Loving Someone You Don’t Really Know

Growing up with my father in a patriarchal home

My father and I don’t have a lot of moments.

When I call to say Happy Birthday or Happy Father’s Day, he thanks me and then hands the phone back to my mother. That’s how nearly all of our conversations go—short, polite, and quickly passed along.

Not all of it was bad. I love my dad. There were flashes of softness: the time he wore a giant sombrero all day on his birthday because we asked him to, or the way he’d quietly let me out of time-out early when my mother was the one who sent me there.

But those moments were exceptions. Most of my childhood revolved around one goal: don’t make him mad. In the patriarchal environment I grew up in, that wasn’t just a guideline—it was the foundation.

Life in His Orbit

During summer breaks, the house had to be spotless before he got home from work at 3 p.m. Dinner had to be cooked and on the table soon after. The rhythm of the household ran on his schedule, his moods.

When I got suspended from school once, my mother didn’t tell him right away. She called my oldest sister instead. We all knew what to hide and when to hide it.

It wasn’t just about protecting ourselves—it was about protecting the image. My father valued perfection, and when something cracked that image, we scrambled to cover it. Keeping the peace often meant keeping the truth from him.

One of my earliest memories is of my oldest sister sneaking out of the house. My father found out. He gathered all of her belongings, stuffed them into garbage bags, and threw them out into the yard. It was a scene I’ll never forget—not just because it was dramatic, but because it set a precedent.

Getting kicked out wasn’t an empty threat. It was a real possibility.

And that’s where one of my deepest core beliefs took root:

If my parents could so quickly throw you out of their home, their love could be just as conditional.

I saw it in other moments too. My brother didn’t graduate college in the timeline my parents wanted, and he had to scramble to graduate just so he didn’t get kicked out. It didn’t take many examples to ingrain the lesson: love could be lost if you didn’t meet expectations.

My father also held grudges. Once, he didn’t speak to my sister for at least a year because she talked back to him. That silence was its own punishment—one that lasted long after the initial disagreement. One that stung.

Love Without Language

I don’t think my father was a bad person, or that he didn’t love us. I think he loved us in the way he knew how—by working hard, by providing, by holding the family to his standards. But in the world he grew up in, men weren’t taught to be openly affectionate or emotionally available.

In a patriarchal family, everyone has a role. His was to lead. Ours was to follow. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t love—it just means the love didn’t always look the way I wanted it to.

To be honest, I don’t know much about my father beyond those roles. I don’t know what he did in the Vietnam War, or what his own childhood felt like. I know that his father died at a young age. My mother filled my life with stories and lessons in the kitchen. My father, on the other hand, was mostly silent—stoic—until he’d had a few beers and some VSOP.

That’s when the stories would come out—around the dinner table, after the bottle was shared and the room was warm with alcohol. But even those moments are blurry, the edges softened by drink and distance.

His affection was quieter, more symbolic: opening a bottle of beer for you as a sign of respect. It’s something I didn’t recognize as care until I was much older—after twenty-something years of living with more fear than ease around him.

The Space Between Us

When I look back now, I see how much of our relationship was defined by the space between us—the words unsaid, the truths unshared. There’s a certain sadness in realizing you love someone but don’t really know them. And maybe they don’t really know you either.

But within those constraints, there were still gestures—his quiet ways of showing care. Maybe that’s the only love he knew how to give. And maybe part of understanding him is accepting that, even if it will never be the version of love I once wished for.