For mostly adult men: anybody else's adult father show no interest in your life?

Thought I was the only one. Sometimes I go on for months without speaking to my father. Whenever we do talk I usually call him. I am in graduate school (he never went to college) and whenever I talk about work he just tries to change the subject. He is always just chasing one of his girlfriends.

Flatty wrote:

Go play with your brother.

We live 1000 miles apart. Kinda tough.

my dad is the same way. i see him once a year when i go home for christmas. i used to go home more often but what is the point? when i'm there, he just sits in the living room and watches tv. he watches reruns of shows he's already seen, then the game, then the highlights of the game on the news. i tried to engage him in conversation and got nothing for years so i don't even bother anymore.

he's never shown any interest in coming to visit me. i invite him and he says, "maybe in a few months" then never comes.

My dad doesn't show any interest in my life.

Or in anything else, for that matter.

My dad fits that bill. I live 2000+ miles away, so it doesn't bother me much. My brother lives about 2 miles away - it bugs him. Have occasional e-mail contact, but generally about weather and sports, not about how each of us is doing. My mom died not too many years ago, so maybe nobody wants to probe too deeply into emotional stuff.

daddyproblems wrote:

For my both my brother and me, my dad never calls, asks very little about our lives when we get together, does not put much effort into having a conversation, does not want to acknowledge that he can learn things from us about subjects we know well. In general, my dad just does not seem interested in our lives.

It's kinda hard to have a conversation because all he does when we are around is play Angry Birds and watch TV.

For all the adults on here, anybody got a parent that seems stuck in their little world without an apparent care for their relationships with their kids?

Some parents and children just don't connect. It's sad, but it's also reality. I've seen it many times in my 50+yrs. The unfortunate truth is there are parents out there that never particularly wanted to be parents in the first place. The only thing you can do is keep moving on with your life and try not to repeat the same mistakes.

C'mon guys. Your all wining because your dad doesn't call you? He doesn't buy a plane ticket, take vacation from work, dumping thousands into visiting a son who MOVED AWAY FROM HIM?

Listen. My dad and I are very close. He has NEVER called me to "chat". We aren't chicks nor dating. No need to call and gossip.

Don't expect your father to waste all his vacation and money visiting you when you are the one who moved thousands of miles away. Don't you think that you abandoning him by that move may have hurt his feelings? It's not all about you. Maybe he doesn't talk to you because he is dissapointed in his winey son who's emotion and feelings get hurt like a girl.

Just a thought.

The way I see it is you make the relationship good with your parents. Don't expect them too.

daddyproblems wrote:

For my both my brother and me, my dad never calls, asks very little about our lives when we get together, does not put much effort into having a conversation, does not want to acknowledge that he can learn things from us about subjects we know well. In general, my dad just does not seem interested in our lives.

It's kinda hard to have a conversation because all he does when we are around is play Angry Birds and watch TV.

For all the adults on here, anybody got a parent that seems stuck in their little world without an apparent care for their relationships with their kids?

That does suck. However, better than having a dad that doesn't show interest in your life and also abused you as a kid. Feel happy that that didn't happen to you.

He's put in his time... What do you want? He's probably pissed because you haven't given grand kids yet.

Same thing here.

We talk once a week because he feels obligated to call. Our conversation is usually less than 2 minutes. He talks about work and the weather, but nothing beyond that.

I don't see him on Christmas or any holidays because he's out with his girlfriend (he left my mother).

I had to step in to be the father figure/strong male figure for my younger siblings.

He's dead Jim...

The dirtbag hasn't called since.

I WISH. Any sensible adult knows you're just pretending to still care after they grow up.

Add me to the club. My 67 year dad has major depression and is an alcoholic. He went through a nasty divorce and his ex wife kept him from seeing their kids. I really don't feel sorry for him about that since most of it is his fault. He was a shitty husband always starting arguments that would turn into screaming matches. He used to complain to me that my mom left him and didn't want a family. It was easy to see why my mom left him after he got remarried.

We used to talk at least once a week then had a falling out a few years ago. We almost never talk. I'll call and he doesn't answer. Sometimes he'll answer my texts. He never wants to get together.

Maybe I'm better off without him around. I've always hoped things would get better for him and we would have a better relationship. I'm a new dad and he hasn't called, emailed, visited. His brother and sister both surprised me at the hospital. It's disappointing that he hasn't reached out.

In spite of all his flaws he was a good dad before he got remarried.

TL:DR- Luke hopes Darth Vader turns into Annakin Skywalker before he croaks

How about a good and decent dad whose son doesn't want anything to do with him? Having a mom who turned him against me during the divorce ended up with her destroying a close relationship with my son. She ended up telling him lies to move him further away in distance, bribed him with gifts to make him say things in court to end visitation etc.

And now I am stuck in a situation where he cant see the truth. During all this I remained completely neutral since I didn't think it was right to put him in the middle of it.

Even when he was entering high school and I told her Id like him living with me so help him make it thru, she refused. Even when I told her I didn't want a penny to help me with anything. Well, he ended up barely passing high sch., dropping out of a 2 yr college and now lives check to check. We barely talk and each time its because I make the first attempt. I gave him a lot of money to buy his first car and hes never once come to visit me (lives an hr away).

I'm not so much bitter as sad....

I can't relate to most of the replies. My dad constantly asks me questions about my life and I have no interest in answering.

I'm a female but my dad fits into this category perfectly. 90% of the time it doesn't bother me. There's that other 10% that wants to "fix" whatever is broken, but then I realize it's been broken for a good 20 years now and I wouldn't even know where to start and he probably wouldn't try. My mom tried for years to get us to get along with no headway. I am pretty sure even my mom has given up at this point.

I see him twice a year, we never talk on the phone, even when I am home we don't talk as he is far too busy in the garage and with tv shows that he has seen 100 times before. He has a terrible lifestyle and is digging himself a hole that he won't be able to get out of, even though everyone around him is telling him this. I have very little respect for him as a dad and as a person.

I am newly engaged and when I called home to tell my parents, my mom showed him a picture of my ring and I heard the most sarcastic and half assed "wow" I've ever heard in my life from the background, that was it. My high school coach was my father figure, so at least I had someone.

truth from your dad wrote:

Nobody truly likes anyone from the entitlement generation. Get used to it. Your children won't like you either. They'll have to pay for you just like your parents did.

No one likes the generation that spent their youth as a bunch of pot-smoking dropouts and then turned into a bunch of Wall Street corporate raiders and destroyed the American economy and political system.