How do I make amends with my father?

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com,gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I’m an ardent reader of your column and have garnered so much from it. My parents have been separated for quite a long time; as a matter of fact, over a decade. I’m the eldest of my siblings and over 40 years of age. I concluded my degree in History and International Studies; made a second class lower, contrary to my expectation; I expected a first class because I have always shone and the envy of fellow students. My daddy went away with another woman but they are also separated now. But before this woman came into the scene, my father has had several women in his life while married to my mother. You see my father happens to be the domineering type. Because I am very quiet, my father considers me as upright. My siblings are bursting with envy. My mother and siblings are at loggerheads with my father. Most often, the source of their squabbles comes from my immediate younger brother’s obduracy as well his refusal to go to school. While staying with our eldest sibling; he not only became unmanageable but also started selling off some of their belongings. He also refused to be educated even though my eldest sister was willing to send him to school. At the end of the day, she put him into Police custody. He has also gotten many women pregnant. He isn’t the only one giving the family problems. While another brother of mine is as reckless as he is, one of my sisters married herself off, without the consent or knowledge of my father to a pastor who is separated from his wife. All efforts by me to reconcile all parties have proved abortive. For reasons best known to my siblings, they don’t like me; they make cutting remarks about me that really hurt. Sincerely, I would have preferred to stay with my father but it is no longer feasible. I tried to make peace with my father but he ended up inviting the Police and warnings from the Police that I should stay away from my father. I tried to get his elder brother involved but that too didn’t go well as he too told me to stay away from his brother and family. Recently, I went with some non-relatives; a family friend and pastor but it also didn’t work. Despite my father’s age, he is still very strong. He kept shouting that I am a thief who has come to rob him of his property. He subsequently packed out of the house when my younger brother sold off his bus, motorcycle and other things. I am worried because most of my siblings are really behaving badly. I ‘m keen on making peace with him before he dies. I used to be nearest to his heart. I don’t know what manner of reconciliation is appropriate. He has an unforgiving spirit; my mother has developed hypertension. Bernete. Dear Bernete, We get hurt more by those we consider closest to us. Your father is deeply hurt because he invested so much faith in you more than the others. His disappointment comes from the attitude of your siblings; their attitude as well as resolve to be reckless. The fact that you appear to be in their support, left him on his own, underscores his pains and rejection of you. Try putting yourself in his position, how would you feel if after working so hard in your life to acquire certain level of comfort, your children waste them through careless and criminal living? No matter what your father has done, it is wrong for your brothers to sell off his belongings. The fact that all your mother’s children are following a certain way of behavior underscores the kind of training your mother gave you all. It is one thing for a father to be bad but another thing completely for a mother not to know her onion at all. A wise woman doesn’t allow the inability or defect of her husband stop her from molding her children right. Her inability to perform her role effectively is the reason you are all suffering. That your father left her to marry another woman isn’t enough excuse for her not to give you all the right bearing in life. At least from your explanations, your father didn’t stop caring for you all. His interest in your education paints him as a father on the look out for the future of his children. If it was only one of your siblings that was misbehaving, your mother would have been excused but almost all of them? It can only mean one thing; that your mother through her behavior drove your father into the arms of other women. The pains of your father comes from the thought that at least one of you, especially you, should have seen the contributions of your mother to the break down of the marriage; called your mother to order and insist on her doing the right things. The fact that you all appear to be on the side of your mother, actually went with her and making him appear as the problem in the marriage hurt him more than you all realised. It couldn’t have been easy for him at all. His attitude towards you could also come from the things you said or didn’t say. For his brother too to be hostile towards you underscores something terrible you may have also done. Honestly, there is no one that can settle this but you. Being close to him, you must find a way of getting him to listen to you; of making him open up his heart to you all over again. If it means staying at his door steps everyday, do it. let him understand that whatever mistakes he thinks you made were done with a child’s mind. That at the time he left your mother, you too were hurt at the lack of his presence in your daily life. No matter how hard hearted he is, there must be one person somewhere in his life who can talk to him. get that person to talk to him or his brother who he seems close to. Explain the urgency you feel in making peace with him. tell them that while you are not wishing him to die so soon, your desire however is to ensure that you make peace with him before he answers the final call. This explanation is important for them to understand why you are suddenly interested in making peace. Your father must know that your interest is not in his property but in his well being and relationship with you. because of his experiences with your siblings, he may be naturally suspicious of your motive in wanting to get back into his life. a man that has been disappointed severally will find it difficult to recognise a good gesture when he finds it. The thing is for you to go all the extra miles to make him see how you really feel. There must be a reason for the decision you took to follow your mother. Let them know why you didn’t immediately go with him as well as your own pains too as a child. For a man like your father, you must also learn to pray. When a heart is as hard and pained like his, only God has what it takes to bend him. By praying for him, you are helping him make amends too. Just like you need his forgiveness, he also has to make peace with is God and every other person. It is also necessary for you to get your mother involved in all these. Don’t forget she laid the foundation for all these mess. She has to be involved in its cleaning. Both of them go a long way back and know what it takes to get the other to listen. When some men hate a woman, they automatically hate her children too. She has to make that essential sacrifice to ensure that your father doesn’t take his hatred of you all to his grave. This is very important because other interests are also involved in his life. It is the only way to ensure whatever bad seed she has planted now doesn’t go into the next generation. She must be ready to make that important sacrifice that would insure the rest of your lives. Going to her husband and in-laws to plead would make it easier for you to have access into your father’s life. Good luck.