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Trying to Fix a Broken Childhood thru Dating
Trying to Fix a Broken Childhood thru Dating
Dion Thompson has only had one serious relationship. It started when she was 14, and she ended up getting marrying when she was 22.
“I couldn’t do anything without him,” she admits. “I looked to him for approval for everything. My mother made the comment one time, ‘why are you so attached to him. You probably look at him as a father-figure.’ I was like ‘no, that’s not true.’ But once we separated and divorced and I had to deal with all of that, I thought about what she had said. It was true.
“I looked to him for everything that I didn’t get from my father. I think that’s probably what damaged our relationship, our marriage. It was rocky before we got married. Then, it was good for a little while but got rocky again. I had issues of my own that I didn’t deal with growing up. He was there, and he helped me through a lot of things. I learned from that, being with him and breaking up with him and going through and learning how to deal with things on my own after we split.
Twenty-six years after her divorce, Dion says she hasn’t been in another relationship. She says she fears the void left by her father and ex-husband make her too needy and that this weight will crush any serious relationship she tries to start.
After her separation, Dion, now 48, went to counseling for five months. She says she learned a lot from her marriage, but it was the break up that really helped, forcing her to deal with long-festering emotions head-on.
“After I broke up with my husband, I was just out there doing everything, partying, sleeping around. Just doing anything to make myself feel good and to get over all the hurt and pain and everything that I went through with my ex-husband. I never really did all those things that you do as a teenager because my life was just focused on him.
“I guess I felt I had to get it out of my system. It’s been about four or five years now that I’ve just focused on work, my kids and my house and just doing other things to build myself up.”
Dion’s teen son and daughter live with their father in the next county. They have been with him for 10 years and stay at Dion’s house once in a while, over weekends and on holidays. Dion’s ex-husband has remarried. He has a son with his wife and a daughter from another relationship. She says the four kids have a good relationship with him.
“Sometimes, it’s shaky for me and I kind of regret allowing them to go out there. I struggled with it for the first three years that they were there because their father and I don’t have a good relationship now at all. We hardly talk to each other so that made it even harder.”
Dion says she feels he is mostly responsible for her rocky relationship with her kids, but she says she’s glad her relationship with her son has improved over the last couple of years.
“One of the main reasons I decided to let them go was so that they could have a father in their life because I didn’t want them to grow up without one the way I did. I’m missing out on a lot, but I think I’m better with it now.
Dion Thompson has only one good memory of her father. It was when, after years away from the family, he returned and gave her a party for her 13th birthday.
“We had a good time,” says Dion, now 44. “It was a house party, and everyone from the neighborhood was there. He did the music, and we just had fun, partied.
When she was six, Dion emigrated from Trinidad with her family. Shortly after, her mother moved Dion and her siblings from New York City to Baltimore to escape Dion’s physically abusive dad.
“My mother talked to him a lot, off and on, and we kept in contact with my grandmother, his mother,” Dion says. “Always, he knew where we were. He would get stories through my grandmother about how we were doing and everything like that, but he never really called us or talked to us. He never really checked up on us like I thought he should have, as a father.”
That was mostly because Dion’s father had started, and was raising, another family. Dion’s mother has six children. She had four kids, three boys and Dion, with Dion’s father. From what Dion has pieced together, her father has nine children. She and her brothers were mixed in between half-siblings. Dion is the same age as a half-sister, and one of Dion’s brothers is the same age as another half-sister.
“I have a younger sister; I think my father married her mother,” she says. “She’s 35, 34 years old now. I can’t tell you exactly when or how old I was when we found out he had his other family, but he has always been with other women.”
Regardless, Dion says her mother never spoke badly about her father.
“She just said, ‘you guys need to talk to your father. You guys need to learn to forgive him for everything,’” Dion recalls. “That’s what she always says, even today.”
Dion says her mother practices what she preaches. She was working at Johns Hopkins when he went to the hospital one night and hit her so hard in the hallway that he knocked her out.
