23 Mar 2009

Family Secrets & Cover-Ups

Posted by theswarmite

 

If you are about to read this blog without reading the last entry, go back.  Flicking through my blog like flicking through HELLO in a doctors waiting room won’t work.

Where was I? . . .  Oh yes, mum was 14, Dad was 24 when they met, mum was already on the ciggies and working in a munitions factory making rubber dinghies for Airmen during the war. Dad was in the Royal Engineers in the Bomb Squad somewhere in Italy waiting for Montys big push. So you can see what the attraction was : munitions & nicotine. Nowadays the age gap between 14 – 24 years  would be described as peodophilia, then it was considered not unusual, but my younger brother pleaded guilty in 1991 to sexually abusing his step daughter from age 10 to 15 years and went to prison for 3 years. So family patterns may come into play here. The same brother also had a gay relationship for 3 years with a fellow soldier in the Army and was eventually court-martialed from the Army for organising homosexual orgies in German Army barracks. Two years later in order to " cure " himself he got married and had 2 children of his own while abusing his step daughter. It is likely he was a sex addict. I have only spoken to him once since he got married and that was a phone call to him soon after leaving Prison in 1995, I said my piece and completed our relationship. He was not one for soul searching and continued drinking alcoholicly, he may be dead now. My father found out about the court martial reading the front page of the tabloid SUN newspaper : my brother knew for 5 months of court action and never warned us. He later became a disciple of the JESUS ARMY. No wonder I needed therapy around my family!  You couldn’t make it up.

My father hated lying – it was the worst sin in his book – so when he declared that he was a virgin when he married mum this fact was set in family history. After the war people wanted stable respectable lives so my parents planned to marry when my mum was 16 and the law stated in 1946 that legal permission was required from the birth mother, so my father ventured toward grannies brothel in Palmerston Road Kilburn to officially ask for the hand in marriage. 

I was waiting in the spiritual wings to be conceived as my father was a virgin. My parents married in August 1946 and I arrived 5 weeks early in May 1947. My father delivered me on the kitchen table after a 10 minute labour and because of wartime shortage of furniture I slept in the bottom drawer of a Victorian chest of drawers for the first 3 years of life. 

No wonder many view me as eccentric.

 

Roll on to 1992 and my father dies of a heart attack in Spain. The risque English comedian Max Miller used to say " Now, that’s a funny thing ! " well it did indeed come to pass. 

Both my parents drank at only Christmas & Easter, measured was the word and they never traveled abroad. My mum died in a bar in Germany, her first visit abroad and my father died in a bar in Spain, both from heart attacks. I no longer drink and have a stent for angina, (family patterns and all that ). Having not drunk alcohol for over 26 years – I bypass Bars. 

Now that’s a funny thing!

 

My dad never lied – so imagine my amazement when searching through his papers I discovered he had hired a private detective from Spain to find a woman in Zurich just months before he died. How odd? In fact the detective had found her easily enough and they were snail mailing each other for a brief time. Then I remembered that my Dad spent time in the Tyrol during the war, Innsbruck to be precise, he sent home photos to my mum before they married. A week after the funeral a letter arrived from Zurich with a photo attached. I had to sit down. What was my father doing in this photo? Then I noticed that the clothes were modern, the photo developed by Kodak colour – hardly 1946. The woman looked like my mother, but she is dead. Then it struck me. The man in the photo was my Fathers SON, a year older than me and the spitting image of my father. The woman was a carbon copy of my mother. So much for virginal Dad, he had clearly sought " comfort " in the Alps while keeping the child bride / fiancee at home and past 70 it was beginning to play on his conscience.

 

This cover up – this lifetime lie – reminded me of the pain of being closeted around sexuality that many bi, gay, trans or straight people experience. It could be same-sex activity, use of sex workers, a secret fetish or desire riddled in shame. John Bradshaw called the core of codependency " toxic shame ", in Alcoholics Anonymous they say " you are as sober as your Secrets ". When I came out in 1967 to my folks there was the expected upset but my Dad was more supportive than my mum. Maybe he secretly admired me for telling the truth faster, for being upfront but both parents welcomed my gay friends to their home at all times, very radical even for the late sixties. Dad had clearly held the memory of the wartime romance close to his chest to protect my mother, hence the " virgin " story and they were happily married for 25 years before she died. My mum was very codependent on my father always worrying that Dad would " go first " in death. I hadn’t a clue until I was 25 that my mum could not read or write. She felt so ashamed that she never told us. Dad never told us about " our step-brother " and I never found out how much my Dad earned. Before the Thatcher regime salary was held in secret silence, I need to learn from the humility of my parents rather than their personal humiliations of family history. Dad had worked for the same company since he was 14, went to war and got re-employed by them after, eventually retiring at 67. I suspect his income was low. He was a people pleaser and didn’t like conflict even to the point of looking away from the telly if anything embarrasing was on. He had low esteem but sacrificed his own needs for his kids and codependent or not he placed these priorities in high order. Respect.

