I only realized it when I saw the words written down. When my father, in a completely unfounded way, insisted "we were obviously neglecting our daughter, depriving her emotionally and turning her into a mentally unstable person. We kept her in a prison where she was lonely and deprived," he wasn't talking about us. Of course. He knew nothing about our parenting. He was talking about himself and what he must have known, on some level, that he was doing to me.
Gotta love projection. It's the only way we can get information about narcissists, as they lie so much about themselves and factual history. It's through what they accuse others of that we can understand how their minds work.
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Friday, June 3, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The lady doth protest too much
On some level, I've always known I was badly spanked by my father as a little child, when I was too young to form clear memories. The only clear memory I have in relation to this was realizing I won't get spanked this time - or ever again - because I showed no fear to him. I think I was 3 and I remember the feeling of victory. And the realization that I've made him fear me, because he's actually the weak one.
It felt wrong to accuse where I had no proof in the form of clear memories, but this knowledge came out again and again. I remember telling a boy at school, at age 6, that I'd been horribly spanked when I was little. I told a friend about it when I was very drunk, in my twenties, a friend who knew and respected my father. I wrote a poem about it when I was 22, in which I debated with myself whether to confront him on the issue or not. If he confessed, the poem asserted, all civilization would somehow come crumbling down. If he denied, it would be even worse.
I did confront him, soon after writing the poem. He denied.
This wasn't just a simple, one-time denial. I might have believed it if it was that.
I think it was even before I asked him this, that he wrote in my birthday card how blah, blah, he loved me, as did my dear late mother, although she sometimes even spanked me. (And he didn't, the card implied clearly; or it might have even been explicitly stated, I don't remember.) The sheer inappropriateness of this, and the fact that he waited for her death to accuse her, were immediately huge red flags for me. Denying abuse and accusing your dead wife of it, in a sickeningly sweet, sugar-coated kind of way, ON A BIRTHDAY CARD?
When I asked him, he didn't just deny. No, he immediately talked in great, disturbingly, sickeningly clear detail about how my mother spanked me when she was annoyed or irritated (which I actually don't doubt per se, but this was not my question), and how he watched as she left red marks with her hands on my tiny, but fleshy and well-rounded bottom (what kind of sick father remembers this, and then retells it to his daughter, as relevant information)?!*
My mother didn't deny spanking me out of anger. She told me about one such occurrence herself and felt sorry about it. This was the "dress" incident: I refused to wear a dress to go outside because that meant no playing in the dirt, according to her rules; she spoke to her NMIL about this, and the evil woman said she needed to force me, because "If that child isn't obeying you now when she's just two years old, what will she be doing at age 18?" So she kept spanking me and I kept saying "No". She did win, in the end, and I wore the effing dress, but then, she recounted, a few days later I asked her "Why did I have to wear that dress?" and she replied "I don't know." There are other infuriatingly stupid instances of her spanking me, like once, because I climbed a tree and got dirt on my pants, and it was embarrassing for her to be walking outside with a girl with dirty pants. So we went straight home, she spanking me along the way. I was as old as maybe 8 or 9. This is all indeed maddening, ridiculous stuff. But it doesn't cover my vague memories of being cruelly and methodically beaten with a belt by my father when I was very little.
And, recently, he felt the need to bring it up yet again, at my recent birthday party. I told my aunt, somewhat proudly, how my younger daughter seems to exhibit signs of being a very strong-willed person, and my father chimed in, saying I was just like that, impossible to subdue, as my mother found out when she tried to spank me into submission during the notorious dress incident. But he himself never spanked me, he added.
So, these overenthusiastic denials coupled with the evidence in my previous posts are, I think, enough for me to decide to believe myself that I was indeed spanked by him, cruelly, when I was very, very little. All civilization didn't come crumbling down. Just his edifice of lies. Just the monument he erected for himself as the perfect father. Just my illusion of an idyllic childhood.
