shehere0202

[shehere0202]

I don't want to forgive my mother's father

When I was in the ballpark of 12-13 when I met my mother's dad for the first time. It was never explained to me why it was my first time meeting him (though I will explain later) but my first impressions were that he was a nice guy that liked to do pranks, socialize, an overall kid at heart, and was a tiny bit crazy. Eventually he wiggled himself into the network that my parents set up with other family members for me to spend my vacations with during school breaks. during my first year with him my parents came along which is something they never really did so that was on my radar. He (my mother's dad) would show signs of having PTSD from when he was in the marines and lost his friends in NAM so my mother told me his erratic behavior originated from that. Even so, because I would get in the way of his morning vacuuming (in 4am mind you) he would push me with the vacuum and have the actual vacuum part hit the back of my head and it sucked up my hair. After my parents argued with him and told him to stop he was not apologetic at all and continued with his routine. After the first year my parents didn't come up with me anymore and it just got worse. There were times were he neglected to tell me or my parents that he had no running water or electricity so for a house that's deep in the woods that posed a serious problem. I would sometimes get sick and unbeknownst to him his medication would be at east 6 years expired, leaving me feeling worse and him refusing to take me to the hospital. Then for my final visit with him he got so intoxicated he started hitting me. Either with an empty beer bottle, his fists, kicking me when I was down with his spiked boots, or pulling my hair extremely hard. He would also in a convoluted way threaten to kill me or in his words "put me somewhere where nobody but bears could find me" I never told any of this to my parents at the time and had no intention to since he was only this way when he was drunk which I believed I could steer him away from. I never saw him again after that because of some issues my mom was having with her brother (my uncle) and him. This rift has continued since, causing my mother to open up why I had never met her father earlier. This was because his abusive behavior starts back to when he was abused by his father and trickled to my mom when she and my uncle were kids, she being the older 'good girl' straight A's and whatever would avoid being hit while her younger skateboarding brother would get pinned to the wall and also be threatened like how I was. When my mother was 17 she moved out to support herself and didn't contact her family until after I was born. Its been years since I've had to think of him and yet out of the blue he started reaching out to my mother asking to meet up with her and talk. She told me when she did meet him he looked physically worse and that he was hoping to mend the relationship. She said she didn't want to force me to do anything but the mere fact that she even gave him her time makes me feel a little betrayed. I recognize that this has the possibility of being the last chance for my mom to have any relationship with him and the fact that she has been nearly starved for one eats away at my conscience because I know if I say no she would also by default. However I can't seem to forgive what he did to myself, my mother and my uncle, and the new shady stuff he's been doing with my uncle and supporting him when he's being a monster.

Am I The Asshole?