<p>send both. remember the mood you had when you bought it.</p>
<p>“My dad’s bday is the 22nd and I had already purchased a gift and card a few months ago. I’m trying to figure out whether I should just send the card and keep the gift or send both.”</p>
<p>Since you took the time and money to buy them, send both. Expect nothing back in return. This means not expecting that since you sent him a nice present, your dad will come to your graduation or will change his behavior toward you or even will appreciate what you’ve done. Whatever happens, you’ll be much happier if you put your time and effort into people who obviously care about you. This may be friends, your mother, etc.</p>
<p>Check out this poem. I can’t post the entire poem due to copyright, but you can Google to find the rest. It has become an anthem for people who grew up with parents like your dad."</p>
<p>"After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,</p>
<p>And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security,</p>
<p>And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises…"</p>
<p>I also suggest that you take the time to talk to a counselor on campus. Your situation is not unusual among college students, and more than likely the counselor can help you learn to cope with your father’s behavior. After you leave college, it will be more difficult to find a counselor who’s as familiar with your kind of situation, and whom you can afford – both in terms of time and money – so take advantage of the counseling center now.</p>
<p>Wolfman - You have the admiration of a number of us who are strangers here on CC, so generating admiration is not what you’re needing. You’re needing a sense of approval from one particular person who’s opinion probably counts more than most anyone else’s. Ultimately, your father will determine what form that takes. But here are a couple of thoughts.</p>
<p>This could all be terribly threatening to him. Had you graduated from the local public college, he’s probably be glad to show up and celebrate. He may not know whether he’d be well-received at Brown, and in fact, may not know how to respond to a son who’s now in his comfort zone at Brown.</p>
<p>The fact that someone the age of your father is willing to post his pride on Facebook says a lot. Most people over 30 feel as uncomfortable on Facebook as your father may perceive he’d feel on an Ivy League campus. And they tend to be leery of putting personal matters out there on a public forum that many others can see. If your father is willing to proclaim his pride in you on Facebook, then I’d believe it’s sincere, regardless of the limitations he has in expressing it.</p>
<p>This loss is your father’s, not yours. He is the one who will regret it. </p>
<p>It absolutely stinks that your Dad is an alcoholic and that he refuses to come to your graduation. But don’t let that ruin this day for you. Invite people who love you and who have been supportive. Perhaps take a little bit of that energy you’ve been pouring into finding a way for your Dad to come, and find a way for your other loved ones to come (cheap plane fares and hotels, etc). </p>
<p>Be glad that your brother is coming, and be sure HE knows you are happy he is there. Please do NOT spend the whole day grousing that your Dad didn’t come.</p>
<p>Here is one of the hardest lessons in life, and you may as well learn it now:
YOU CANNOT CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE. YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL YOUR REACTION TO THEM.</p>
<p>Again, do not let this ruin graduation for you. You have wonderful accomplishments and you should be proud. You’ve invited Dad, and he has declined to come. Focus your attention on those who ARE coming, and on yourself. </p>
<p>Lock your disappointment with your dad away in a little drawer, and deal with it later. Sad to say, it may take therapy to help you overcome your very understandable disappointment with your father. His failings are NOT yours, they are HIS. I echo the recommendation that after graduation you find a group for Adult Children of Alcoholics. You’ll find that you are not alone.</p>
<p>Congratulations on a great accomplishment. Keep up your work ethic and keep a positive attitude and you will go far in life!</p>
<p>Or perhaps, from the cynic’s corner, your dad can’t be happy for you because people that are unhappy with themselves are often filled with envy. I’m guessing you’re being swamped with advice about all this because I tried to send you a private message but your inbox is full. </p>
<p>I think you’re entitled to the occasional snarky comment, though I also think you have to figure it might not be worth it because of the aftermath. I will say that it is very typical behavior of lousy parents to make you feel like hitler for having the nerve to voice the slightest negative emotion. It’s a great way to shut you up. You make a small facebook faux pas. Your dad overreacts dramatically. You learn to not make waves. You learn not to complain. You learn not to bother him. And yet, where is his concern for you? The focus is again on him. </p>
