helped line up for you. I don't understand why you won't just go find a girl to make you happy.” I explained to him that a shitty gov't job and a marriage to the wrong woman will not make me happy. I don't recall a coherant response. As an aside, actually, I said shitty job, not shitty gov't job. My father recently retired from a gov't job he held his entire adult life, and has explained how irrational my anger towards gov't is. After all, they're the ones that “stop people from raping, killing, drug using, and being degradations to society/black (those two are basically synonomous unless you're Ben Carson, Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice).”

 

I felt under attack for the entire conversation. Perhaps it would have been better if I told him about the accident immediately afterwards, but I was in no danger and would have prefered a face to face conversation. In my mind, it just didn't seem like a pressing matter to notify him. He obviously disagreed. I started writing this mostly as a therapeudic exercise. I just felt angry at him, like who the fuck are you to tell me how to live my life. Who the fuck are you to attack the company I keep.  Who the fuck are you to tell me what a "good job" or "good woman" is.  In 50+ years, the only answers you came up with are pray really hard, have a woman committed to you, and swear your highest allegience (besides god) to your family as long as they don't rape or beat you. I don't recall what exactly preceded it, but the conversation ended with him turning around and walking to his car saying passive agressively, “Have a nice day.”

 

I'm not sure I really have a question, maybe how should I feel or react to this? As I said, this began as something therapeudic for me, but I may as well post it. Hopefully I haven't overburdened it with detail, but I just typed what my fingers told me to type. If you've made it this far, any thoughts or questions would be welcome.

[Zava]

Wow, that is an intense experience and a nice, riveting description too!

 

A few questions come to my mind. You can answer all, some or none. :-) I'm curious to know though. 

 

1. Thank goodness you didn't wear a seatbelt but what made you decide not to wear one, even as you saw the situation escalating?

 

2. Do you feel that this horrible yet intense experience has helped you evaluate why you were in the car in the first place with the stereotypical testosterone-fueled guy indulging in dangerous, superficial thrill? I think my whole world would have been turned upside-down. I would be kissing the ground, lol.

 

3. Do you feel like you state of shock? You write about the accident very casually, distantly in my humble opinion even though it happened just last Friday. Also, I mean my goodness, your _friend_is still in a medical coma. Did your father ask how you were holding up considering this?

 

3. Why did/do you continue trying to get through to your father about your political views? It must have taken many attempts for him to amass enough intimate information about you and your feelings about government to turn them against you like weapons. Unless he simply shuts you down, without giving you any chance at all to elaborate your thoughts, did he?

 

4. Why do you believe your father doesn't know what a "good job" is (because he works for government?) or "good woman" (did he divorce or have many toxic relationships?)?

 

4. Have you read The Logic of Love book? Have you tried applying the skills in that book with your father or anyone else in your life?

 

Lastly, I want to say DAMN that is harsh treatment from your father. If you were my son and I heard this unique, momentous, scary news, I would have first hugged you and said, "thank god you're OK!" and then I would have been terribly confused/sad as to why you did not feel comfortable coming to me for emotional support or just sharing a very important piece of information about your life (it sounds very important to me!) even on the phone. 

Oh and that part about your father being arrested for DUI on three occasions with your brother and you in the car as children is bizarre. I'm glad you feel comfortable calling him out on that, that you can speak your mind about that. I'm going to guess that you can do that now that you're older but it probably was impossible to speak of that when you were a child when parental abuse is more severe for obvious reasons. 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Wanted to say first off: glad to hear that you survived the wreck and even though your friend is in pretty bad condition, I'm also glad he's not dead.

 

It looks like you guys are playing a chess game. He's just knocking pieces off the board acting like he's winning, and you are trying to play by the rules. You've been staying rational and he's completely emotional, spending some effort to pretend like he's being rational in order to fool you into staying rational.

 

This was a common situation with my mom for many years (luckily not with carwrecks), and I eventually figured out how to give her three options when something like this starts:

• Speak rationally with me.
• Shut the fuck up.
• Prepare to have emotional garbage dished right back out at you.