It felt wrong to accuse where I had no proof in the form of clear memories, but this knowledge came out again and again. I remember telling a boy at school, at age 6, that I'd been horribly spanked when I was little. I told a friend about it when I was very drunk, in my twenties, a friend who knew and respected my father. I wrote a poem about it when I was 22, in which I debated with myself whether to confront him on the issue or not. If he confessed, the poem asserted, all civilization would somehow come crumbling down. If he denied, it would be even worse.
I did confront him, soon after writing the poem. He denied.
This wasn't just a simple, one-time denial. I might have believed it if it was that.
I think it was even before I asked him this, that he wrote in my birthday card how blah, blah, he loved me, as did my dear late mother, although she sometimes even spanked me. (And he didn't, the card implied clearly; or it might have even been explicitly stated, I don't remember.) The sheer inappropriateness of this, and the fact that he waited for her death to accuse her, were immediately huge red flags for me. Denying abuse and accusing your dead wife of it, in a sickeningly sweet, sugar-coated kind of way, ON A BIRTHDAY CARD?
When I asked him, he didn't just deny. No, he immediately talked in great, disturbingly, sickeningly clear detail about how my mother spanked me when she was annoyed or irritated (which I actually don't doubt per se, but this was not my question), and how he watched as she left red marks with her hands on my tiny, but fleshy and well-rounded bottom (what kind of sick father remembers this, and then retells it to his daughter, as relevant information)?!*
My mother didn't deny spanking me out of anger. She told me about one such occurrence herself and felt sorry about it. This was the "dress" incident: I refused to wear a dress to go outside because that meant no playing in the dirt, according to her rules; she spoke to her NMIL about this, and the evil woman said she needed to force me, because "If that child isn't obeying you now when she's just two years old, what will she be doing at age 18?" So she kept spanking me and I kept saying "No". She did win, in the end, and I wore the effing dress, but then, she recounted, a few days later I asked her "Why did I have to wear that dress?" and she replied "I don't know." There are other infuriatingly stupid instances of her spanking me, like once, because I climbed a tree and got dirt on my pants, and it was embarrassing for her to be walking outside with a girl with dirty pants. So we went straight home, she spanking me along the way. I was as old as maybe 8 or 9. This is all indeed maddening, ridiculous stuff. But it doesn't cover my vague memories of being cruelly and methodically beaten with a belt by my father when I was very little.
And, recently, he felt the need to bring it up yet again, at my recent birthday party. I told my aunt, somewhat proudly, how my younger daughter seems to exhibit signs of being a very strong-willed person, and my father chimed in, saying I was just like that, impossible to subdue, as my mother found out when she tried to spank me into submission during the notorious dress incident. But he himself never spanked me, he added.
So, these overenthusiastic denials coupled with the evidence in my previous posts are, I think, enough for me to decide to believe myself that I was indeed spanked by him, cruelly, when I was very, very little. All civilization didn't come crumbling down. Just his edifice of lies. Just the monument he erected for himself as the perfect father. Just my illusion of an idyllic childhood.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A Tale of Two Apartments
This was a sore spot for me, because the whole story used to make me feel both resentful and greatly indebted to my father. But Jonsi's perspective on their apartment woes made me See that normal children of normal parents normally expect the older generation to be helpful and supportive, as a matter of course, and there need be no shame in it. I used to think of myself as ungrateful; now I See that I've been conditioned to do so and am in fact even too neurotic about it.
The story begins long, long ago when my two sets of grandparents got their apartments in the Big City - one (maternal grandma) inherited from even older ancestors, the other (paternal grandpa) received from my grandfather's Communist company and symbolically paid off, in ridiculously small increments over many decades. (Years later, when they died and my aunt followed, my father inherited this apartment.)
Ten years into their marriage, after two decades of traveling and having fun together and spending money in a good economy, my parents decided they needed a place of their own to settle down. But they couldn't afford it. So my mother's parents sold their small apartment and joined forces with my parents so they could get one decent apartment together. With four good incomes in a good economy, they paid off the mortgage in a few decades. Then my grandparents died, followed by my mother. The apartment was in my mother's name, as was my grandparents' summer house, and according to the laws of my country, my father and I were entitled to 50% each of her property, but he waived his right to his half and in a heart-rending statement let me have the lot.
