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After my dad died, we found the love letters

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Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#211

Post by billy99k »

pavlov wrote: post #75

Ouch. This hits incredibly hard. I’ve been this dad who sits frozen at the TV every evening. I had the affairs with the emotionally unavailable men, and became one myself. Before you judge the man in this story too harshly — and there’s certainly much to judge, especially given the follow-up post — consider the environment he and I grew up in. Being gay as a young teenager in the early 1990s could feel literally like…

"Before you judge the man in this story too harshly"

I will judge him harshly. Instead of getting a divorce, he emotionally abused his wide and child, which probably means therapy for the child for life. He's a selfish asshole, that doesn't think about anyone but himself.

He also could have brought diseases back home to his wife (Just hearing the stories of his selfishness, he would have kept this hidden or not even gotten tested at all).

"The alternative was to be a laughing stock and die alone in a hospital where nurses don’t dare touch you."

This is the worst case scenario. He could have gotten a divorce, and lived the life he wanted.

This guy deserves zero sympathy.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#214

Post by apaosjsja »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #171

[flagged]

I share this sentiment. Most in the west (especially on HN) have been conditioned to believe mercy must always be granted and justice is evil. You can’t have one without the other or society falls apart.

As a child of a mother who cheated and ruined our family, I complete agree with you. This story filled me with disgust, and I want to live in a culture where people like this feel guilt at what they did. The sibling response here is happy to tut-tut you with the weight of progressive cultural authority behind them, as only a short sighted ideologue could. Lying of this level is bad for the family and bad for society. Protecting it is akin to protesting the removal of a cancerous tumor.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#215

Post by Arubis »

pfdietz wrote: post #83
throwaway142351 wrote: post #59

I'm a dad too, and I'm in a somewhat similar situation. My son is under five, and it feels like I'm still at the very beginning of his story. I've known I was gay since high school, probably even earlier, but I kept choosing whatever seemed like the easiest path. It felt easier to stay closeted. Easier to date a woman. Easier to move in together, propose, get married, and even have a child than to face my truth. I lo…

I'm straight and love my wife of 44 years. But I long ago made the thought experiment of what would happen if she were in the same kind of situation you were in: what if she decided I was a mistake, or that being in a relation with a man was a mistake, and that she needed to do something else. I decided that would require I support her in that. How can you love someone and not want what is best for them, even if that…

Lots of judgment all over this thread. I vote more of us listen to anecdotes like this one here, from someone whose long and successful relationship is based on wanting the best for someone else--who they recognize as human and fallible--even when that means change.

If you want marriage to mean that your partner will never change, or that the 100% match on the inside what you think they are looking from the outside, you're gonna have a hard time. This discussion is just further down the continuum than most.

(Exceptions made for arranged marriages and the like; the primary purpose there isn't romantic love-based companionship, so there isn't a pretense to shatter.)

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#216

Post by delecti »

wiether wrote: post #49
pja wrote: post #4

> “He wasted his entire life, my mom said to me, the evening we found the love letters. His entire life, and mine as well.” What a burden of expectations to lay on both yourself & your own family. I’m glad the author was able to put those aside & live her own life more authentically than her father did.

Is the capitalization of the quote your own doing or was it displayed like it for you? There isn't a single uppercase letter when I open the article, it's impossible to me to read it because it feel like a single sentence and I can't breathe

It's interesting to me that you had such difficulty, and it makes me wonder how old you are. Growing up using instant messengers on the internet in the '90s and early '00s, it was normal to type without ever using capital letters, except for emphasis. The only thing that changes that style is when someone is typing on a phone that capitalizes for them (though one friend manually undoes those "corrections").

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#217

Post by agumonkey »

pavlov wrote: post #75

Ouch. This hits incredibly hard. I’ve been this dad who sits frozen at the TV every evening. I had the affairs with the emotionally unavailable men, and became one myself. Before you judge the man in this story too harshly — and there’s certainly much to judge, especially given the follow-up post — consider the environment he and I grew up in. Being gay as a young teenager in the early 1990s could feel literally like…

I rarely judge people in these situations (sexuality or whatever the reason, there's a million different way to get stuck in a false life due to social pressure, "weakness" [aren't we all at times?]...)

I'm just floored by the misery most people go through, the misery we inflict on each others... it's not easy to bold, to be free, to be you.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#218

Post by krupan »

poisonborz wrote: post #166

Religion and tradition, the two things that elevated humanity, yet also been the source of much of its suffering.

There is no life without pain and suffering. It's as much a law of nature as gravity. Life needs something to push against, to struggle to overcome. Without that there simply is no life. If life doesn't struggle and suffer against things it never even starts. Once started, if life stops struggling and suffering, it quickly dies.

Religion and tradition have elevated humanity and it's good to acknowledge that. They never could have eliminated suffering, only changed the sources and types of suffering. It is helpful for many of us to have things like religion and traditions to give the suffering more meaning, sense, and purpose.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#219

Post by delecti »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #84
djohnston wrote: post #13

This is a sad story but I don’t like that the onus is entirely on the father to have ended things and lived his best life. He also was under pressure. He also had a family and was trying to juggle things the best way he knew how. It is tragic to live this way but I cannot consider him a villain of any sort.

It's mind-boggling to me how many commenters are here to defend the honor of a serial adulterer who broke the hearts of the people most related to and dependent upon him. Truly can't understand where this sympathy comes from...

Are people defending his honor, or just offering sympathy? Because I don't find sympathy strange at all. He betrayed the trust of a lot of people he claimed to care about, but also barely had any unfettered happiness in a too-short life. He was complicated, as we all are.

Re: After my dad died, we found the love letters

#220

Post by tome »

101011 wrote: post #205
schneems wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. To me, it's like a blameless retro. You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding. I think the last line makes that clear: > the evening we found the love letters. his entire life, and mine as well And it's not to say someone can't attach judgement…

> You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. This is the first I've heard this statement (not necessarily the idea), but I found it incredibly beautiful in it's simplicity - thanks for sharing! Are there origins to this that you're aware of? With some searching I found some adjacent thread lines to stoicism and Buddhism, but nothing quite the same.

Is it even remotely appropriate to blame without first understanding? In which case, doesn't this perspective completely rule out the possibility of any appropriate blame?
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