Member-only story
When Your Dad is Your Stalker
All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is for my dad to be nice to me. That’s it.
He can’t do it. He’s incapable. I’ve watched him alienate people my entire life. As a child, I watched him bully his own parents, call them stupid and put them down. I watched him bully two wives out of his life and countless acquaintances. It never ceases to amaze me that he can’t see this pattern. But he will not relinquish his need for control. He needs control like he needs oxygen.
I wrote recently about how my family went a year in quarantine without seeing my dad because he has a heart condition. Once we were all vaccinated, my dad wanted us to begin getting back together again. I realized I didn’t. When I ran this idea by my husband and daughter, they supported me. They don’t want to see him either. The last time Dad invited himself over to our house he screamed at us about Critical Race Theory and other nonsense before my husband asked him to leave.
My husband and I block his number on our phones. I label my dad’s email address spam, grateful to end the stream of racist filth he likes to blast out. I didn’t bother to let him know we’re done with him, because I know the conversation will be utterly pointless. I also know cutting him off in this way will eventually lead him to our front door, when he has no other way of contacting us. I’ve seen him do this to others. When my mother divorced him, I was eight years old. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I’d stare out my bedroom window and I can still remember seeing his blue-and-white van drive past our house again and again as he circled the block.
For most of my life, I have tolerated my dad. Nothing more. The best I can hope for — from both my parents, actually — is an emotionally neutral encounter with them. Otherwise, it’s like living in a war zone — my brother and I have never been able to predict what kind of psycho might come our way. You never knew when a quiet day might explode into terrifying drama, with screaming and hitting and false accusations and doors slamming, from the time we were born.
