The Calm After a Storm

My dad and I had a big fight earlier. When I mean big, I mean really big, as in resulting to a shouting match, with me crying till I can barely breathe anymore, and him walking out of the apartment, slamming the door, with tears in his eyes.

I don't know who's fault it is anyway. Of course I would blame him, and of course he would blame me for the start of that fight. But now, it doesn't matter who started the fight, or whose fault it is. The fight led to an opening up on both our sides of what we really feel right now, and an opening up of the past hurts I haven't the gall to tell him then.

He told me that he feels that I don't love him, that I don't respect him anymore. I didn't know he felt that way. I didn't know he felt the resentment I feel towards him. I didn't know that he felt that somehow I had hated him, and that I had little respect of him now. I thought I had hidden it from him so well. I thought I had already gotten over my hatred of his philandering ways. I thought wrong. And he felt it still.

And then I told him my reasons. And he got mad still. He told me that after all he sacrificed for us, I still look at that tiny dot in the whole picture. He told me he isn't perfect. He told me why can't I look past that tiny flaw and realized how much he had sacrificed for us.

I started to believe him. I started to berate myself for inflicting this pain on him right now by bringing up something so inconsequential such as his flings. I started to feel pretty stupid about being hurt when I found out about his past affairs. I started to cringe with embarrassment with my flair for the dramatics.

I started questioning myself. Was I wrong to feel that way about him? Was he right. He's not perfect. Why can't I look past his flaws and see how much he had sacrificed for us? Should I say sorry to him?

I know deep inside me that he's right in a few things. Maybe for him I was the ungrateful child, that I kept bringing up his women when he had done so much for us, his family.

But this rebel in me couldn't just accept the fact that I should look past those flings. How could I? I had harbored this resentment inside of me for so long now that I feel I just couldn't turn it off when he didn't even say he's sorry. I guess that's why I hadn't forgiven him yet. It's the fact that he doesn't believe he had done anything wrong to my mom and to his children. He told me those were just flings! He told me that at least he didn't leave his family for those women. Wait, isn't that wrong? I mean, should we be grateful for that? Isn't there something wrong with the way he looked at the whole picture?

Maybe what I ask of him is just to own up to the wrongs he had done, and say sorry. Is that so hard? How could I forgive him when he feels that he hasn't done anything wrong?

Is my perspective of the whole picture wrong? Should I have just ignored his past affairs? Shouldn't I have gotten hurt? Am I the ungrateful child?

I don't know. Many times my friends tell me that at least my dad stayed with us, that he didn't leave us.

Should that make me feel better? Should I be happy about that?

Is it me who is on the wrong here? I honestly don't know. Sometimes I think that everything my dad's done for us is overshadowed by his strings of women.

Am I narrow minded? I really need someone to tell me, to show me a different view of things.