father

this is going to ramble even more than usual.. im not quite sure of my own thoughts, so im sorting things out as i type.


my father recently got married. july 1st actually. congrats to him. sylvia is lovely, her daughter is lovely, daughter's son and husband are lovely. all in all, i like my new step family. i wish they were christian, but we cant have everything, can we. (note: my father was raised nominatively christian, went to an anglican boarding school, but in his adult years decided to become jewish. since my mother would not convert, he COULD NOT convert, and this contributed a little to their split. i believe he has now converted, since sylvia is also a hasidic jew, and they were married in a religious ceremony. she even wore a wig to the wedding, although i believe she doesnt bother in everyday life.)

what i do not like is my father, and this bothers me. he is my father. i love him. i should also respect him. but i find it so hard. he is not a nice person, and he doesnt respect others. it is hard to respect someone who does not respect you. and it is hard to respect him, knowing how he treats sylvia, and my sister. and the absolute lack of respect he shows my mother. they are not together now, obviously, but they spent a great many years together. she is the mother of his only children. (he is 61, and sylvia must be close to that age, since her eldest daughter is 39, so the chances of anymore kids for my dad are very very slim.) and yet he shows up unannounced at our house, with his new wife, while my mother is here, and expects us to rush around happily making tea for him. my mother does not love my father anymore, but i can only imagine how awkward it must have been for her. and for sylvia. how would you feel turning up and your husbands ex-wifes house, and seeing the shock on her face as she realised who you were?

sylvia: my father treats her like a child. since i do not drive, and have a small child, i find it hard to travel around much further than the local shops, and my father lives at least an hour away by public transport, so i dont visit him much. but my sister does. and has witnessed him treating him exactly the same way he treated us as children. if she tries to help do something, and makes a mistake, she gets the Lecture Voice. loud, very enunciated, but not exactly yelling. STOP. PUT. IT. DOWN. JUST. CALM. DOWN. AND. RELAX. ok dear, i just want to.. NO. JUST. CALM. DOWN. AND. RELAX. i am relaxed, dear, i was just trying.. NO. JUST. RELAX. etc etc etc. yes, our husbands are in charge, and yes, we need to respect, obey, etc etc whatnot, but we are adults, we are humans, and we should not be treated as five year olds who are in tears after breaking a favourite toy, just because we arent doing something in the EXACT manner of his choosing, when he doesnt even know how he wants it done, and would have done the exact same thing if he did it himself. i honestly dont know what sylvia sees in my father. she must really love him.

my sister: since my fathers marriage, he insists that sylvia is now his responsibility, and he can no longer do anything for us. this coming from the man who stole a combined $4000 from his two daughters, so he could buy drugs.** (me? bitter? never.) back to the point. sylvia owns her house. dad owns his. together, they are in a good situation. but yes, his wife is his responsibility. HOWEVER, just as she is his responsibility, he is also hers. my sister has her own life. she works. she lives alone. she does not have the time to go and do everything for my father, when he now has a wife whos responsibility it is to take care of her husband. if dad needs someone to go and buy his special bread, his wife should do it. if she has to take time off work to do it, well. so be it. my sister would have to take time off work to do it too. if i had a car, i would do it. but have you tried getting from strathfield to rose bay(a good hour), and then up to hornsby(another hour, at least), then back to strathfield(couple hours), on public transport with a child under 3? besides which, my husband is my responsibility. if i spend the entire day out doing things for my father, who is looking after my husband?

my sister asked my father about fixing his will. once you get married, any will you had already becomes invalid and everything you own is automatically inherited by your spouse. now, because it was purely a religious ceremony (if things work out, they plan on legalising it next year), that is not the case here. but once a couple has been living together for a certain amount of time, they are treated as married regardless. if my father and sylvia remain together, i have no problems with her getting some of his stuff, should he die first. but since she already has a lot of her own stuff, i do believe my sister and i should get something. parents usually leave something to their children dont they? in a normal situation, dad dies first, mum gets everything, mum dies, things are split between the kids. but with subsequent marriages, things get tricky. mum and dad split. dad remarries. dad dies, everything goes to step-mum. she dies, everything goes to her children. see the problem? or, stepmum dies, everything goes to dad, he dies, we get it all. also no fair.

my father is a LAWYER. who specialised in wills and probate. HE KNOWS ALL this stuff. i dont want sylvia to be unprovided for should dad die first. but i dont believe her children should get all his stuff. and i dont believe we should get all hers. ive written up a lot of wills for my father, when i worked for him. i know you can set up a will so that the surviving spouse is provided for until death, upon which everything goes back to the children of the first spouse. my grandmother was married 4 times. her last two spouses set their wills up this way. so why wont my father? sometimes i wonder if i even want anything of his. he wasnt much of a father while he was here.



**yes you read that right. my grandmother lived in a different country, and never knew what to buy as as christmas and birthday presents, so she set up a $2000 account for each of us, with instructions that the interest be used to buy us something we wanted for presents, and i assume the capital was to be ours when we turned 18 or something. what actually happened? dad took the money, my assumption is to buy weed, since thats where all the rest of his money went, and just bought us presents. then, when we were 16, bought us something costing 'about' $2000. a least, he bought me a computer. im not sure what he got my sister when she turned 16. i know it took forever for her to convince him that he still owed it to her.