Showing up where you suspect you’re not welcome is classic behavior for a practiced boundary-crosser, writes Amy Dickinson.
Dear Amy: Ten years ago, my father had an affair with an old high school girlfriend. He divorced my mother to marry this other woman.
Amy, I flipped out. My father treated my mom terribly during the divorce. They had been in the same room only a handful of times over the years for college graduations and a wedding.I know my mother would not have wanted him to be at her funeral and I told him as much. My brother and his wife backed me up, telling him that it would be inappropriate for him to be there, considering how he had ended the marriage, and taking into account their nonexistent current relationship.
He says that we owe him an apology, but we think he’s being his usual selfish, self-serving and perpetual-victim self.Dear Not Going to Apologize: I’m with you and your brother. If your father had really wanted to support you through this trying time, he would have contacted you both in advance of showing up to express his fatherly concern and to ask how he could best support you.
Now that you have asserted a strong boundary with your father, I suggest that you should use neutral language and communicate to him that in order for you to have a better relationship moving forward, you will need him to understand how deeply his actions over the last 10 years have affected you.
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