Then probably most importantly, after having an altercation with her from showing these options, I make sure to make the response equal or even BIGGER if she does it again. If I didn't, she would just revert back to the way the situation was. When I began to do this, she pissed and moaned, cried, and threw fits in the process, but now she is extremely wary of starting shit with me -- there must be weaker prey somewhere else in the woods.

 

It looks like your father has no interest in being rational so I wouldn't bother wasting your energy trying to be rational with him. If he decided to be rational in the future, then great, you could talk to him then. But until that time, based off my own experience of what looks like a similar situation, I would recommend putting your energy into what you think are more productive things.

 

Good luck!

-Dylan

[NeoEclectic]

The first thing that popped into my mind is that you're selfish. Granted that your post is about you but all I kept hearing was "me, me, me, I, I, me, me, fuck you if you don't agree with my point of view".

 

It sounds like you've had a pretty rocky relationship with your father growing up. But if you guys are still in contact and he's offering to help you buy a car leads me to believe that there is some positive facets to your relationship.

 

If I were your father I'd probably be wondering why is it that everyone else knew except me? If you didn't feel compelled to contact your father immediately after the accident that tells me that you're not as close to your father as your father wants you to be. You said you "obviously" told your mother of what happened but why wasn't it equally obvious to tell your father?

 

To an older person, saying you didn't have the chance to pick up a phone (any phone) to call them sounds like an excuse and quite honestly is nothing more than an excuse. It doesn't take much effort to find another phone or use a family member's phone. I mean you were at your mother's house the same night. It could also be an indicator of being ambitionless considering your comments about being unemployed and disinterest in being employed.

 

If someone is offering to help with buying a car it would only be respectful to keep them in the loop if you're going to accept that help... at least I think so.

 

Older people have this tendency of wanting to mentor younger people which is natural. The way they see it is because they've already made the mistake that we're currently making. Too bad in the US we don't respect our elders very much. It's a phenomenon that seems to be uniquely prevalent in the US.

 

Him getting angry with you could be indicative of a lot of things: he feels hurt because now he knows he doesn't have a tight relationship with you because he was the last to know; he feels guilty about how he conducted himself in younger years and wants desperately for you not to repeat his mistakes; you basically told him to F off which probably hurt his feelings even more. Not to mention he's probably just genuinely concerned.

 

Yeah, parents have a responsibility to their children when they are young. But grown ups have feelings too.

[JSDev]

As a father of a teenage driver myself, a part of me empathizes with your father. I'm not sure what my reaction would be though. I know I'd be hurt thinking about the fact that you didn't think to call. But I wouldn't blame that on you. It'd make me realize that we have some work to do.

[ThomasDoubts]

Wow, that is an intense experience and a nice, riveting description too!

 

A few questions come to my mind. You can answer all, some or none. :-) I'm curious to know though. 

 

1. Thank goodness you didn't wear a seatbelt but what made you decide not to wear one, even as you saw the situation escalating?

 

Thanks for the reply.  I had a car for a while with a broken seatbelt.  It was always on the back burner for me, as far as things to fix or get around to.  I took extra caution when driving, but I think a couple months of that may have contributed to me normalizing it.  In general, it's probably partly because I never established a habit of always wearing one.  In general (this incident as an exception) I'll wear it at night, when it's raining, on long trips, etc...   If I'm just puttin around town in the middle of the afternoon, often times I don't.

 

2. Do you feel that this horrible yet intense experience has helped you evaluate why you were in the car in the first place with the stereotypical testosterone-fueled guy indulging in dangerous, superficial thrill? I think my whole world would have been turned upside-down. I would be kissing the ground, lol.

 

Absolutely, but I'd be guilty of being such a person from time to time as well.  We all know better, but all parties were humbled a bit.  I'd like to think it wouldn't have to go so far to learn a lesson.  I'm sure this sounds stupid, but the guy driving is almost always a grandmother of a driver, and this incident was very much out of character.  I knew we were approaching the turn at a high enough rate of speed.  I kept wondering in my head, when is he gonna just give the brakes a tap to be certain we make the turn.  The point of no return came and passed before I verbalized anything.  I consider myself immensely fortunate. 

 

3. Do you feel like you state of shock? You write about the accident very casually, distantly in my humble opinion even though it happened just last Friday. Also, I mean my goodness, your _friend_is still in a medical coma. Did your father ask how you were holding up considering this?