So that's two of us legally owning two apartments of roughly the same size and market worth in the city.
Still, somehow, when I got married, and he was living in one apartment and renting out the other, I couldn't bring myself to ask him to actually live with my husband in one of the apartments. So, instead, in order to assert our independence, we moved into the dilapidated summer house no one was interested in and redecorated it.
We lived there for three years, effectively allowing my father to use both apartments.
My father moved in with his girlfriend. He rented out one of the apartments for money, and used the other one as a safe base in case he broke up with her. His official story, however, was that he was saving this apartment for me, to use on the rare occasion that I came to the city (there was no need for that and I told him that; I could always spend a night at my aunt's house, for instance, but this is still his line).
Then when I was offered a good job in the city when my first daughter was 20 months old, I knew the time had come to have the Apartment Talk. I needed one of the apartments to live in with my family, and I knew sharing with him in any way would spell disaster.
Also, because I was the one who would actually be living in my apartment, while he would just be renting his out, I believed it only made sense that I could choose. And I wanted the apartment that was legally his, for the following reasons:
- It has more natural light
- It has a better organization of rooms for family use
- It's less depressing
- It's in a less dangerous neighborhood, more suitable for children
- It's close to a really good school
- It's the one he WASN'T insanely controlling about
So I asked him to give that one to us, and keep the one legally mine and do whatever he wanted with it. After deriding my job, he refused! He wanted us to live in the apartment that was legally mine, "at least for now".
What was that like? He'd drop in at will and let himself in with his key, then rage about the stuff we did "wrong" (turn off the annoying lamps; stop the annoying dysfunctional cuckoo clock) and "correct" them (turn on the lamps; wind up the cuckoo clock). We'd get startled every time he got in and I finally had to bluntly remind him of the fact that we're a young married couple who sometimes have sex when in their apartment, not expecting company! All this time, we refrained from redecorating because of the promise that we'd get the other apartment. "Eventually". So we treated the one we were in as his. Which was hard, as it was full of his old junk that made it hard to breathe. And he dropped hints that he expected us to save a room for him in case he broke up with his girlfriend! So, basically, he thought of both apartments as his, and he was just allowing us to barely be alive in one of them.
The situation was made worse when he made an agreement with my brother-in-law and then pretended it never happened! We were supposed to move into "his" apartment, my BIL was supposed to rent a room in "mine", saving the rest of the apartment for my father in case of a break-up, and this was as near to having his cake and eating it as I could arrange! So he agreed! My ILs heard the entire phone conversation (well, my side, but that's enough) when this was agreed, so I have witnesses and I'm NOT crazy! My BIL left the apartment he was renting and temporarily moved in with us until my father vacated "his" apartment.
At this point, he started pretending there was no agreement and we were just being so nice for letting BIL stay with us!?!?! He was unable to find another apartment with roommates for a whole year, so we were stuck living together.
Now I understand that this situation was perfect for him: dangling the carrot of the other apartment to control us and keep us from doing anything to the one he kept us living in.
Then, one day, I just snapped: I couldn't take it any more. I threatened him. I said: "If you don't let us live in the other apartment soon, I'll treat this one as mine. And I'll redecorate it. And throw all the old furniture out."
So we moved. We won. But he was bitter. He was resentful about the redecorating. He didn't feel like he was controlling my space any more.
Once, I asked him what he thought of our new bookcase. He said "You've had it easy all your life and that's why you're ungrateful for what you've been given. You threw away (big old moldy wardrobe)".
We haven't had it easy. We're surviving on one paycheck in a bad economy. We rarely travel and never eat out. We ARE trying to make our place into a nice home, but it's not easy. That's our only crime.
There was such disgust and hatred in his eyes when he said it, that I was taken aback, and felt compelled to ask him: "Are you basically saying that you're not proud of me?"
