What is something your father did during your childhood that is unforgivable?

My father almost certainly experienced some sort of mental disorder, at a guess bipolar disorder, but what do I know of such things. He would experience anger issues and “blue moods,” periods of unusual mental state that I can’t really describe or relate to. This may or may not have related to his own father treating him in ways that would be described as physically abusive today.

All this is per my understanding; I don’t have a clear summary impression of the related details of his childhood, and I certainly don’t know the cause and effect modeling behind him not being “normal.” I could struggle with clarifying how that went but this sketch, that doesn’t include such details, will do for leading on to how it worked out.

He couldn’t stop himself from shouting in anger, somewhat frequently and in an intense fashion; we experienced that. He and my mother drew the line at almost all physical punishment. I remember us kids being spanked for something extreme that someone did when I was about 10, and I think that was the last time they used such a practice, and one of the only times. They also tried to shield us from exposure to them fighting (only verbally), although that only worked out so well, incompletely, and were careful about exposing us to use of “bad language,” they just never used swear words.

None of that was unforgiveable. I think he did the best he could with the character and temperament he had. Experiencing those off periods shaped who I became, surely for all of my brothers and sisters (one of each, not counting foster kids they raised, which was a pretty high count, close to 20 other kids across different time periods). In today’s world he should’ve sought out mental health counseling, and since he had a bachelor’s degree in psychology I’m sure that he was aware that was an option back then, even for it being decades ago. I doubt it would’ve changed much, but again what do I know.

Only now do I appreciate the internal struggle he faced, how the pressures of dealing with raising kids, cooperating with a spouse, and handling external problems must have made working through his mood issues very difficult. Surely the two were inter-related.

All this might sound more positive than I even intend. Many of my earliest childhood memories were of repeating nightmares, of a wolf menacing me, of being grasped by some sort of monster that I couldn’t escape from. I suspect that experiencing his anger was a burden for me as a young child.

I wish that I could say that I’m doing much better, that my own kids feel safe and secure, and never need to relate to me being angry enough that it feels threatening to them. These cycles naturally repeat. My own marriage doesn’t seem to go as well as his did, and I’ve inherited both my mother’s natural temperament (much calmer), and also the capacity for anger. My wife shouts much more than he ever did, fulfilling that role that I’ve largely stepped away from. Trying to do your best, and redoubling that effort after every single negative exchange, goes pretty far. I get it how the knee-jerk modern reaction to “get help” can be applied in this case too, and in any case, and that part gets complicated.

I hope that my own kids’ impression is the same as mine, that things went as well as they possibly could go, and that they weren’t (aren’t now being) shaped in negative ways by those kinds of inputs, beyond some normal range of that tending to typically apply. The only thing I do better than my father is discuss these issues with them (and I don’t have the same dark mood experience; that helps a lot). We explicitly discuss how I see these concerns, related to their exposure to shouting, and character limitations in me and their mother. I don’t know how much that helps, but it did seem to put extra stress on me having no way to place or understand what I experienced as a child.