 

A few years before he died I took courage to ask him a question that had always bugged me in my quest for personal peace " why did you never come on holiday with us when we were kids? ". I gulped at even asking the question avoiding eye contact. He replied quickly " didn’t you know – I had to work through my holiday to pay for your holiday. " I felt so ashamed as 40 years of resentment fell of the cliff. Why didn’t you tell us?  Dad said " you never asked ".

 

In order to understand my own sex, drug, alcohol and love addictions and where I am placed within it I had to give myself the GIFT OF HISTORY. It is challenging but more fulfilling than blaming the family – understanding is the route to acceptance and personal responsiblility. Blaming and complaining got me nowhere. 

 

So todays meditative task is to ask your folks, your friends, your families all the questions you were afraid to ask and ask yourself why you waited so long to get the answers

Tags: bisexual , Bradshaw , child abuse , fetish , gay , lies , parents , secrets , Sexuality

8 Responses to “Family Secrets & Cover-Ups”

1. Thanks for your last two blogs, I’ve really enjoyed them, my experience so far is I’ve learnt more about my father especially, in my time in recovery, than ever before in my life, we’re currrently putting together a family tree, and have gone back almost 3 generations discovering alcoholism and more.

    

   sophie

   March 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 pmpermalink

2. . . . this is very much what I had to do Sophie in order to find solice and perspective. If everyone started the family tree process around dysfunction not just the impact of alcohol abuse, lives would be more productive. Welcome to my new blog Sophie & do as Bill W suggested – pass it on for others to subscribe.

    

   theswarmite

   March 23rd, 2009 at 1:55 pmpermalink

3. Madge; you have done it again.

   Strong enough to ask the questions, strong enough to listen to the answsers, and now strong enough to share.

   Thank you.

   A few years ago, my sister Jenny called me one Saturday afternoon. She said to me:

   First, sit down.

   Second, you know that you are the first of five kids in our family?

   Well, actually, you are the second of six.

   And a new adventure started…………

   Love, Steve.

    

   Steve Blower

   March 23rd, 2009 at 5:15 pmpermalink

4. . . . the truth always breeds new journeys Steve ( as we well know ). Thanx for your support around me telling it like it is. Madge.

    

   theswarmite

   March 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pmpermalink

5. You’re right. You couldn’t make this up.
   I’m so glad you’re sharing this journey of self-discovery.

   It’s sad that growing up around addictions and abuse are so common, and yet still considered somewhat shameful. Alcoholism was my family ‘secret’ (only it was very visible if you actually looked). I refused to be ashamed by that past once out of my teens, and then refused to keep it secret. Much to the chagrin of my family. I found once you do that, it melts much of it’s ‘bogeyman’ qualities away.

   Thank you for this blog, Madge!

    

   Lafang

   March 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 pmpermalink

6. This is why I am sharing so openly LaFang – one, I am totally shameless about my past and present and two, to assist others in the demolition of shame.
   Thanx for your input on the birth of my blog.

    

   theswarmite

   March 23rd, 2009 at 10:05 pmpermalink

7. You are so very welcome! I’m obviously enjoying ‘this’ and getting quite a lot out of your writing. Wishing you all the best with this and everything!

    

   Lafang

   March 24th, 2009 at 10:07 pmpermalink

8. Over here in Austria the family secrets are kept in the cellar…
   Great blog again. I know most of my family history as I communicate well with my Mum. She was from a generation who just knuckled down, usually against all odds, and got on with supporting us kids, without any help from a dad who buggered off when I was about 4. Forgiveness is the key to letting go the past and living in the present. I found the part about your dad working while you were on holiday especially touching, selfless service one might say.

   Speak soon…

    

   droid

   March 24th, 2009 at 11:45 pmpermalink