He paused. For a long time. He thought. Now I understand he was doing calculations of comparative risks in his mind. I was now independent and getting stronger. If he said "yes", he might risk losing me instead of wining the round by hurting me. So he suddenly assumed a sickly-sweet expression and said "You're my only daughter. Of course I'm proud of you". I wasn't convinced, but that was the end of that conversation.
After that, he only ventured relatively small criticisms (Cf. Big Gray Phone).
The story begins long, long ago when my two sets of grandparents got their apartments in the Big City - one (maternal grandma) inherited from even older ancestors, the other (paternal grandpa) received from my grandfather's Communist company and symbolically paid off, in ridiculously small increments over many decades. (Years later, when they died and my aunt followed, my father inherited this apartment.)
Ten years into their marriage, after two decades of traveling and having fun together and spending money in a good economy, my parents decided they needed a place of their own to settle down. But they couldn't afford it. So my mother's parents sold their small apartment and joined forces with my parents so they could get one decent apartment together. With four good incomes in a good economy, they paid off the mortgage in a few decades. Then my grandparents died, followed by my mother. The apartment was in my mother's name, as was my grandparents' summer house, and according to the laws of my country, my father and I were entitled to 50% each of her property, but he waived his right to his half and in a heart-rending statement let me have the lot.
So that's two of us legally owning two apartments of roughly the same size and market worth in the city.
Still, somehow, when I got married, and he was living in one apartment and renting out the other, I couldn't bring myself to ask him to actually live with my husband in one of the apartments. So, instead, in order to assert our independence, we moved into the dilapidated summer house no one was interested in and redecorated it.
We lived there for three years, effectively allowing my father to use both apartments.
My father moved in with his girlfriend. He rented out one of the apartments for money, and used the other one as a safe base in case he broke up with her. His official story, however, was that he was saving this apartment for me, to use on the rare occasion that I came to the city (there was no need for that and I told him that; I could always spend a night at my aunt's house, for instance, but this is still his line).
Then when I was offered a good job in the city when my first daughter was 20 months old, I knew the time had come to have the Apartment Talk. I needed one of the apartments to live in with my family, and I knew sharing with him in any way would spell disaster.
Also, because I was the one who would actually be living in my apartment, while he would just be renting his out, I believed it only made sense that I could choose. And I wanted the apartment that was legally his, for the following reasons:
- It has more natural light
- It has a better organization of rooms for family use
- It's less depressing
- It's in a less dangerous neighborhood, more suitable for children
- It's close to a really good school
- It's the one he WASN'T insanely controlling about
So I asked him to give that one to us, and keep the one legally mine and do whatever he wanted with it. After deriding my job, he refused! He wanted us to live in the apartment that was legally mine, "at least for now".
What was that like? He'd drop in at will and let himself in with his key, then rage about the stuff we did "wrong" (turn off the annoying lamps; stop the annoying dysfunctional cuckoo clock) and "correct" them (turn on the lamps; wind up the cuckoo clock). We'd get startled every time he got in and I finally had to bluntly remind him of the fact that we're a young married couple who sometimes have sex when in their apartment, not expecting company! All this time, we refrained from redecorating because of the promise that we'd get the other apartment. "Eventually". So we treated the one we were in as his. Which was hard, as it was full of his old junk that made it hard to breathe. And he dropped hints that he expected us to save a room for him in case he broke up with his girlfriend! So, basically, he thought of both apartments as his, and he was just allowing us to barely be alive in one of them.
The situation was made worse when he made an agreement with my brother-in-law and then pretended it never happened! We were supposed to move into "his" apartment, my BIL was supposed to rent a room in "mine", saving the rest of the apartment for my father in case of a break-up, and this was as near to having his cake and eating it as I could arrange! So he agreed! My ILs heard the entire phone conversation (well, my side, but that's enough) when this was agreed, so I have witnesses and I'm NOT crazy! My BIL left the apartment he was renting and temporarily moved in with us until my father vacated "his" apartment.
