My therapist is away for 3 weeks and then I'm away for 3 weeks and I won't see her until the middle of July, so I'm going to post here to contine the work we began during our last 2 sessions.  (I'm also attending a bi-weekly support group in the same clinic for more general support, but that's not the place to discuss specific issues.)

We were starting to work on the anger I have towards my father, anger that I didn't realize I had until recently.  Briefly, when I was 19 my parents divorced, and my father remarried when I was 21 (6 months after I got married).  At the time I believe I was trying to be "grown up" about the whole thing, and kept up a relationship with my dad and his new wife.  After we moved to a different province and city, that relationship started to become, well, strained.  I began to realize that I was the one who was initiating contact, it was very rare for them to call me.  Eventually there was a period of about 9 years when there was very little contact.  It took me being admitted to hospital during a severe depressive episode for my dad to begin calling again.  That was just a year before he passed away.  That wasn't enough time to rebuild a strong, trusting relationship where I could have talked to him. 

So now I'm trying to resolve this anger without being able to talk to him.  My therapist suggested I begin by writing letters to him from the perspective of the 19 year old, then from an older self.  I've been doing that and I seem to find more and more things I'm angry about - things he did and didn't do.  It is helping getting these feelings onto paper, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the letters when they're done except I will probably share them with my sisters because they know I'm having this anger issue.

I'll be seeing my dad's widow at my niece's wedding reception while I'm away and I'm concerned about what I might say to her.  I'm having a hard time with the fact that she and my dad didn't come to my daughter's wedding, yet here she is travelling across the country for my niece's.  That sounds really childish now that I've written it but it's what I'm feeling!  Do I tell her about my hurt and anger or just suck it up and be nice?

Sorry for the long post but this is really preying on my mind right now.