I’m Eliza Matthews, 32 years old, and despite building a successful career in finance, I’ve never been good enough for my father. The annual family reunion dinner was approaching, and I dreaded it more than usual this year. I had bought him a luxury car as a peace offering, hoping things would be different.
Little did I know that in my purse was a document that would change everything. By the end of the night I would finally understand why my father never loved me. Before I share my story, let me know where you’re watching from and hit that like and subscribe button if you’ve ever stood up to someone who refused to see your worth.
Trust me, my story might give you the courage you need too. Growing up in an affluent Boston suburb, our family appeared picture perfect to outsiders, but behind closed doors things were very different. My father, Richard Matthews, built his real estate development company from moderate beginnings into a multi-million dollar corporation.
He valued success, status, and respect above all else, including family relationships. From my earliest memories, he was never the kind of father who attended school plays or helped with homework. Instead, he was the harsh critic who pointed, out my B plus grades should have been A’s, who questioned why I wasn’t chosen as team captain, who reminded me that second place was just the first loser.
My mother, Caroline, was his opposite in many ways, warm and affectionate when he wasn’t around, but she became a different person in his presence, almost shrinking into herself, never contradicting him, never standing up for us kids when his criticism went too far. It was a dynamic I didn’t fully understand until I was much older, this strange power he held over her, the way her eyes would dart to him before she answered even simple questions about dinner plans or weekend activities. My siblings and I grew up within this complicated family structure.
My older brother, James, was three years my senior and undeniably the golden child. He played football, made the honor roll, dated the right girls from the right families, and eventually followed our father into the real estate business after graduating from father’s alma mater. Everything came easily to James, or at least that’s how it appeared to me.
He seemed to intuitively understand what would please our father, while I constantly guessed wrong. My younger sister, Sophia, two years behind me, somehow managed to navigate the murky waters of our father’s approval system better than I ever could. She wasn’t the overachiever that James was, but she had a natural charm and an almost supernatural ability to read the room, to know when to speak and when to fade into the background.
She became the family peacemaker, the one who could occasionally make father laugh when his mood darkened, the one who would slip into my room after particularly brutal criticism sessions to assure me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But for me, nothing was ever enough. I graduated top of my class in high school, secured a full academic scholarship to Cornell, while father pushed for me to attend his alma mater instead, seeing my choice as a rejection of his legacy.