“Until this day, I will say to my mother ‘he used to beat you.’ And she will say, ‘he never beat me; he just hit me one good time.’ You know, he would always only hit her one good time.”
Dion says her mother must be a walking angel because she has forgiven her father for all of his transgressions over the years: all the beatings and cheating, all the hurtful language and all the neglect of their kids and the sexual abuse of Dion.
“I told her, and she said that she never knew exactly what he did,” Dion recalls of their phone conversation nine years ago. “I said ‘why did you need to know the details?’ And she said ‘you never really told me anything; what exactly did he do?’ So when I was telling her all this stuff, she just got really, really quiet and she just said ‘okay, I’ll talk to you later.’”
But her mother once again has become a co-conspirator in the latest episode of parental betrayal, taking Dion’s dad back two years ago. Dion says she has absolved herself of the pain of their reconciliation, although she says she still worries, as the couple plans to move to Atlanta.
“He can change at any time and do anything to her and we’re not around. When I picked my mother and him up from the bus station, I had no emotion whatsoever after I saw him after all these years. It was like ‘oh well, he’s here.’ Watching him and my mother interact was really sickening a little bit. My biggest concern is about her being with him again.”
Another concern, Dion admits, is that sooner or later she will have to have dealings with her father.
“Just a week ago, I had a discussion with my mother. I was like ‘you know, after all these years he hasn’t been here. He has been in jail for seven years, and he came out and all you guys have been doing is talking about each other. What about a relationship with us? Is he really trying to have a relationship with us or is it just about you two.’ When he had the opportunity to sit and talk with me at the kitchen table, he didn’t.”
This impending confrontation with her father will be a judgment day of sorts, with a replaying of all past sins and feelings, forcing her to confront how her father’s transgressions have affected her to this very day.
And that is a common trend these days. High expectations for men, nothing for women. Take a woman to an inexpensive restaurant. He’Take a woman to an inexpensive restaurant. He’s they’re they’re all there are all kinds of rules for men. We don’
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Dion Thompson has only had one serious relationship. It started when she was 14, and she ended up getting marrying when she was 22.
“I couldn’t do anything without him,” she admits. “I looked to him for approval for everything. My mother made the comment one time, ‘why are you so attached to him. You probably look at him as a father-figure.’ I was like ‘no, that’s not true.’ But once we separated and divorced and I had to deal with all of that, I thought about what she had said. It was true.
“I looked to him for everything that I didn’t get from my father. I think that’s probably what damaged our relationship, our marriage. It was rocky before we got married. Then, it was good for a little while but got rocky again. I had issues of my own that I didn’t deal with growing up. He was there, and he helped me through a lot of things. I learned from that, being with him and breaking up with him and going through and learning how to deal with things on my own after we split.
Twenty-six years after her divorce, Dion says she hasn’t been in another relationship. She says she fears the void left by her father and ex-husband make her too needy and that this weight will crush any serious relationship she tries to start.
After her separation, Dion, now 48, went to counseling for five months. She says she learned a lot from her marriage, but it was the break up that really helped, forcing her to deal with long-festering emotions head-on.
“After I broke up with my husband, I was just out there doing everything, partying, sleeping around. Just doing anything to make myself feel good and to get over all the hurt and pain and everything that I went through with my ex-husband. I never really did all those things that you do as a teenager because my life was just focused on him.
“I guess I felt I had to get it out of my system. It’s been about four or five years now that I’ve just focused on work, my kids and my house and just doing other things to build myself up.”
Dion’s teen son and daughter live with their father in the next county. They have been with him for 10 years and stay at Dion’s house once in a while, over weekends and on holidays. Dion’s ex-husband has remarried. He has a son with his wife and a daughter from another relationship. She says the four kids have a good relationship with him.
“Sometimes, it’s shaky for me and I kind of regret allowing them to go out there. I struggled with it for the first three years that they were there because their father and I don’t have a good relationship now at all. We hardly talk to each other so that made it even harder.”
