A lot of undiagnosed mental illness and trauma being passed on/projected.
A lot of undiagnosed mental illness and trauma being passed on/projected.
You're on to something there. His father was an alcoholic who hit his mom. He is also a militaristic religious zealot, and believes that all psychology is worthless, which doesn't help (I have nothing against religion per se, but he takes it to a whole new level).
He can't hold a conversation an inch deep, and seems to have little awareness of the various tools that one might use to think about—let alone talk about—deep subjects. Once any conversation turns toward meaningful or potentially healing territory, he immediately changes the subject—football, weather, news, dinner. He has low apparent self awareness, also indicated by various tics and noises of his that he seems completely oblivious of, and will do all the more loudly if alerted to them. I wish I could talk to him about his relationship with his own father, but I just can never get him to open up about anything. He refuses to come to my level, I must always go to his. I'm just ranting though now. These things don't make him a bad person, they just make it difficult to have a relationship with him. I digress...
I'm nearly 40, and dislike visiting them because he reverts to barking orders at me, treating me like a 13 year old. My mom has even called him out on this a few times.
He's really good with children, as he was a public HS teacher for years. It often seems like he relates to others as if they are all children too, though...
Once in a while he or I will say, wouldn't it be cool if we did X thing together? But it'll never happen, guaranteed. I've tried numerous times over the years to read an article, book, watch a movie, invite him to a show (he's a huge pipe organ lover, so last year I excitedly invited him to a pipe organ concert nearby, but he shockingly turned me down because he *said* he didn't want to drive 90 minutes), etc.
What he and I do together is on HIS terms, not mine.
MrGreen wrote:
Control, some people are just so insecure, all they can grasp to keep the lights on in their soul is control. Control is all they need. Anyway thats life, I;m not crying about it, but its just fascinating how self destructive and stupid some people turn out to be.
It runs in families.
I'm 44 now. I had a pretty bad childhood. The crux is I was kicked out by mum, at age 12, to go live with dad and his new wife (they had broken up long before). HE kicked me out at age 16 because his new wife hated me. So, kicked out twice, by age 16, by both parents in separate incidences. This is a thumbnail sketch.
I kind of slept on his role in this for a long time because to me, the most proximal abusers were female. I now don't trust women at all. What I realised, much later, is that dad had a type. That type, tended to be selfish and abusive.
So, he was simply pathetic, and did nothing to counter abuse from the horrible, horrible women he chose. What he liked to do was work, very hard (I inherited this tendency, to my benefit), pay the rent, buy food and sleep. To him, that was all the duties discharged and so the type I mention, were unsurprisingly overweight, work-shy and demanding.
They ruined his life, but not before they had a very good crack at ruining mine.
I'm Christian, and it took a while to get to the crux of the commandment of honouring your parents. What I realised is that it DOESN'T mean liking them. To honour is something different. I wouldn't be here without him. I like being here, most of the time. I acknowledge that. It's close enough to the spirit of what 'honour' means in this context.
In the end, I think the fundamental truth is none of us have any idea what we're doing. Life is too complex and we have too little information to consistently make optimal choices. We barely know ourselves... how can we possibly know anyone else?
I'm pretty sure this is what forgiveness is so yea, I've forgiven him but holy cow. Complete toxicity seemed to be his primary selection criteria in female partners.
Ah, Angry Birds was a good game.
My dad is around enough, but doesn’t make it easy.
He’s a hugely successful business owner, very driven early in life. Me and my brothers all work for him and he’s helped us do very well financially.
Unfortunately, he’s fallen apart as he’s gotten older. He’s addicted to pills, booze, gambling and the stock market. He kept my mom an alcoholic for 30 years so she would enable his own pursuits (wouldn’t let us intervene). She died of alcohol related causes a few years ago and he’s spiraled even more since. Loses a lot of money, although he’s still fine because he has a lot.
Being very successful has given him the belief that he always knows better, so he won’t listen if any of us try to reason with him. He comes into work a few times a week, but other than that, he’s mostly high/drunk all the time. I’m lucky if my kids get to see him in his right mind.
He can be very angry and hurtful at times, but he also tells me he loves me and is proud of me every once in a while. I take the bad with the good, but unfortunately there is a lot of bad. And the hardest part is it’s likely only going to get worse.
I wish I could convince him that there is a life that is so much more meaningful than the one he is resigning himself to.
Silver lining for me is that my parents and relatives habits have helped me become sober and level headed, and has given me perspective that I pass on to my kids. I’m grateful to my dad, and I tell him regularly, but I still plan on being a different father than he has been, particularly later in life.
Adult male and "bad dad" here. Unfortunately I was not able to be around during some vital development in my kids lives. Some of it was my own stupidity/trauma whatever, but also I was kept out of their lives deliberately by their mother and her family. Letters I sent were ignored nobody answered my phone calls, etc. This went on for years and years. Eventually I got over it the best I could and got on with my life.
Now my kids are people I hardly know and who don't like me based on some old stories about me that they grew up with. I'd like to know them, but as me, not that guy they think I am. I just don't see that happening for a while. But I'm here and I'll keep trying to be here and strong and healthy for as long as I can
I'll say one thing their mom was a nut but she was physically strong and healthy and that's a big reason why I was attracted to her. So if nothing else they inherited some good strong genes. Whatever they think about me.
joalturn wrote:
I was in the “Distant Daddy” group like many other posters here before he died last year. Fortunately for me, I had a lot of strong, positive male role models growing up that filled that need that wasn’t really provided at home.
As my dad slowly succumbed to Parkinson’s and dementia over the last several years of his life, I found that I wasn’t really sad about him dying. He was objectively a miserable, selfish person. I was more sad about the death of the “father figure” in my life, and all of the expectations that I had been conditioned to place upon that person.
I think as a society we assign all sorts of expectations to different people based upon their role in society. Mothers, fathers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians, etc. Each group has standards for them, and when people fall short, we promptly criticize them in hopes that they fall in line with set expectations, or to assuage our personal feelings, or both. And when I realized that he was never that strong father figure, and that he was merely a man, a deeply flawed man who happened to also be a father, that’s when I was able to more readily move on and accept him for who he was.
Whether or not that’s right or wrong, or even makes sense, that’s how I reconciled that side of my life. It seems to have worked for me. I still get sad sometimes when certain things remind me of him, but that’s normal. And over time those feelings will fade and he’ll just be a distant memory.
My siblings have had a much more difficult time with it. My sister is still very bitter and resentful over him and everything around him. And my brother is quickly approaching 30, no formal education, working dead-end jobs, still living at home with my mom, and is a closeted homosexual (to our family, but very much public with his friends).
But that’s life, right? Everyone deals with their own s**t their own way. And if you want to carry the weight of anger/bitterness/frustration over your relationship (or lack thereof) with your father everywhere you go, then by all means, go for it. But at the end of the day, it’s going to bother you a lot more than it does him.
Thanks for stating my thoughts more clearly than I ever could.
Sad thread. I already know how lucky I am for numerous reasons and don't take anything for granted. I'm very close to my father. We go out for dinner every Thursday night and see him a fair amount other than that. Great guy. Never has let me down, ever.