Wanting Cherishing

I am having real issues with my dad.  It seems I'm not the only one.  (My parents are using the D word, which they haven't for 20 years.  And what is scary is before I was on the side of 'work it out,' this time I'm on the side of 'how the hell did mom put up with this for so long?') But I realized when talking with the family shrink (of course my family has a resident shrink that is our go-to person when my parents are having trouble with each other or the kids are having problems with on of our parents) that my standards for my dad are so very low.  The shrink wanted me to phrase what I wanted from my dad, rather than what I didn't want.  And I was like, 'well, what I want may not be realistic and I'm not going to cut down on relatedness to my dad because he won't give me what I want.'  But he had me work on what I wanted:  my dad to have kindness and empathy for me and to cherish me.  Yup.  That's the big thing this girl would like more than anything else: her dad to cherish her.  And I don't think he will.  He is too busy being 'genuine' (and he tries to make it sound like he is a better person than other people for being 'genuine') to worry about being kind.  He is genuinely an asshole right now.

Nate cherishes me, but he is so fucking busy!  I found myself cutting back on seeing other people (even though we have neither slept together, nor had a conversation about not seeing other people) and now I'm really wondering if I can have a relationship where I get to see someone once a week and have text messages in between but not even phone calls.

There are 2 men who are pursuing (does anyone else spell that as persue and then have spell check change that to peruse?  Oy--I'm too tired to be blogging) me pretty hard, and I'm kind of exhausted by each one.  I e-mailed both (whom I've avoided contacting for several days) and said "I'm just too overwhelmed to meet right now" and they both got "no you're not" and I'm like Annie Oakley (Yes I am!).

I keep trying to sleep and keep getting woken up by my angst around my dad.  I keep wishing I could say the thing that would make him decide he genuinely wants his family in his life and he will want to be aware of their needs too.