Challenged to a duel?

As I think about meeting my father, and as I dream about this meeting, I really see him outside of my glass front door. I am standing sideways to him. I’m smiling casually and calling the police while he bangs on the door and yells. Or maybe he is moody and dark, trying to make eye contact and communicate his anger telepathically. 

Either way, I am not engaging him. I’m not going out, not talking, not even directly looking at him. 

This is a shift. 

In the past, I have felt that I HAD to go out. I saw myself facing him, saw him losing it on me. In some scenarios, he pulled a knife. In some scenarios, I recorded him on video. In some scenarios, I talked or yelled over him. 

But all scenarios were very painful. Why wouldn’t they be? Who wants to be yelled at? Especially by their abusive father?

I replayed this traumatic event over and over in my mind until I had something like “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” if that’s even a thing. 

But now I wonder: why did I feel I would need to go out at all?

My mother called me conflict avoidant. Is that why? A part of me was looking for closure. Is that why? 

The real reason: my birth father instilled deeply within us the reflex of shame, and punishment. If birth father is angry, you have done wrong. That is that. And so you’d better go to him, and take your whipping. Just get it over with. Or it will be worse later on. It was a very deep rule. Maybe one of his deepest rules. 

But I have renounced this shame, along with all of his rules. 

I will not go out. I will it engage. 

Birth mother can call me conflict avoidant all she wants. This isn’t the old days, with a primitive duel to settle conflicts: with those refusing such a duel living with the brand of “coward” their whole life. Even if it was a duel, the wise thing would be not to go out. The young and foolish think of being called a coward. The shrewd recognize it as a trap. Pride comes before the fall. Think of the children. I will not go out. 

It’s what the police would advise. 

It’s what my counsellors would advise. 

It’s what my wife passionately wants. 

It’s what my gut feels is right. 

I see it in my dreams, and I feel peace. 

I will not go out. I owe him no final word, no final conflict. I know enough about myself that I do not need some final test of mettle with the man who gave me life, to know that I am a “real man.” I have fought him in my sleep, and am standing up to him now. The greatest victory is to walk away. 

I will not engage. I will not go out. 

***

As I think more about this, I realize that dad has always used the principles of church discipline to demand that people meet him in this sort of a verbal duel. According to Scripture is, if you have a problem with someone, you need to go to them directly to deal with it. This is supposed to be a protection against gossiping about the person: if you have something to say, go say it to them!

However, dad twisted this scripture so that anytime there was an issue – even if it was just people not really liking him and wanting to have distance, which is normal in life — he conceived of it as a matter of church discipline. They needed to come to him. And them coming to him meant that he would have his chance to have it out with him.

My birth father used another scripture. There is a verse that says, “if anyone has anything against you, leave your sacrifice on the altar. First go, be reconciled to your brother, then offer your sacrifice.”

One time, I would not allow my birth father to hold my newborn baby, because he had just spoiled our family vacation, and was visibly filled with rage. We were in the middle of a conflict. For this reason, he cut off contact for six months, then angrily said, “you knew I had something against you. But you did not come to me to be reconciled. Therefore, all your sacrifices these past six months have been in vain!”

But this is not a verse about a narcissistic abuser feeling offended because a father set a boundary to protect his child. It is not about an abused child being reeked into more abuse. This is about a moment when you realize you have genuinely sinned against someone. If you have genuinely sinned, go and make that right, and then apologize for it. Don’t just apologize to God and expect it to be fine.

We tend to think of Hitler only through the lens of the death camps. But in his time, he was a well-known and celebrated political leader. He was also a narcissist and a psychopath, as seen in his autobiography, mein kempf “my struggle.”

Although he had many deficiencies, he always knew he could win in a person to person verbal combad. He would always try to steer situations in this direction. Once on trial, he knew that if he could take the podium, he would be exonerated. Even be able to finger his accusers with the blame. Which he did. He would find ways to have private meetings with world leaders. All smiles and handshakes in public, but something mysteriously happened behind closed doors. Leaders would come stumbling out bleary-eyed, confused, and not sure what they had just been talked into or how. They were not ready for that type of verbal and psychological assault.

My birth father knows that when it comes to yelling matches, and verbal assaults and manipulation, he can win. That’s where he wants to draw me out. And that is precisely where I will not go. 

And I am not weak for refusing this.