conflicted feelings following father's death

[RelaisBlu]

My father died last month and I am struggling in a way I did not expect.

He left us (his 3DC) and our mother when I was 10 to marry someone else. But even before he left, we rarely saw him because he spent all his time when not at work on a very time-consuming activity. At the funeral there were many affectionate tributes from friends he had known for the last 50 years admiring his achievements with regard to this activity. Part of me felt proud & pleased to hear this but also sadness as this was why we never saw him. I have not a single memory from early childhood of him reading me a book, playing a game with me, throwing a ball in the garden etc. I know my siblings too found it quite hard to hear but of course we all smiled & listened and said only positive things.

I loved him, but all my life wanted more of him than I ever got.

Has anyone else experienced similar conflicted feelings?

Yep. Lost my Dad this year and had it not been in the midst of Plague Times I know the church would have been packed with people from the couple of Big Things in his life (1 x sport, 1 x public service/networking thing). A plaque was put up at somewhere associated with the latter. When I visited it, I thought, yes I respect all the work he put in over the years. And I wished he had put anything like that sort of effort into his family. In my case my Mum left him and he remarried pretty quickly and it was like, childcare was outsourced to my stepmum and access visits and holidays were always Family Activities, the kids playing together or people eating together or watching tv together.
In my later years I noticed that it would be very hard to get to have a 1 on 1 conversation with him and any personal topics would be shut down.

So now I am mourning the relationship I wish we'd had but didn't and frankly never could have had (he was like this with everyone afaik).

In my Dad's case a quick look at his childhood explained why he was the way he was. Which makes it sadder in a way.

Has anyone else experienced similar conflicted feelings?

Yes, absolutely. My Dad died a couple of years ago, and the eulogy was all about how my stepmother was the love of his life (he left when I was 8). When I got home I threw away the order of service, I've never felt such rage. Oddly when he was alive I thought we had a good relationship, but his final departure made me realise how disappointed I had been with him for most of my life. I'm still really angry with him, and regretting that I didn't cut him out years ago. I feel abandoned, and a mug. It's very strange.

Thank you both for your replies.

17bananas I completely relate to what you say about the unsatisfactory nature of conversations with him in adult life.

FatArse123 I am disappointed too. I keep going for long walks and having angry conversations with him!

I haven't experienced this myself, but when my grandma died I know that my mum had lots of conflicted feelings about it - she was not a supportive mother to my mum in several important ways. They had a reasonable relationship in the later years of my grandma's life, but her death threw up all sorts of feelings for my mum, going back to her childhood, in a way I don't think she had expected. I think this is the kind of thing you're going through now OP.

It took my mum several years to work through her feelings, but she did eventually get there. Now, many years after my grandma's death, my mum feels at peace with their relationship.

Yes PlateTectonics my DH (whose parents died more than a decade ago) says that he thinks it takes many years to process the death of a parent. I imagine this is especially so if the relationship was complicated or in some way not everything one might have wished

@RelaisBlu, and @17bananas, and @FatArse123
Thanks all for your postings, it has been so helpful to read your comments and to see the similarity here.

My father recently died and I am not feeling too much sadness about the actual death (he was quite old, very ill and in pain, so I really do think it was a release for him) but I find it has brought back up to the surface lots of feelings about my childhood and adolescence.

He divorced my mother and later remarried after several other partners. I think he seemed happy in his re-marriage but he clearly did not have any interest in the children of his first marriage after that point.

In particular I have found it emotional and painful to see a eulogy for him and comments from people saying how kind, gentle and nice he was. I think that was probably true in the second part of his life (in the 2nd marriage). But the person I recall from childhood / adolescence was (at times) a dangerous violent drunk who wasn't able to behave as a parent consistently. I appreciate that people change in their lives and the behaviour I showed at 20 isn't the same as at 40 for example.

So at times I feel ok - and at other moments I feel absolutely furious, burning up with rage, in particular this feels frustrating and silly because the rage is about stuff which happened a long time ago.

You are mourning the father you didn’t have.
You are, quite rightly, annoyed that he wasn’t the father that you wanted him to be.
All normal reactions.
I know that my DH will be very angry when his father eventually dies. He was seen as being a great man, but was emotionally and physically abusive to his wife and children.

We all have a right to our feelings and will go through a roller coaster of them until we come to some sort of compromise with them.

I wouldn’t have wanted the ‘real’ truth to come out at the funeral of my parents; that’s for me to know.

I am wondering what my children will hold against me when I’m gone. It won’t be as bad as my secret about my parents but I may have that conversation with them before i go.