Dion says she feels he is mostly responsible for her rocky relationship with her kids, but she says she’s glad her relationship with her son has improved over the last couple of years.
“One of the main reasons I decided to let them go was so that they could have a father in their life because I didn’t want them to grow up without one the way I did. I’m missing out on a lot, but I think I’m better with it now.
Dion Thompson has only one good memory of her father. It was when, after years away from the family, he returned and gave her a party for her 13th birthday.
“We had a good time,” says Dion, now 44. “It was a house party, and everyone from the neighborhood was there. He did the music, and we just had fun, partied.
When she was six, Dion emigrated from Trinidad with her family. Shortly after, her mother moved Dion and her siblings from New York City to Baltimore to escape Dion’s physically abusive dad.
“My mother talked to him a lot, off and on, and we kept in contact with my grandmother, his mother,” Dion says. “Always, he knew where we were. He would get stories through my grandmother about how we were doing and everything like that, but he never really called us or talked to us. He never really checked up on us like I thought he should have, as a father.”
That was mostly because Dion’s father had started, and was raising, another family. Dion’s mother has six children. She had four kids, three boys and Dion, with Dion’s father. From what Dion has pieced together, her father has nine children. She and her brothers were mixed in between half-siblings. Dion is the same age as a half-sister, and one of Dion’s brothers is the same age as another half-sister.
“I have a younger sister; I think my father married her mother,” she says. “She’s 35, 34 years old now. I can’t tell you exactly when or how old I was when we found out he had his other family, but he has always been with other women.”
Regardless, Dion says her mother never spoke badly about her father.
“She just said, ‘you guys need to talk to your father. You guys need to learn to forgive him for everything,’” Dion recalls. “That’s what she always says, even today.”
Dion says her mother practices what she preaches. She was working at Johns Hopkins when he went to the hospital one night and hit her so hard in the hallway that he knocked her out.
“Until this day, I will say to my mother ‘he used to beat you.’ And she will say, ‘he never beat me; he just hit me one good time.’ You know, he would always only hit her one good time.”
Dion says her mother must be a walking angel because she has forgiven her father for all of his transgressions over the years: all the beatings and cheating, all the hurtful language and all the neglect of their kids and the sexual abuse of Dion.
“I told her, and she said that she never knew exactly what he did,” Dion recalls of their phone conversation nine years ago. “I said ‘why did you need to know the details?’ And she said ‘you never really told me anything; what exactly did he do?’ So when I was telling her all this stuff, she just got really, really quiet and she just said ‘okay, I’ll talk to you later.’”
But her mother once again has become a co-conspirator in the latest episode of parental betrayal, taking Dion’s dad back two years ago. Dion says she has absolved herself of the pain of their reconciliation, although she says she still worries, as the couple plans to move to Atlanta.
“He can change at any time and do anything to her and we’re not around. When I picked my mother and him up from the bus station, I had no emotion whatsoever after I saw him after all these years. It was like ‘oh well, he’s here.’ Watching him and my mother interact was really sickening a little bit. My biggest concern is about her being with him again.”
Another concern, Dion admits, is that sooner or later she will have to have dealings with her father.
“Just a week ago, I had a discussion with my mother. I was like ‘you know, after all these years he hasn’t been here. He has been in jail for seven years, and he came out and all you guys have been doing is talking about each other. What about a relationship with us? Is he really trying to have a relationship with us or is it just about you two.’ When he had the opportunity to sit and talk with me at the kitchen table, he didn’t.”
This impending confrontation with her father will be a judgment day of sorts, with a replaying of all past sins and feelings, forcing her to confront how her father’s transgressions have affected her to this very day.
And that is a common trend these days. High expectations for men, nothing for women. Take a woman to an inexpensive restaurant. He’Take a woman to an inexpensive restaurant. He’s they’re they’re all there are all kinds of rules for men. We don’
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