At this point, he started pretending there was no agreement and we were just being so nice for letting BIL stay with us!?!?! He was unable to find another apartment with roommates for a whole year, so we were stuck living together.
Now I understand that this situation was perfect for him: dangling the carrot of the other apartment to control us and keep us from doing anything to the one he kept us living in.
Then, one day, I just snapped: I couldn't take it any more. I threatened him. I said: "If you don't let us live in the other apartment soon, I'll treat this one as mine. And I'll redecorate it. And throw all the old furniture out."
So we moved. We won. But he was bitter. He was resentful about the redecorating. He didn't feel like he was controlling my space any more.
Once, I asked him what he thought of our new bookcase. He said "You've had it easy all your life and that's why you're ungrateful for what you've been given. You threw away (big old moldy wardrobe)".
We haven't had it easy. We're surviving on one paycheck in a bad economy. We rarely travel and never eat out. We ARE trying to make our place into a nice home, but it's not easy. That's our only crime.
There was such disgust and hatred in his eyes when he said it, that I was taken aback, and felt compelled to ask him: "Are you basically saying that you're not proud of me?"
He paused. For a long time. He thought. Now I understand he was doing calculations of comparative risks in his mind. I was now independent and getting stronger. If he said "yes", he might risk losing me instead of wining the round by hurting me. So he suddenly assumed a sickly-sweet expression and said "You're my only daughter. Of course I'm proud of you". I wasn't convinced, but that was the end of that conversation.
After that, he only ventured relatively small criticisms (Cf. Big Gray Phone).
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The dangerous narcissist replied!
Today I got a cute little sms that said I'd get my money on Monday and offered the silliest excuse ever for why it's so late - the Post Office in Paris is being privatized and it's all very chaotic.
First, he's been sending me money via Western Union. He could have used any bank in the last several months. Second, it's always a different excuse and they don't work together. He pretended to have sent me some money 4 months ago and then forgot about it when I insisted we investigated what happened to the money. Third, owing someone money for months because the post office is in chaos right now? Give me a break!
I just find it hilarious. I'm completely relaxed about this now. I've made my stand - I'm not translating until I get paid - however implicitly and politely.
I'm pretty sure on Monday he'll think of a different excuse. If and when I do get paid, I'll start translating another portion. In my own time and with no pressure.
I only replied "All right. Regards."
First, he's been sending me money via Western Union. He could have used any bank in the last several months. Second, it's always a different excuse and they don't work together. He pretended to have sent me some money 4 months ago and then forgot about it when I insisted we investigated what happened to the money. Third, owing someone money for months because the post office is in chaos right now? Give me a break!
I just find it hilarious. I'm completely relaxed about this now. I've made my stand - I'm not translating until I get paid - however implicitly and politely.
I'm pretty sure on Monday he'll think of a different excuse. If and when I do get paid, I'll start translating another portion. In my own time and with no pressure.
I only replied "All right. Regards."
The Big Gray Phone
If the title sounds silly to you, thank you. It's supposed to, to any normal person. But the Big Gray Phone has caused sooo much trouble between my Family Of Choice and my Narcissistic Father. It's a symbol of his quirks that he uses to put us down, control us, and criticize us, a symbol of his hoarding, and also a symbol of a boundary I finally successfully put in place.
I'll write about our apartment woes another time. When we finally got NF to let us live in the apartment we wanted to live in (he's renting the other one out, anyway), I specifically asked "Dad, tell me now: Is there ANYTHING in this apartment that's dear to you? Please take it now, because we WILL be renovating". His response, after looking around desperately over the decrepit old place which no one had redone in over 60 years, said "Well, this clock is valuable" (it's not, by the way; it's 60-year-old Soviet crap, made to appear somewhat antique). And that was it. I knew he wouldn't TAKE anything, which is why I phrased the question like that. He'd have wanted us to live in a museum/storehouse/dump yard, because neither his girlfriend nor his tenants would agree to.
So, having received his blessing in this way, we started redoing the old apartment. We tried to sell the old furniture, then tried to give it away, and finally threw most of the junk away.
