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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

#251

Post by candybar »

schneems wrote: post #180
geoffmanning wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not apologizing for anyone's actions. This is not to say he is a good person. It is to say that there isn't enough evidence to judge one as a bad person. A lot of good people have made bad choices, and these writings reflect a mere sliver of a man's life choices from the very thin perspective of one person's grief laid bare.

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…

I think you're misreading that last line. I'm pretty sure what the author is saying is:

> the evening we found the love letters my mom said to me, "he wasted his entire life, his entire life, and mine as well."

Also, I don't think she's seeking one vs the other, nor is she judging him less now that she knows he's had a bunch of affairs. She's presenting a story and it's obvious that she has mixed feelings, full of both positive and negative judgement.

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

#253

Post by ricardobeat »

l2silver wrote: post #121
geoffmanning wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, he is a bad person! Ffs That is quite the judgement of a person you've never known, based solely on the view of one person's brief writing processing a deeply emotional experience. Your judgement reflects poorly on you.

There's too much apologizing for people's horrible actions these days. Nearly everyone is a sympathetic character when you get to know them, but that doesn't excuse them. There were other people, in his situation, who took different approaches that didn't result in locking a woman away in a loveless marriage for her entire life. I'm sure a lot of us come from easier situations, but the people who come from hard situa…

Does chinese law not allow a woman to individually apply for divorce without the partner's consent, or start a court case? Seems like they were both 'locked' in similar ways.

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

#254

Post by msteffen »

billy99k wrote: post #211
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…

Not to mention the partner who he made move to another country and then still wouldn’t tell anyone about. The more I think about this post the more insanely controlling the guy seems!

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

#255

Post by lordnacho »

nemomarx wrote: post #228
lordnacho wrote: post #107

So, what should you do if you know someone trapped in this kind of situation? I currently know someone like this. He's not homosexual, so it's not quite the same issue. But he's gotten himself trapped in a relationship, and worst of all, cannot admit it to his friends. The only reason I know is that the one friend he did tell, has told the rest of his friends. We've known each other since childhood, yet he doesn't as…

How is he trapped, and could you expand a little on the situation? I'm not sure I understand the social expectation at play for it. Does he actually have kids in his relationship that he doesn't want to talk about or admit to in public? Is his partner being neglected, or children?

It's a "partner" who uses him for his wealth. No kids, and there won't be any, because I know how those are made and you have to do certain things that are not being done.

When you talk to the guy, everything is great. Not even a sign that he has gotten hitched to this lady, or is dating, or that anything has happened at all.

Yeah it's weird. I was incredulous when I was told.

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

#256

Post by locknitpicker »

schneems wrote: post #208
JKCalhoun wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't in any way judging the father harshly when I read it. I also read between the lines that there was additionally "traditional Asian culture" as another factor. I only questioned why he would have brought kids into the "union", but I can easily imagine that it was his wife's desire. A very sad story in general. I lost my mom a few years ago and I suspect I'll go to my grave still very sad about the could-have-…

> I only questioned why he would have brought kids into the "union", They might be lead to believe "if only we got married ... if only we had kids ... that will 'fix' it." Even straight couples who aren't in love fall into this trap. I don't know how well real life imitates art, but a lot of films involving gay historical characters have a similar enough narrative I assume it has some grain of truth: The gay person w…

> The gay person would rather not be gay (it would be easier for them), and is told by society that it's a choice.

What's striking about those stories is that there were clearly quite a lot of cases where people objectively chose not to be gay, but they did it by repressing and masking it away by working hard on exemplary marriages that delivered many offspring to their name. Ultimately this means that yes indeed they could chose to not be gay, but they would have to sacrifice their whole sense of self just to comply with a societal norm.

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

#257

Post by schneems »

candybar wrote: post #251
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…

I think you're misreading that last line. I'm pretty sure what the author is saying is: > the evening we found the love letters my mom said to me, "he wasted his entire life, his entire life, and mine as well." Also, I don't think she's seeking one vs the other, nor is she judging him less now that she knows he's had a bunch of affairs. She's presenting a story and it's obvious that she has mixed feelings, full of bo…

> I don't think she's seeking one vs the other, nor is she judging him less now that she knows he's had a bunch of affairs. She's presenting a story and it's obvious that she has mixed feelings, full of both positive and negative judgement.

It sounds like violently agree with everything other than my framing and wording choices.

> I think you're misreading that last line.

Maybe. I didn't notice it was a period and not a comma until posting it. I still read it as "we found...his life" sure maybe they interpret it was him wasting that life, but your prior sentiment I quoted is the thing I'm emphasizing. I'm not saying there's *no* judgement. I'm saying there's a clear (to me) attempt at understanding that goes beyond blame.

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

#258

Post by prmoustache »

arpinum wrote: post #12
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.

The author may be unduly harsh on her father. He got to be publicly married and have a private gay life. He didn't have to live with his wife much. He liked the idea of having a daughter. Given the hand he was dealt it's a pretty good outcome for himself. Grossly selfish, but not a waste for himself.

This, I do think parents have a right to secrecy. Kids don't have to know everything.

Even the idea that our partners/spouses/SO should know everything about us is waaaay too extreme. I think that as long as we love and don't hurt each others and we respect the rules we set between each others it is ok to keep some things secrets.

From what I understand from the author's post, the whole marriage was a big lie to begin with so it is not like authors parents really loved each others. While we can criticize his father for not accepting divorce and thus allowing his mother to rebuild a life, we can hardly call him cheating. And I don't think kids have a right to know everything. I know my parents have had at least one major crisis when I was a kid without knowing the specifics but I have no right nor need to know why. It was between them.

A lot of couples only stay married because it is easier from an organisationnal, social and economic point of view than divorcing anyway.

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

#259

Post by mallets »

locknitpicker wrote: post #256
schneems wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only questioned why he would have brought kids into the "union", They might be lead to believe "if only we got married ... if only we had kids ... that will 'fix' it." Even straight couples who aren't in love fall into this trap. I don't know how well real life imitates art, but a lot of films involving gay historical characters have a similar enough narrative I assume it has some grain of truth: The gay person w…

> The gay person would rather not be gay (it would be easier for them), and is told by society that it's a choice. What's striking about those stories is that there were clearly quite a lot of cases where people objectively chose not to be gay, but they did it by repressing and masking it away by working hard on exemplary marriages that delivered many offspring to their name. Ultimately this means that yes indeed the…

Being gay isn't the choice here, choosing not to act on your attraction/desires is. Might feel nitpicky but a very important distinction.

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

#260

Post by [deleted] »

sallveburrpi wrote: post #186
swatcoder wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only questioned why he would have brought kids into the "union" For a lot of people, building a family is a duty you embrace with your household partner. It's why you exist in the first place. It's why you get married and share a home with somebody at all. Perhaps, if you're lucky, your children are a fruit of love, or perhaps, if you're horny, they're a fruit of passion. But for a lot for such people, having and r…

I don’t exist to produce children, tbh a very narrow view of what life can be.

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