 

He inserted a little "I'm glad you're ok and all, but..."   That was the extent of his concern, but in fairness, there is no reason to be concerned for my physical wellbeing.  Concerning my distantness, that thought occured to me after reading my post.  The only explanation I can offer is that my concerns for my friend's life are no longer there.  That was an immense burden lifted from my mind.  At this point, it's simply a matter of healing up, and learning from it.  He has since been revived, or whatever you call it, and I spoke to him.  I didn't get much outta him thought, he was high as a kite.  His father assured me, a month or so from now he shouldn't be much worse for the wear.

 

3. Why did/do you continue trying to get through to your father about your political views? It must have taken many attempts for him to amass enough intimate information about you and your feelings about government to turn them against you like weapons. Unless he simply shuts you down, without giving you any chance at all to elaborate your thoughts, did he?

 

Well the discussion today never got into politics in general.  If it's a "neo-con" type beef with the government, it's all good.  If it's gay rights, or the drug war, his position is set in stone.  I've made good arguments, and he'll never accept them, and that's ok.  It wasn't until I was in my early 20's but he eventually came to grips with the fact that I don't believe everything he does.  I can tell it really bothers him, and he'd say I'd be happier if I simply adopted his beliefs, but it is what it is.  Other than a retarded jab here or there, we avoid talking about topics we disagree on, unless we're feeling particularly argumentitive, for entirely distant reasons.  Once his arguments became retarded, I just gave up trying.  Agree to disagree, I'd say. 

 

4. Why do you believe your father doesn't know what a "good job" is (because he works for government?) or "good woman" (did he divorce or have many toxic relationships?)?

 

He's been divorced once, from my mother.  Both my mother, and step-mother are generally kind and caring people, but I'd never marry either one of them.  I wouldn't consider my father very intelligent, and he seems to pick women that are obedient, non threatening to his psyche, perhaps less intelligent.  His relationship with my mother was toxic.  As far as jobs; he's always lectured me about my career paths, or lack there-of.  He got his first stable job at 27 with the government, and did it till he retired.  I told him once, a government employee is someone that gets paid with money stolen from other people.  He didn't argue the point, but he certainly didn't engage on it.  The explanation is always that he had responsibilities as the head of household, and the government offered much better healthcare/benefits/stability, etc.  He's always recommending job opportunities to me, which I have gripes with.  "Go get a job selling reverse mortgages to elderly people for BoA. "  No thanks.  He interprets that as laziness, and when I try to explain my gripe, I feel like I'm speaking Mandarin to him. 

 

 

4. Have you read The Logic of Love book? Have you tried applying the skills in that book with your father or anyone else in your life?

 

Lastly, I want to say DAMN that is harsh treatment from your father. If you were my son and I heard this unique, momentous, scary news, I would have first hugged you and said, "thank god you're OK!" and then I would have been terribly confused/sad as to why you did not feel comfortable coming to me for emotional support or just sharing a very important piece of information about your life (it sounds very important to me!) even on the phone. 

Oh and that part about your father being arrested for DUI on three occasions with your brother and you in the car as children is bizarre. I'm glad you feel comfortable calling him out on that, that you can speak your mind about that. I'm going to guess that you can do that now that you're older but it probably was impossible to speak of that when you were a child when parental abuse is more severe for obvious reasons. 

 

I've not that read that book, I'll look into it.  Yeah, I think more than anything he was just frustrated that he couldn't get in touch.  For me, it was like I've processed it with other people and kinda come to grips with it pretty quickly.  Maybe it's the distanceness you mentioned, but it just didn't occur to me to reach out to him about it.  I figured I'd tell him about it when the opportunity presented itself. 

 

Well actually, I did call him out on it as a child.  If that story isn't evidence enough, my father was a severe alcholic for most of my childhood.  I could talk for days about all the issues with that but I won't for now.  Suffice it to say, I've known a lot of alcholics personally, and he was head and shoulders above the rest.  He quit drinking when I was in the 7th grade.  For me, when he quit drinking, it was kind of a redeeming thing to do.  He struggled with it for years, and everyone did everything they could to help.  I found out much later, he had skeletons in the closet that he clung to for dear life.  Airing out the closet was, I believe, critical to him giving up the alcohol.  As a child, I think I thought he did it more for me/my brother than he did it for himself, but it was so bad it didn't matter.  It was like, just fucking do it, I don't care why.  That's when we began to have a bit of a relationship, other than being in proximity. 