Among the stuff that was there, there was a 20-year-old, but functioning Panasonic fixed phone, which got relocated to our summer house.
The first mention of the Big Gray Phone was when he once came over and started going through our closet. "What are you doing, Dad?" I asked. "I'm looking for the Big Gray Phone (hand gestures describing something gigantic and possibly ancient). I want to take the cord (cords can be bought cheaply and easily anywhere). I can't find it. Where is it?" he asked, mildly panicky. "I don't know what you mean (I didn't. I thought he was describing something we must have put into the Obvious Junk category immediately. It sounded that way.) If it's not there, then possibly it was thrown away." "YOU THREW AWAY THE BIG GRAY PHONE?!?" He makes hand gestures that would be more appropriate for "YOU SMOTHERED YOUR NEWBORN BABY?!?"
He kept nagging about that, every time we talked, as if we'd done something to hurt him on purpose and it was the most insane thing anyone's ever done.
Then, when we realized that he was referring to the old Panasonic phone, we told him we hadn't thrown it away, but instead put it in the summer house.
A neighbor told me, much later, that she talked to him about us and said "They're good kids and good neighbors" to which he said "Them? Good?!? They're horrible! Do you know what they did? They threw away the Big Gray Phone!"
I confronted him about this, saying I don't mind it when he badmouths me to others and he can gossip all he wants, but it's not nice to use lies for that purpose. And we didn't throw it away and he knows it. He went pale immediately, terrified of what he'd done. I'm sure this was because, for his mother, that would have been the ultimate offense - gossiping to the neighbors, that is. Not lying. Or proving that you actually dislike your closest relative that you otherwise pretend to love (i.e. me, his daughter, in this case).
We have another fixed phone in the home, a cordless one, and the battery was acting up for a while, so sometimes, not often, when it rang, it would die, then we'd put it on the base for a second, and it was fine. So, because he's one of the very few people who call us on our fixed phone, he had to call back a few times. And he'd let us have it every time! "You need another landline. You can't just have that one. It's not working. And you threw away the Big Gray Phone!" I kept explaining, politely, that we're still in the process of remodeling and that we don't know where another landline would be suitable and that we'll be capable of purchasing a fixed phone ourselves and won't starve because of the lack of the Big Gray Phone in our lives. It didn't work - he'd bring it up every time.
Until, one time, he called us. I wasn't at home and my husband was putting the baby to sleep, saw he was calling on Caller ID and chose not to pick up because, yes, he was putting the baby to sleep. My father called later and said "See, the battery died again, didn't it?" And my husband replied "No, it didn't. I didn't pick up because I was putting the baby to sleep."
What does my father do? He sends me an sms a few hours later: "Dear Pronoia, you really need another fixed phone. I called today and the battery died again, so (your husband) couldn't pick up."
What on Earth? See that there? The crazy mind game? The trying to cause a rift between us? The trying to manipulate me against my husband? The sheer insanity of supposing that we'd lie to each other? That my husband would lie to me? And OVER THIS?
So I replied "The battery didn't die. (My husband) was putting the baby to sleep, as he's already told you. If, when, and what kind of phone we put in our home, is our business alone, so don't you worry about that." It was my by far the most "impolite" communication to him.
He replied nothing. There was no communication from him for a week. And then he acted as if nothing had happened.
And he never mentioned fixed phones again, of any size, color, or shape.
Epiogue: We brought the Big Gray Phone back here recently because we decided to cancel the landline in our summer house - we really don't need it there.
His reaction when he saw it? "See this phone, Granddaughter? Your parents had it at the summer house for a while!"
I'll write about our apartment woes another time. When we finally got NF to let us live in the apartment we wanted to live in (he's renting the other one out, anyway), I specifically asked "Dad, tell me now: Is there ANYTHING in this apartment that's dear to you? Please take it now, because we WILL be renovating". His response, after looking around desperately over the decrepit old place which no one had redone in over 60 years, said "Well, this clock is valuable" (it's not, by the way; it's 60-year-old Soviet crap, made to appear somewhat antique). And that was it. I knew he wouldn't TAKE anything, which is why I phrased the question like that. He'd have wanted us to live in a museum/storehouse/dump yard, because neither his girlfriend nor his tenants would agree to.
