My father is a big fan of sharing very “useful” advice that can easily ruin the happiest and most carefree life. I can’t imagine how his mother endured so many years and raised me with him, until, finally, her patience broke and she turned around and left with a huge suitcase and me.
I kept in touch with my father, I visited him sometimes on weekends, I spent New Year’s Eve with him, and he came to my graduation from university. But on any occasion he had valuable advice for me, how I should not always listen to my mother, or I will grow up a wimp, how I chose the wrong specialty, better to go to graduate school for another, and so on, up to the fact that at my wedding several times he suggested that I change my mind and get married later, but to someone else. He just didn’t like Sarah on the outside.
My mother asked my father not to listen, but I couldn’t just hang up in the middle of a conversation when he was quietly advising me to be stricter with my wife, so she wouldn’t think she was allowed to do anything and start walking around. I let Dad’s words pass my lips for a long time, for everything in my family was fine, and Sara and I had a great relationship, unlike my father and mother. It was only a recent incident that made me speak up to him.
He had asked us to join him for my birthday party. As a busy adult, I hadn’t planned on celebrating at all, but I felt compelled to call my father and mother. Surprisingly, they weren’t even chewing at the table.
– Well, son, you’re married now, it’s time to think about grandchildren,” my mother encouraged Sarah and I, winking at my wife.
– What grandchildren? – Dad cut in. – Who? Sara? They’re getting a divorce soon. I told you from the start that she wasn’t suitable… she didn’t have a good face, what can you do?..
Sara somehow thought my father was retelling my words, or rather our conversation. She took offense and ran away in tears. I had to apologize to her for a few more days and explain to her that my father had only a sharp tongue, not a mind. He tries to hurt everyone, not just her.
In his defense, my father just grinned stupidly and said: “So she will appreciate you if she decides you can leave her at any time. You just do not understand the psychology of women, it works very differently.
Not a father, but a woe. How could I teach him a lesson so that he would keep his advice to himself in the future?