Wanted to say first off: glad to hear that you survived the wreck and even though your friend is in pretty bad condition, I'm also glad he's not dead.

 

It looks like you guys are playing a chess game. He's just knocking pieces off the board acting like he's winning, and you are trying to play by the rules. You've been staying rational and he's completely emotional, spending some effort to pretend like he's being rational in order to fool you into staying rational.

 

This was a common situation with my mom for many years (luckily not with carwrecks), and I eventually figured out how to give her three options when something like this starts:

• Speak rationally with me.
• Shut the fuck up.
• Prepare to have emotional garbage dished right back out at you.

Then probably most importantly, after having an altercation with her from showing these options, I make sure to make the response equal or even BIGGER if she does it again. If I didn't, she would just revert back to the way the situation was. When I began to do this, she pissed and moaned, cried, and threw fits in the process, but now she is extremely wary of starting shit with me -- there must be weaker prey somewhere else in the woods.

 

It looks like your father has no interest in being rational so I wouldn't bother wasting your energy trying to be rational with him. If he decided to be rational in the future, then great, you could talk to him then. But until that time, based off my own experience of what looks like a similar situation, I would recommend putting your energy into what you think are more productive things.

 

Good luck!

-Dylan

 

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I laughed out loud at your 3 options.  This is precisely how I feel.  I'm not even sure he's capable of rational discourse.  I'm not even sure he knows what it is.  I think he makes concerted efforts but it's a bit like watching Charles Barkley play golf.  I try to avoid getting into option 3, but occasionally my emotions take over, which wasn't the case today.  I've never really had anything productive come out of option 3, except he'll always attempt to make restitution.  Most of the time it just gets my blood pumping, gets me stressed out, gets me angry, and then I'm right back where I started.  It does feel good to let it out though from time to time.

The first thing that popped into my mind is that you're selfish. Granted that your post is about you but all I kept hearing was "me, me, me, I, I, me, me, fuck you if you don't agree with my point of view".

 

It sounds like you've had a pretty rocky relationship with your father growing up. But if you guys are still in contact and he's offering to help you buy a car leads me to believe that there is some positive facets to your relationship.

 

If I were your father I'd probably be wondering why is it that everyone else knew except me? If you didn't feel compelled to contact your father immediately after the accident that tells me that you're not as close to your father as your father wants you to be. You said you "obviously" told your mother of what happened but why wasn't it equally obvious to tell your father?

 

To an older person, saying you didn't have the chance to pick up a phone (any phone) to call them sounds like an excuse and quite honestly is nothing more than an excuse. It doesn't take much effort to find another phone or use a family member's phone. I mean you were at your mother's house the same night. It could also be an indicator of being ambitionless considering your comments about being unemployed and disinterest in being employed.

 

If someone is offering to help with buying a car it would only be respectful to keep them in the loop if you're going to accept that help... at least I think so.

 

Older people have this tendency of wanting to mentor younger people which is natural. The way they see it is because they've already made the mistake that we're currently making. Too bad in the US we don't respect our elders very much. It's a phenomenon that seems to be uniquely prevalent in the US.

 

Him getting angry with you could be indicative of a lot of things: he feels hurt because now he knows he doesn't have a tight relationship with you because he was the last to know; he feels guilty about how he conducted himself in younger years and wants desperately for you not to repeat his mistakes; you basically told him to F off which probably hurt his feelings even more. Not to mention he's probably just genuinely concerned.

 

Yeah, parents have a responsibility to their children when they are young. But grown ups have feelings too.

