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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

#291

Post by anon84873628 »

tsol wrote: post #270
Alt-F4 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

People seem to disagree with this comment but it makes sense. Lots of people get no genuine sexually or emotional attention sure to severe disabilities, cultural incompatibility, weight issues, or simply because they don't know how to socialize properly. It's odd to say they can't live a full life, just because they didn't kiss a girl in the 9th grade. If relationships are so key to the human experience, the incels w…

That's individuals deciding not to be with other individuals. It's not two people of the same sex who want to be with each other but are arbitrarily prohibited by the rest of society.

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

#292

Post by Spooky23 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #146
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 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-…

It is a sad story. But I will say that events in my life have really made me regret questioning the decisions of others.

I did things “right” I met my wife right after college, and I loved her dearly. We lived a happy life and have a wonderful son. We lost her a couple of years ago to cancer, followed by my parents and my mother and father in law, all of whom i was incredibly close with.

Yet life carries on. I come from a very traditional ethnic-focused catholic background. I’m not going to be following the standard script. I’m in my 40s, any partner will likely be divorced with their own child(ren). I’m not having more children. Will that partner be compared to my wife? Will I judged if she is too old/young/in a higher/lower status profession?

Reality: everyone has been incredibly supportive of my family and I. But the anxiety is there.

I would just say in looking at the lives of others, try to walk in their shoes. By all accounts the father in the story was not a perfect man. Few of us are. But consider that he was facing certain and complete rejection by his entire world, and he most likely made the choice that he felt was the least bad.

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

#293

Post by Tagbert »

GaryBluto wrote: post #250
gk1 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is sickening. If this is coming from a personal hardship, I hope you find peace soon.

I don't see what's so sickening. He made his bed, now he needs to lie in it.

Why? How is it helpful to him, to his wife, or their son to live this lie of unhappiness. The lie will be more damaging than facing the truth.

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

#294

Post by dpark »

anon84873628 wrote: post #288
dpark wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in that story did he emotionally abuse anyone? He was distant and miserable but that’s not abusive (except to himself).

Um, you don't see the problem with that when it's your father / husband?

“Problem” is not the same thing as “abuse”.

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

#295

Post by anon84873628 »

71bw wrote: post #104
pfdietz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can relate to this probably the most out of everything I've seen on HN so far. My fiancee is pansexual and overall seems to prefer women, so I surely am quite a bit of a surprise in her life (to the point where her family laughed at the fact that I 'fixed her' the first time I met them...) as a straight man. I know she loves me, I love her with all my heart but I am aware that at some point she may want to change m…

Besides what everyone else said, just get yourself a pre-nup too :-)

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

#296

Post by fsckboy »

_yb2s wrote: post #221
dartharva wrote: post #51

Interesting anecdote, but for the life of me I can't understand what relevance this blogpost could have here on HackerNews

I see these comments on most HN threads that aren’t about tech stuff, but to me these are the best part of HN. I think it should include things people in tech who are also humans find interesting and want to discuss, like this, not just discussions of the latest cpu architecture or whatever. If you don’t find it interesting ignore it, and the algorithm will make it go away on its own if most people agree!

just as HN is segregated from the majority of the web by focused interests within the community at large, within this community there could also be segregation of interests. you don't need to try to stamp it out every time you hear about it, that's like the web trying to stamp out HN

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

#297

Post by lukan »

Spooky23 wrote: post #292
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-…

It is a sad story. But I will say that events in my life have really made me regret questioning the decisions of others. I did things “right” I met my wife right after college, and I loved her dearly. We lived a happy life and have a wonderful son. We lost her a couple of years ago to cancer, followed by my parents and my mother and father in law, all of whom i was incredibly close with. Yet life carries on. I come f…

"and he most likely made the choice that he felt was the least bad."

The least bad for him.

"mom had started asking for divorces by the time i was in my teens, and dad was the one who always said no. he would complain to her mother, a traditionalist, to ensure that she would berate her daughter back into line. his family and his culture had no place for him, so he used her as a shield to make sure that he would be spared the scrutiny"

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

#298

Post by charles_f »

quitit wrote: post #38

From reading both posts, there's a few things that come to my mind: - It seems this is how the author is processing her father's passing, and it's not really up to us to make moral calls on the content of the posts. They are thoughts with gaps of missing context against a real life of highs and lows which is not readily condensed into a blog post. - I'm peering into the life of a private person, that feels like a vio…

> It's ok not knowing or judging

> One has to practice a type of "radical acceptance"

Here's a funny thing, what I got from that story was that it must have been a hard and sad life for the dad, probably the mom, and especially a horrifying discovery for the mom. These are not judgments, but tidbits of empathy and sadness for all the parties involved. I didn't have to force myself into that, probably because it didn't clash with my personality or values.

If something made you tick and you want to condemn one of the people in the story, I'm wondering if forcing your brain into "accepting" would make any difference. The real question is what you feel for the other person. I think it might come out as a judgment if it clashes with your actual values and personality. If you don't recognize yourself and would have had a different approach, you might have a negative outlook on the people in the story.

I'm extremely lucky to be a straight dude in the progressive society of today's. Had I been a gay guy in the traditional Chinese culture of the 80s, I'd probably have had the same life as that dad, and employ some of the same strategies. So it's easy for me not to judge. But some people are more upfront, active, liberated, and for them it might be harder not to judge ; and I think that's fine.

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

#299

Post by treis »

Spooky23 wrote: post #292
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-…

It is a sad story. But I will say that events in my life have really made me regret questioning the decisions of others. I did things “right” I met my wife right after college, and I loved her dearly. We lived a happy life and have a wonderful son. We lost her a couple of years ago to cancer, followed by my parents and my mother and father in law, all of whom i was incredibly close with. Yet life carries on. I come f…

I strongly disagree. The father passed on the same trauma he experienced to his own child. It makes it worse because he knows exactly how painful it is but did it anyways.

I'm watching my ex do the same thing to our kid. I understand it on a mechanical level. But on an emotional level I will never understand how you can look into the eyes of your child and hurt them.

The mechanics of it are what you see in the OP. I see it in my parents, my aunts/uncles, and my cousins. It's somewhere between denial and minimization. It's like a defense mechanism against the truth which is something like my father didn't love me enough to not severely damage me. "They did the best they could" is a common refrain. Ultimately that ends up being their justification for hurting their own kids.

There is a balance to hit here. Yes, we are all human and you can't expect perfection. What you can expect and what everyone deserves from their loved ones is for them to at all points try to and not hurt you. There's forgiveness for coming up short if there's effort and steady improvement.

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

#300

Post by ericmcer »

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…

You can extrapolate this on to anyones life, not just someone with such a huge and dramatic secret they were hiding for the stability of their family life.

If your parents get old/sick or you have kids or a bad relationship or you get stuck in a job or any other myriad life events occur, the weight of your own days can suddenly drain so much time and energy that years fly by. Suddenly you wake up in an aging body and your ideal life seems far away. As I get older I kind of understand the people who just flee their lives. Being saddled with responsibilities you never wanted you are forced into choosing to either strangle your own desires or be perceived as a terrible person for not fulfilling your societal obligations.

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