My Father`s Temper

My Father had a temper. Whether he had always had a temper I couldn`t say. But after years of coping with my Narcissistic Mother his temper could be vicious. My Aunt, his older sister who I got on well with had a soft spot for him. There was a 10 year age gap and with my Nan working to support the family it often fell to her to take care of him and help out, so her bond with him was both sisterly and maternal I would say. If you had met him you would of considered him a gentle soul, polite, well mannered, he came across as intelligent and thoughtful, with an open interest in many things and a good conversationalist when free of my Mothers influence. He would not seem like a wife beater or child beater for that matter either. In fact the charming man he portrayed to his family bore no resemblance to the hard, angry man who readily gave me a savage good hiding, hit my Mother on occasion and often threatened me with a damn good slap until I was well into my 20`s. I would watch him sometimes when we were in company, he seemed unrecognisable to me, knowing his darker side.  

His sister had a good deal of sympathy for him, having to cope with life with my Mother. She clearly had fond memories of the friendly, easy going lad he used to be and sadly, over the years had watched that person slowly fade away until he was nothing more than a marionette who`s strings were firmly controlled by my Mother. The spark of happiness faded from his blue eyes and he often looked quite expressionless and lost in thought, a faint glower increasingly present as he grew older. He lived, as did I, under a great strain, constantly on edge, waiting for my Mother`s next mood swing. Caught up in the impossible and never ending task of keeping my Mother happy, or keeping the peace as he sometimes called it. To cope with the stress he smoked heavily. He was often short tempered and snappy and he too could turn on me in an instant if it meant quickly appeasing my Mother to stop some minor gripe becoming cause for her to rant and rage at him, better I be in the line of fire than him, I was regularly `thrown under the bus` is it were, with him eager to swap places with me as the guilty party, leaving him to form allegiance with her and therefore absolving himself. He really was a spineless coward in so many ways. I can say that honestly now as I look back, but as a child I just thought it was because I was bad, unlovable and therefore he did not, could not love me. Oh the damage Enabling fathers do.

My Mother could be relentless and savage in her rages. And if her main focus was on my Father`s short coming`s she would goad and bait him mercilessly for hours. In truth all he had to do was remove himself from the situation. He could of got in his car and gone for a drive, called in on his Mother for an hour or so, anything just to take control, he could of told her he was going out for a while until she had calmed down and they could talk things over later. But with Mother being Mother that would be unthinkable. If he had dared to assert himself and take control than I can well imagine what she may have been capable of. She may have launched herself at him like a banshee, ran screaming into the road chasing the car, thrown herself at the car, or down the stairs, cut her wrists again...who knows. But she would of never have let him win. And so after hours of her venom he would snap and hit her. I remember her nose looking swollen and out of place the next day one time and I have a hazy memory of her face being bruised once or twice too. And then she would be quiet. Almost satisfied, as if this had been her aim all along, that sounds twisted but surely if she knew what he was capable of she would never have pushed him to the limit and yet she did, time and time again and he in turn eventually let his temper get the better of him.

I was witness to this from maybe 8 or 9 years old. Somehow it did not shock me. I was used to violence and blazing rows, I was used to both my parents being quite unable to control their tempers and I was used to them playing all this matrimonial drama out in front of me. There were never really any real boundaries in our house. And it was useful for my Mother to have a witness, she would want me to bear testament when weeping to her her sister, my Aunt Iris, about her cruel husband. In the weeks after his violence they play acted that all was well and all was forgotten and then it would all begin again. She would bring up how he had hit her when ranting about something. It was a way of having some sort of hold over him, emotional blackmail in case she told someone other than her sister. And of course each time I saw him lash out at her it made me more afraid when he would set about me on her instruction. Despite forever longing for my Fathers love, attention and approval and also, despite enjoying his company and distant friendship in fleeting moments I have to finally be honest with myself and admit that I was afraid of him most of my life. He was a turncoat and always eager to win her affections at any cost and lashing out at me, verbally or physically, was an assured way to achieve this.  He was at his very core, like every other bully, a coward. And because I never experienced loyalty from him as a child I therefore never recognised its frequent absence in unhealthy relationships as an adult.