 

 

We have a few issues here.  He wasn't offering to help buy me a car.  I think he just meant, if you need to borrow my car for a couple days, if you need a ride to the bank, that sorta thing.  I said I obviously told my mother because I was in the same house; kinda unavoidable...  Had the situation been reversed, he'd have been the first to know, and she might have been out of the loop for a few days.  The only reason I was at her house was because it was 25 minutes closer to the scene of the accident.  He wasn't the only one that didn't know; to my knowledge my mother and my friend's family were the only ones that did know.  I found out after the fact that my cousin found out about my friend and notified the world.  This idea of "mentoring" accurately describes my father.  The problem is, his mentoring involves praying to skygods, working for the government, and doing as he says, not as he does.  I take it with a grain of salt.  He has good advice from time to time, but you have to sort out a lot of bullshit to get to it.  His heart is in the right place, but that doesn't mean I should follow every bit of advice.  You remind me to bring up another important fact; my younger brother has been estranged from my father for 3-4 years, and I see the heartache he feels every day because of this.  He's made every effort he can think of, but in my brother's mind, forgiveness or restitution is impossible.  I won't get into all of those complications, but I try to tread carefully on my father's heart because he's lost one son, and surely doesn't want to lose another.  I think you're right to point out that he'd prefer a closer relationship, in fact an unhealthy need to have my love for him confirmed.  He told me, "we're all worried your mother's influence or lack thereof is causing you to get in these situations," implying, if I was simply under his watchful wing, he could influence me correctly.  I apologize, but at 25, I don't think I need influencing.  I'm capable of making my own determinations, and living with them.

 

Thanks for the reply though, hope I cleared up some of the confusions.

[NeoEclectic]

 

We have a few issues here.  He wasn't offering to help buy me a car.  I think he just meant, if you need to borrow my car for a couple days, if you need a ride to the bank, that sorta thing.  I said I obviously told my mother because I was in the same house; kinda unavoidable...  Had the situation been reversed, he'd have been the first to know, and she might have been out of the loop for a few days.  The only reason I was at her house was because it was 25 minutes closer to the scene of the accident.  He wasn't the only one that didn't know; to my knowledge my mother and my friend's family were the only ones that did know.  I found out after the fact that my cousin found out about my friend and notified the world.  This idea of "mentoring" accurately describes my father.  The problem is, his mentoring involves praying to skygods, working for the government, and doing as he says, not as he does.  I take it with a grain of salt.  He has good advice from time to time, but you have to sort out a lot of bullshit to get to it.  His heart is in the right place, but that doesn't mean I should follow every bit of advice.  You remind me to bring up another important fact; my younger brother has been estranged from my father for 3-4 years, and I see the heartache he feels every day because of this.  He's made every effort he can think of, but in my brother's mind, forgiveness or restitution is impossible.  I won't get into all of those complications, but I try to tread carefully on my father's heart because he's lost one son, and surely doesn't want to lose another.  I think you're right to point out that he'd prefer a closer relationship, in fact an unhealthy need to have my love for him confirmed.  He told me, "we're all worried your mother's influence or lack thereof is causing you to get in these situations," implying, if I was simply under his watchful wing, he could influence me correctly.  I apologize, but at 25, I don't think I need influencing.  I'm capable of making my own determinations, and living with them.

 

Thanks for the reply though, hope I cleared up some of the confusions.

 

Yeah, I was ad libbing because those details were left off and understandably because your post was long and I know you wanted to keep it short.

 

All of this commentary is moot if you don't desire to improve your relationship with your father. I certainly cannot blame you there because I'm in a similar position regarding my parents. In my case I just wrote them out of my life completely.

 

It just seemed like that you're not prepared for that drastic of a step because you're maintaining some kind of a relationship with your father.

 

Stefan brought up something in one of his podcasts. In summary communication is a two way street and to keep persisting with trying to open that line of communication with your parent if that's your desire. Keep going back time, after time, after time until you reached the point of being exhausted and feel as though there is no other recourse.

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I laughed out loud at your 3 options.  This is precisely how I feel.  I'm not even sure he's capable of rational discourse.  I'm not even sure he knows what it is.  I think he makes concerted efforts but it's a bit like watching Charles Barkley play golf.  I try to avoid getting into option 3, but occasionally my emotions take over, which wasn't the case today.  I've never really had anything productive come out of option 3, except he'll always attempt to make restitution.  Most of the time it just gets my blood pumping, gets me stressed out, gets me angry, and then I'm right back where I started.  It does feel good to let it out though from time to time.

