Gracious grumbling...

Okay, so I have issues where my wife's father is concerned. Plain and simple, he's not my favorite person.

He hurt my wife and mother-in-law many years ago, vanished, then came back into her (an my, since we were dating at this time) life. Things were okay, then he went Houdini at Sprout's baptism.

Several years later, he's back again. Personally, my limit was reached when he walked out on my daughter's day. Far as I was concerned, my father-in-law died before I met him (my wife's step-father, the person she thinks of as "daddy" died from cancer many years before we met). Doubt (a nickname for blogging purposes) was just my wife's father at that point.

Let me explain how I make this distinction.

Any idiot can perform the physical actions needed to become a father. Many have been for thousands of years. But it is a truly exceptional man who manages to become a daddy, especially if he has no blood in common with the one calling him that with affection.

So Doubt is my wife's biological father. He is back in her life, and is known to my kids, who have affection for him in that way that kids do ("We're related? Then that's all I need to know. I love you"). To say I'm not thrilled is an understatement, but I deal with it, because I don't want to be one of THOSE dads who will tell his kids from on high who to like or not like. I try to keep my snide comments where Doubt is concerned out of the kid's earshot, and limit what I REALLY want to say so as to not upset Wyfster. She (and by extension, my kids) are willing to give him another chance, to maintain that tie to some part of her family, and I wouldn't begrudge that to anyone.

I keep wandering, so please forgive me. If I can maintain focus here's the good stuff.

Doubt and his wife are coming over for Father's Day tomorrow. They are giving us the gift of a full-sized gas grill, and will help inaugurate it. I appreciate the gift enormously. At the moment I am using a small camp grill perched upon two TV tray tables that are falling apart. But despite my appreciation of the gift, I still have my issues where Doubt is concerned. The gift doesn't change that.

He and I spoke very briefly at Sprout's dance recital (I really need to get that video on-line one of these days), and while I wasn't rude, I was... curt. I spoke to him as little as possible, and as I said, I wasn't rude. I held my tongue from what I really wanted to say, and kept to pleasantries. I just simply didn't want to a) create a scene, and b) allow him to cause any further emotional harm to my wife through having enough control over the situation to make me lose my cool.

But I think tomorrow (or later today, depending on how you look at it) will be tough. I will have him in my house, and short of being obvious in my prolonged absences there will be no practical way to not deal with him for an extended period.

I try to not be rude, but fear I may fail at this in tomorrow's light, and that might be what upsets me so much at the moment. I can't even say that I hate him. I hate what I have inside of me BECAUSE of him.

I know that sooner or later, I will forgive Doubt his transgressions against my family. But in the meantime, to keep the peace and maintain my family's emotional stability, do I surrender my own, and allow Doubt to have a passive control over me that he doesn't even know exists?

This is gonna be a rough Father's Day.