Have been going through some heavy stuff in recent months, and it has all come to a head a bit in the past week or so (sorry about the absence of my comments on your works!). There�s more to it than this one issue, but what I�m currently dealing with is my adoptive Dad, who told me in July that he has had inappropriate sexual thoughts about children. I have always had my suspicions about my Dad (who I didn�t grow up with and only really got to know when I was 19), so my son has never been left alone with him (big relief for me to know that I don�t have to carry fear and guilt about any potential negligence there). Anyway, I love my Dad, so I attempted to create a setting whereby all three of us could maintain relationships within safe boundaries. We live interstate from one another, but visit regularly, so I said that we would have to arrange our own accommodation if we were to visit him, and that he would have to do the same if he were to come here. His response was to call me autocratic and he then attempted to bully me into dropping these boundaries. So I said that he needed to respect my simple and accepting boundaries or make the choice and walk away. I didn�t hear from him for a further five months. A few weeks ago, he called me as though nothing had happened and asked how I am. I told him I wasn�t sure I wanted to have that conversation and he asked why. I told him that I felt more was in order than to simply call and ask how I am. He asked what I meant. I said I felt an apology was in order. He said, �I�m not seeking an apology.� Suffice it to say, at this point I hung up the phone in disgust. Since then, I have received an angry e-mail from him, because he discovered I had talked to my grandmother (his mother), about what happened. He of course had not mentioned to his parents that there was a problem between us at all, because he, at age sixty, still keeps secrets from them. I felt they had a right to know that we had had a falling out. Anyway, below is the letter I have written to him in the past 24 hours. I felt that although it�s not a standard �writing� in an artistic sense, it�s still writing that I have put a lot of heart and soul into, so I thought I�d post it here. (Names have been removed of course).

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Dear Dad, As 2004 comes to a close, I wanted to express a few of my thoughts to you about what has occurred between us. Once I have sent this letter, I plan to leave all of this behind me and move on to happier things. You may not agree with or like my point of view below, but please try to accept that it is my perspective, and this is an honest expression of my position. Firstly, you said in your most recent communication to me that �Whilst I do not understand what you are doing with the relationship we had, I will respect your wish to refrain from contact.� You need to understand that the removal of contact was a choice that you took, not me. I presented my boundaries, which were designed to keep our relationship alive and strong, and after being bullied by you, gave you the choice to respect them or walk away � and you walked away, not contacting me for a further five months after that. I did not make that choice on your behalf. It is not reasonable that you should then lay responsibility on me for the lack of contact. That said, after seeing the choices you have made, that you were prepared to walk away from pretty much the only remaining family you have, and that five months later you are still not prepared to take responsibility for your actions, you�re now right � I don�t want contact anymore. As much as this state of affairs has saddened me deeply, I don�t feel that it is possible to repair the damage that has been done. Your lack of preparedness to even try to see this from my point of view has only served to heighten my concerns about how things would turn out. Certainly I will not drop those boundaries that I have set, in order to have a relationship with you. As mentioned previously, I have a parental responsibility to put my child�s protection ahead of your ego. I have a responsibility to myself to be self-protective, too. Finally, as someone who loves you, I felt it was my responsibility to protect you from potential accusations, as well. It is disappointing to me that you have not seen clear to even attempting to understand this point of view and that you were prepared to try to bully me into dropping those protective measures. Do you think that I never had my suspicions before you brought the issue out into the open? Did you never wonder why I never left [my son] completely alone with you, why he never even went to the toilet with you? The truth is that I was glad you brought up the issue, because I had wanted to set up those exact boundaries for the past six years, but felt unable to do so without some sort of out-in-the-open grounds to work from. You mentioned in your last phone call to me that you are not seeking an apology. It really needs to be said bluntly: I have nothing for which to apologise. I have done nothing wrong and have absolutely no regrets about the choices I have made to protect you, myself and my son, in this situation. You opened the door by telling me of your sexual thoughts about children, and you had to know that I would have to consequently set appropriate boundaries in order to continue our relationship at all. I had hoped that you would be able to see that I was trying my best to create a setting where our relationship, as well as your relationship with [my son], could be maintained. The only thing I am sorry about is that you have been so easily prepared to sacrifice everything we built together over the past fifteen years, over something as simple as finding your own accommodation when you visit [us]. Most people with my history would have cut you off immediately after you revealed your sexual thoughts about children. It astounds me that you haven�t seemed to realise the fact that, for a person in my situation to be even remotely accepting and accommodating of an issue like yours, shows an enormous amount of love for you, particularly with my history of having been sexually abused. It�s disappointing to me that you have not seen clear to realising this fact at least. I had hoped that you might be grateful that I was trying to make things work instead of instantly closing the door on our relationship, which I would have been fully entitled to do. Back to the issue of apologies: Dad, you have never, not even once, apologised to me for any of your own misbehaviour towards me over the years, and on this particular occasion I am unwilling to accept anything less than a genuine, heart-felt apology. I�m sure you knew that the �apology� I mentioned in our last phone conversation was supposed to come from you, so to come back with such a response as �I�m not seeking an apology,� was a very offensive and bullying thing to do. It�s interesting that it wasn�t a situation that particularly surprised me though. Perhaps you haven�t noticed this yet, so I�ll point it out to you: you need to understand that bullying me was not ever going to resolve this situation. And now, after all the bullying that has come from you, nothing can. That�s too bad, I suppose. I have one final issue to cover. You said, �Please respect my request to NOT discuss such matters with Mum or any member of my family. It is none of their business and you have no right to involve them.� 1. Like it or not, they are members of my family too, and as a result are as involved in my life as I want them to be and they want themselves to be; 2. Grandma and Grandpa have every right to know if members of their family have had a falling out, and I respect them too much to lie to them or keep secrets from them; 3. I have the right to discuss anything I choose with anyone I please; and 4. You have no right to tell me whom I can and cannot talk to, or what I can and cannot talk about. Ultimately, I do want you to know that I don�t hate you, that in fact I still love you a great deal, and that I truly wish you well in the future. I hope you live a long, happy and fruitful life. Farewell, and much love,