<p>Feel free to e-mail or pm me.</p>
<p>You’re on the right track, and you’re going to be great.</p>
<p>I would seriously suggest trying to focus your attention on figuring out a wa for your mother to attend…perhaps your grandfather would be willing to buy her an airline ticket.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m saying this with kindness and I hope it comes across that way.</p>
<p>My mother disowned me less than two months before my husband left for Iraq. It was a long time coming but she waited until I was at my most fragile. For years I felt as you did. And in that anger and learned unhealthy relationship communications, I self-sabatoge myself time and again in that relationship just as the OP wanted his father to attend yet took an action that guarenteed that his father would not attend. </p>
<p>The only thing we have the power to do is to not engage in old patterns or escalate existing difficult patterns. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it can make a huge difference. I finally understand that people didn’t want me to take the high road because they thought my mother deserved it, they wanted me to take it because they thought I deserved it. I deserved to not stay angry. I deserved to take back my power and make the relationship as healthy as I could. </p>
<p>Most of all, I deserved the pride that comes with staying above the fray. There is just no way for a healthy adult to feel good about taking digs at their parents, no matter how richly the parent might deserve it. That’s just not how adults communicate with each other. </p>
<p>I don’t care about the OPs father at all. Frankly, I suspect he’d be better off without his father in his life. However, if he does want some kind of relationship with his father, then he needs to learn how to do it in a healthy and productive way. We all do.</p>
<p>Therapy, books or groups (like Adult Children of Alcoholics) are excellent resources.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why did you want this man to come to your graduation?</p>
<p>wolfmanjack,</p>
<p>Congrats from a fellow Brunonian! :)</p>
<p>I say focus on your sister, and fully enjoy the day. Brown puts on a great graduation, melding the reunions, the campus dance, and graduation into one giant party. Drink it all in and have a marvelous time. You have earned it. It’s wonderful your sister will be there to cheer for you. </p>
<p>HAVE FUN!</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everyone. Some of it has been a little off and some on. It’s nearly impossible to give a spot-on perspective unless you’re actually inside the relationship and know the people first-hand. Someone suggested that I’m seeking approval. That is not the case. I know my dad is proud of me but also I know he uses that to make himself feel better about himself. What I am seeking is for him to stand up perform like an interested and invested parent instead of a guy who is stuck in a rut and not capable of meaningful relationships with people. I wish he would confront his own problems. That’s all. In the past 5-10 years he’s been much much better and our relationship has been great, I guess we hadn’t had the chance to test his commitment. </p>
<p>Helenback my inbox is full because I help people on the Brown forums and get way too many pm’s from people wanting me to do things for them that involves getting them into Brown which gets very old especially when you rarely get a thank you from these kids.</p>
<p>" What I am seeking is for him to stand up perform like an interested and invested parent instead of a guy who is stuck in a rut and not capable of meaningful relationships with people. I wish he would confront his own problems. That’s all. In the past 5-10 years he’s been much much better and our relationship has been great, I guess we hadn’t had the chance to test his commitment. "</p>
<p>Having had a father who was similarly disengaged, I empathize with you. It would be wonderful if your dad would confront his own problems and have meaningful relationships with people. Still, you have no control over that and will continue to be frustrated if you keep trying to change your dad.</p>
<p>What you do have control over is whom you choose to have meaningful relationships with. So, if your mother is supportive and wants to be at your graduation, your efforts are likely to be rewarded if you put time into helping her come to your graduation. Appreciating and enjoying the friends and loved ones who’ve been supporting you also is something that is likely to enrich your life instead of making you feel angry and hurt like your efforts to get your father to graduation have left you feeling.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. It can be so difficult to disengage from a pattern of trying to get your parent(s) to meet your emotional needs.</p>
