Dear Sahaj, I’m a first-generation Assyrian eldest daughter with four siblings (three girls and one boy). My parents moved us from Iraq to Canada and, finally, to the United States, where they lived the American Dream. They worked really hard for very little and finally were able to buy their own liquor store. As teens, my sisters and I worked with them for years - sometimes in unsafe conditions (working at the store alone at night, etc.). They became more successful and were able to buy additional businesses. Our brother, who is 10 years younger than me, was able to jump into the already successful family businesses and help manage and expand even more.
Now we are all adults and our mother passed away five years ago. My brother has continued to work the family businesses, benefiting financially from them. Since our father is now elderly, I asked him what his estate plans were. His answer? My sisters and I get roughly 1 percent value of the estate in cash while our brother gets everything else. To say I was stunned was an understatement.
My mother wanted things equal between all four of us, but my dad and brother took it upon themselves to sign everything over to my brother. My dad’s explanation? Tradition. We were married and no longer his responsibility. All of the work we did in sweat equity didn’t matter to him. I wrote my father a respectful email detailing how my sisters and I helped and how we were still part of the family. No response other than a text from my brother saying to stop waiting for our father to die and to leave them alone. I’ve been villainized and given the silent treatment all because I expected an equitable share of my family’s estate when my father passes away. How do I get over the betrayal? I am sick to my stomach whenever I think about it.
- Betrayed Daughter
Betrayed Daughter: Your dad’s behaviors and choices say a lot more about his beliefs about his role as a dad - and how he sees the roles of men and women more generally - than they do about you as a daughter or person. But that doesn’t make this betrayal hurt any less. You sacrificed a lot of your childhood to help your parents grow their business, and your dad ignored that hard work and casted you aside because of your gender.
You and your dad firmly believe your perspectives to be fair and true - but are both driven by differing principles. You believe you deserve an equitable share of the family estate because you contributed and are also his child. He believes that as a father he was meant to get his daughters married off to a partner who can support them and pass along his estate to a son who can use it to take care of his family. Trying to understand where he is coming from doesn’t diminish how hurtful his choices are, but it may help you to not internalize his beliefs. After all, betrayal can reinforce self-doubt, decrease your self-esteem, and cause anxiety or depression.
To understand what you may need right now, you want to clarify the most specific way you are hurting. For example, if the most hurtful thing is that you aren’t getting an equitable share and you were planning for it, this may require you to rethink your own financial planning. If it’s that your dad is inflexible in his patriarchal beliefs, then you may want to rethink what this means for your relationship with him. If you reflect honestly on what your experiences with your dad have been up until now, I imagine “tradition” will come up in other ways that caused smaller hurts in the family or relationship you have with him and have yet to be processed. Even more, if you find that you are most hurt by the fact that he’s not responding or acknowledging you, you may explore approaching an in-person conversation with him - without your brother. And finally, if the most hurtful part to you is that your brother and dad are giving you the silent treatment and villainizing you, it may mean finding ways to grieve the loss of these important relationships.
If you struggle to identify or sit with the uncomfortable and painful emotions surfacing for you, it makes sense that you feel sick to your stomach - a physical symptom of the betrayal you feel. The world as you know it has been threatened and your mind and body are essentially in fight-or-flight mode right now. What we don’t process will find a way to surface. I highly recommend working with a professional or leaning on other family members (maybe your sisters?) or close friends for a safe space to move through these feelings.
Betrayal signifies a deep sense of loss, and to “get over” it, you must acknowledge and honor the loss. Accepting your dad’s limitations or the situation he has put you in doesn’t mean you become passive or resigned, but rather it frees you from constantly trying to change something you can’t. This can help liberate you from what you want to be true, and learn to live in the reality of what is true.