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Granny's Advice By Rosaleen Dickson, BA, MJ
- Dear Great Granny.
-
i am so glad to have found your e-mail address. i have a common problem,
yet know it is painful for our family. my adult children, who i think are
wonderful and kind human beings are so frustrated with their grandfather,
(my dad) that it has become a major breach in our families. i have tried
for many years, to no avail to cover and handle the emotional manipulation
that my dad had caused our entire family. over the years, i have suffered
many painful feelings and try to work through them. we all have had good
therapy to try and understand this man, but at 86 yr.., we know he is not
going to change. however, when we have any contact together now, it
becomes un bearable to have any pleasure, without totally removing him
from our presence. he is abusive to us and we are very gently and
understanding, but no one wants to go on with this behavior in our family.
we have tried to communicate kindly, firmly, assertively and even mean at
times, but nothing works. he sees himself as the papa of our family, when
in fact he never contributed emotionally, and was quite destructive over
the years. everyone has moved on and worked through many years of
intelligent understanding of this person. all have come to the conclusion,
enough is enough. i too, as their mother can not make it "right" and now
even the great-grandchildren are complaining. how we can let this man into
lives, without further disruption of our happy times. all is tense now and
they are staying away and even becoming angry at my husband and i for
subjecting them and their children to this situation.
i feel so sorry now
for him and my mom is ready to just let him have all consequences. they
are married forever and she knows, none of her tactics have ever made a
dent in his ideas. he has very little relationships that work for him
these days and it pains me to see this man, who has many good qualities go
into his aging years filled with empty times. what can we do to try and
keep our respect, even though he has turned us all away. is leaving him
alone the only answer? thank you for your response. -----------------
- Dear pained,
-
Believe it or not, I've been there too, with my father-in-law. It's not
easy to remember the good things about this man when he is abusing three
generations of your family, embarrassing everyone, and making them all
unhappy. but what else is there to do. You are absolutely right in
realizing that you can't change him. At any age it's just about impossible
to change a person, and at 86 - well - don't even try.
It would be wrong to say "just put up with it because he can't last long."
If he lives to 96, or 106, you may be in for a whole lot of abuse and the
situation might cause rifts in the rest of the family, as differences of
opinion flare up about how to deal with this one member.
Remamber through it all, that he IS a member of the family, and that
whatever characteristics he may be showing now will probably appear in
other members at a later date. Whatever way you decide is best to cope
with him now may be followed and emulated by your children in other
circumstances later. Think about that.
Perhaps the best approach would be to try to make this old man have as
happy an old age as possible. Catering to his whims will not make him
worse. I think he's as bad as he can be already. It will only cut down on
the frustration you all are suffering. Tell all your offspring that he is
old and is not well. Maybe he's always been a domineering son of a B but
at this point that isn't important. You can't set out to punish him for
pushing everyone around all his life; all you can do is survive his
senility, and accept him now for what he is.
If there are members of the family who absolutely cannot abide his
behaviour, keep them away from him. He's been storing up anger for a long
time and is going to vent it now, even if it destroys the lives of others
in the family. Getting back at him won't help one iota. All it will do is
make him worse. If he can't upset everyone in person he will probably get
on the phone and do as much damage as he can by telling other people about
the evils they have wrought, so you might see to it that his telephone is
"out of order". If he has access to email, I'd watch that too.
In other words, treat him like a child who has to be protected while
actually you are protecting everyone else from him. Don't fight with him;
don't even argue. In fact avoid any discussion at all. Just sit and listen
to him rant and rave unchallenged about how terrible everyone is.
The poor guy is obviously unbelievably unhappy and just can't figure out
any way to alleviate his misery. We can all hope and pray that no matter
how old we grow our minds never swing into that dangerous gear. To
believe, as he does, that his whole family is doing everything wrong and
he is powerless to do anything about it must be hell on earth.
While you are holding your tongue and marking time, listening to him
berate you and all your children, remember that this could be you. Be as
kind as humanly possibly and be a shining example for the ohers.
These situations are sent to try us and it's up to us to cope. After all,
there is really no alternative, is there!
Truly yours,
GG
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