So, having received his blessing in this way, we started redoing the old apartment. We tried to sell the old furniture, then tried to give it away, and finally threw most of the junk away.
Among the stuff that was there, there was a 20-year-old, but functioning Panasonic fixed phone, which got relocated to our summer house.
The first mention of the Big Gray Phone was when he once came over and started going through our closet. "What are you doing, Dad?" I asked. "I'm looking for the Big Gray Phone (hand gestures describing something gigantic and possibly ancient). I want to take the cord (cords can be bought cheaply and easily anywhere). I can't find it. Where is it?" he asked, mildly panicky. "I don't know what you mean (I didn't. I thought he was describing something we must have put into the Obvious Junk category immediately. It sounded that way.) If it's not there, then possibly it was thrown away." "YOU THREW AWAY THE BIG GRAY PHONE?!?" He makes hand gestures that would be more appropriate for "YOU SMOTHERED YOUR NEWBORN BABY?!?"
He kept nagging about that, every time we talked, as if we'd done something to hurt him on purpose and it was the most insane thing anyone's ever done.
Then, when we realized that he was referring to the old Panasonic phone, we told him we hadn't thrown it away, but instead put it in the summer house.
A neighbor told me, much later, that she talked to him about us and said "They're good kids and good neighbors" to which he said "Them? Good?!? They're horrible! Do you know what they did? They threw away the Big Gray Phone!"
I confronted him about this, saying I don't mind it when he badmouths me to others and he can gossip all he wants, but it's not nice to use lies for that purpose. And we didn't throw it away and he knows it. He went pale immediately, terrified of what he'd done. I'm sure this was because, for his mother, that would have been the ultimate offense - gossiping to the neighbors, that is. Not lying. Or proving that you actually dislike your closest relative that you otherwise pretend to love (i.e. me, his daughter, in this case).
We have another fixed phone in the home, a cordless one, and the battery was acting up for a while, so sometimes, not often, when it rang, it would die, then we'd put it on the base for a second, and it was fine. So, because he's one of the very few people who call us on our fixed phone, he had to call back a few times. And he'd let us have it every time! "You need another landline. You can't just have that one. It's not working. And you threw away the Big Gray Phone!" I kept explaining, politely, that we're still in the process of remodeling and that we don't know where another landline would be suitable and that we'll be capable of purchasing a fixed phone ourselves and won't starve because of the lack of the Big Gray Phone in our lives. It didn't work - he'd bring it up every time.
Until, one time, he called us. I wasn't at home and my husband was putting the baby to sleep, saw he was calling on Caller ID and chose not to pick up because, yes, he was putting the baby to sleep. My father called later and said "See, the battery died again, didn't it?" And my husband replied "No, it didn't. I didn't pick up because I was putting the baby to sleep."
What does my father do? He sends me an sms a few hours later: "Dear Pronoia, you really need another fixed phone. I called today and the battery died again, so (your husband) couldn't pick up."
What on Earth? See that there? The crazy mind game? The trying to cause a rift between us? The trying to manipulate me against my husband? The sheer insanity of supposing that we'd lie to each other? That my husband would lie to me? And OVER THIS?
So I replied "The battery didn't die. (My husband) was putting the baby to sleep, as he's already told you. If, when, and what kind of phone we put in our home, is our business alone, so don't you worry about that." It was my by far the most "impolite" communication to him.
He replied nothing. There was no communication from him for a week. And then he acted as if nothing had happened.
And he never mentioned fixed phones again, of any size, color, or shape.
Epiogue: We brought the Big Gray Phone back here recently because we decided to cancel the landline in our summer house - we really don't need it there.
His reaction when he saw it? "See this phone, Granddaughter? Your parents had it at the summer house for a while!"
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