 

I know what you mean about dealing with someone who isn't even capable of rational discourse. Option 1 is kind of some vague fantasy in the far-off worlds of my mind, but I always leave it there just in case the person decides to come to the light side.

 

I don't want to try to tell you how to deal with your dad, so I'll just let you know how I dealt with my mom and how I broke it down in my mind. Basically, if we look at 3 different ways to deal with it, an argument or a conflict has be concluded physically (duke it out), emotionally (shout it out), or rationally (intelligent discourse). Luckily physically doesn't seem to be in the situation here, so I'll leave that out.

 

When someone comes after you emotionally, they're breaking the situation down pretty much to one dimension: someone has to dominate and the other has to submit. You do as I say because I said so. When on the rational level, win-win negotiation is possible. For whatever reasons, outright shouting someone out and dominating them appears to have become uncouth, so a trick is for a person to give airs of being rational ("you should do this because it makes sense") while in reality they are being emotional ("you do as I say because I said so"). A key to recognizing this is if the person gets irritated when certain topics or questions come up or even outright ignores them.

 

Once I figured this out, I realized that when someone attempts to control me via emotional dominate/submit methods (whether they're pretending to be rational or not), this someone is attempting to modify my behavior by threats or throwing tantrums. In either case, I accept this as aggressive and violent (from violate) action toward myself and I defend myself accordingly. Specifically in the case of someone pretending to be rational, once I can identify that the person is pretending, I immediate drop all pretexts of rationality and let them know I understand that there is a fight (verbal/emotional fight) going on and that I intend on fighting back if they choose to push the issue.

 

Since I began doing this, most notably with my mother but I've had a few other encounters, the person trying to bully me drops that shit like it's hot as soon as I let them know a.) I recognize what they're doing and b.) I mean business. They'll usually tell me that I'm overreacting, taking things too personally, accusing them of something they're not doing, or something equally creative, but in every case they stop. If they had the gonads to challenge me openly in the first place, they would have done it and not hid behind a facade of being rational. Even if I were to lose one of these "stare-downs", I still don't think they would bother me again; predators look for weak and sick prey because, hey, the strong prey is just too much work.

 

In the case of my mom, as I began to apply to previously mentioned recipe to her, she would periodically try to come back and test the waters with me. Like I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to respond to this with increasing intensity. If she tried to whine or complain that I was overreacting over her doing something small, I would turn up the heat even more. Why? Because an inch is as good as a mile. Any time I let anyone in my space, regardless of how small of space it is, I've set the precedent that taking my space is okay. Taking my space is not okay, regardless of amount. I love rational discourse and am willing to talk with someone all day about whatever problems they might have with me, but when it comes to taking my space I have zero patience--all rational discourse is dropped until the perpetrator gets out of my space. I especially don't let anyone get me with the "you're reacting so much to such a little thing" act, because that's the act they're going to try to get me with.

 

Anyway, that came out longer than I was expecting. Like I said before, it sounds like you're father isn't going to be able to choose option 1, so all I can recommend is option 3 until he figures out option 2.

 

-Dylan

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Also, a source that just popped into my head that was really one of the sources that helped me sort this sort of thing out. It's seven hours long, but if you can put up with it it's totally worth it:

 

Video on Youtube:

Mark Passio: New Age Bullshit and the Suppression of the Sacred Masculine

 

Audio version on Peace Revolution Podcast:

Peace Revolution Podcast 074: Intellectual Self-Defense and How to Validate Knowledge

 

-Dylan

[ThomasDoubts]

     Hey, thanks a lot Dylan, I'm gonna check all that out tonight.  Your responses have been helpful.  It's quite simple, but your three step process makes a ton of sense to me.  I think a lot of my frustration comes when he's at option 3 and I'm still at option 1. When I've had enough, I drop down to Shut the fuck up, and he "wins".  Only when I really lose my cool, do I match him at option 3.  I think just simply laying out the parameters of the discourse could be very helpful.  "Hey dad, I'm just gonna mirror whichever of the three you select."  He might shit a brick

[Zava]

Just wanted to say, Dylan’s advice is great.. Really boils it down to the essence of the matter!  I'm going to listen to the link too. It's something I've been thinking about recently.