<p>I have a very dear friend (we’re now both 47 and have been friends since age 15) who is a stellar person in all respects, and who STILL makes vain attempts to get her horribly disengaged parents to click into gear, appreciate her, love her. It is so sad. I have been watching this for 30 years. She an exceptional person and they are idiots. She is perpetually dissed (sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly) and perpetually hurt and yet she still cares deeply. I wish i could wave a wand and free her from caring what they do/say/don’t do but she takes all of it to heart because she has a great deal more humanity than either of them do.</p>
<p>You have now received so much great advice, you need to let it go, you will not be happy until you can. He is not coming. That is okay. Do not let it diminish your day or your own pride in yourself. He is not the dad you wish you had. Send him the present and the card. Call him on his BDay if you feel like it, but do not expect him to call you and thank you for the gift. Find another role model when it comes to finding a role model for being a husband/boyfriend/partner, and for being a great father. You can still love your dad, and perhaps even moreso, if you realize his limitations and realize you do not have to follow in his footsteps. Liberate yourself from the need for his approval. The letting go does not come easily, but with effort.</p>
<p>Jack, don’t be misled by this question - is your father foreign-borned ? I know of no one in America thinks like that.</p>
<p>Brown apparently has a small fund for situations like this. My mom is now coming!</p>
<p>and no my dad is very American.</p>
<p>Yay! Your mom is coming!! I’m so happy to hear that.</p>
<p>GREAT NEWS!</p>
<p>How wonderful for your mom-- and you!</p>
<p>Thanks so much for letting us know your mom is coming! Yay for Brown for helping this happen. Make sure she has kleenex in her pocket…</p>
<p>Glad your mom is going to get to come!</p>
<p>in some divorced families I know, once the mom decides to come, the dad would suddenly decide to come too, just not to be upstaged. Don’t be surprised if the whole fam-damily ends up there before it’s all over.</p>
<p>Hang in there, Wolfman, this won’t be the first or last time your dad disappoints you. My parents reluctantly came to my wedding, boycotted my oldest daughter’s first birthday party (their only grandchild at the time), amongst a million other things that they (mostly my mom) have engineered that have cut me straight to the core. My mom has a tendency to humiliate me publically so I would rather have her NOT show up to the big events. It’s more than my nerves can really take.</p>
<p>Your dad may have alot of anxiety about “fitting in” with the Ivy League crowd. I’m been to college and play well with others and I felt out of place when my youngest brother was at Cornell. It may be less about you and more about the setting. Sustained social skills, conversation, behavior, and sometimes sobriety is more than some people can take.</p>
<p>A book that helped me alot is called Toxic Parents. There’s also one called Toxic Inlaws which has been helpful as my SO’s dad puts my parents to shame. He is now a very sad, old, mean man with nothing but regrets. He will likely die that way unless God starts working some quick miracles. I pray daily that he might find some peace here on earth.</p>
<p>Now is the time in your life to rededicate yourself to you and becoming the man you want to be. Your future wife and children will thank you for it. Take inventory of all your strengths, your resiliency, your risk-taking. You could have done the comfortable thing, the safe thing, but you took a huge risk and it paid off.</p>
<p>Just let your relationship with your dad be what it is as superficial as it seems, it is better than not having one at all. Let the two options be, it will either get better or it won’t. Hopefully it won’t get worse. Either way, it is what it is. Keep the lines of communication open, it sounds like you guys are cool for the most part, just superficial. He’ll regret not coming, maybe not now, but eventually he will.</p>
<p>Some people have mentioned that their parents have chilled out with age. I can say that this is true with my dad, but SO’s dad has gotten worse, mostly from the daily 2 beers and 2 shots eventually taking it’s toll. Your brain can only take the marinating in the juice for so many years, so I wouldn’t count on that too much. Unless he becomes a weepy old guy, sometimes you see that. Former tough guys who can’t seem to stop crying for all their regrets, that’s actually kind of just sad. </p>
<p>Congratulations on all your hard work and know that your CC cyber family will be there with you too that weekend! I know that you are more of an inspiration to your family than you can ever imagine. Maybe your mom will be inspired to kick her deadbeat to the husband to the curb one of these days!</p>