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

     Hey, thanks a lot Dylan, I'm gonna check all that out tonight.  Your responses have been helpful.  It's quite simple, but your three step process makes a ton of sense to me.  I think a lot of my frustration comes when he's at option 3 and I'm still at option 1. When I've had enough, I drop down to Shut the fuck up, and he "wins".  Only when I really lose my cool, do I match him at option 3.  I think just simply laying out the parameters of the discourse could be very helpful.  "Hey dad, I'm just gonna mirror whichever of the three you select."  He might shit a brick

 

Glad I can help.

 

I just want to add in here that I usually don't list the options to the person I'm dealing with--I just do it. I also don't use the word "rational" at any point, as this tends to open up another can of worms. The least-rational people tend to have the biggest opinions about what being rational means. On top of it, if you find yourself in an altercation as you've described, the person you're dealing with probably has never even thought about the subject and isn't even aware that he "isn't being rational". Basically, I just bare my teeth until the opposing party quits baring theirs.

 

A quick example from me: I've studied a lot about the effects of fluoride and feel quite strongly about its use in public water supplies and on children in schools and dentist offices. Awhile ago I made myself a T-shirt that says FLUORIDE KILLS on the front of it to get people to talk to me about the subject. I wore this shirt to a week-long Systema seminar in Augsburg, Germany, and one day in between training a bunch of us from the seminar were at dinner and a bunch of new people were showing up. A Ukrainian guy who spoke English fluently and was my age sat down next to me and asked me about my shirt while I was eating.

 

Naturally excited to let people know what I've learned (I majored in chemistry on top of it), I first asked him how much he wanted to know (I can do five minutes or an hour if you let me). His reply was, "Just tell me. Just tell me." So I began to talk about it and he began to interrupt me in the middle of my sentences with brain-tantalizing retorts like, "No, that's not true. You can't know that. Yeah I've heard that from someone else and he was an idiot. etc." I began to notice a smug smirk on his face and after four or five interrupts I realized that he wasn't in the least bit interested in what I knew about fluoride. He had come over to make fun of me. [He was pretending to have a rational discourse but in reality trying to (emotionally) humiliate me.]

 

Once this clicked, I put my fork down, looked at him directly, and said, "You need to change your tone of voice or I'm not telling you anything." [i dropped the rational pretext and switched to his emotional level.]

 

He responded by repeating the things he had been saying before ("You can't know that. That's not true. etc."). [This was a tactic to get me back into the rational where he could effortlessly dominate me.] From my personal experience and from what I've seen of other people, this is where most people get tripped up. They go back into rational and basically become a soccer ball for the bully. I kept looking at him and repeated even more sternly, "You need to change your tone of voice or I'm not telling you anything."

 

This is where the "You're taking things too personally" and "That's not what I meant" comments started coming out of him. I repeated, "You need to change your tone of voice or I'm not telling you anything." [This was the next trick. He was pretending that he was the one being rational and that I was the emotional one. Especially as this was in front of several of my friends, it was an extra sneaky gambit to make me look bad in front of them.]

 

I don't remember how many times I had to repeat my statement, but at some point his shit-eating smirk dropped off his face, he leaned forward onto the table (he had been leaning back before that. Breaking of posture is a good sign of defeat), and he began to talk to me respectfully. He came back up to rational and I was more than happy to switch back to it myself and drop the issue. If you don't give the guy a way out, he'll become a cornered animal.

 

Naturally, the conversation after that was a little bit awkward and we never got back around to the subject of fluoride, but my goal was accomplished: he dropped that shit like it was hot, and I was able to eat my dinner without my tail between my legs.

 

Hope that helps!

-Dylan

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Oh yea, one more thing I wanted to add. It's common to also get hit with pretend-moral arguments. Instead of "you should do this because it makes sense" you'll get things like "you should do this because it's the right thing to do". Or more specifically: "A son does what his father wants." or "You're disobeying God", etc. At least that sounds like the sort of thing that might come from your dad from what you've already described.

 

Just treat these like the pretend-rational arguments. It's just a trick to keep you playing chess while the other person throws rocks.

 

"If I can get you to accept a rule that applies to you and doesn't apply to me, well then I have control over you."

 

-Dylan