My father, who convinced me (16 m) at the time to move in with him instead of my mother when they moved. All 3 of the other siblings stayed with my mother. He then kicked me out the week I turned 18, a week into my senior year. Since then he stays in touch only to speak with his grandchildren (now going on 4 kids). I have never been anything but opportunistic and positive in our interactions. Regardless he still acts like I am a burden to talk too. Am now 37, and finally getting to the point I should accept it. I’m the complete opposite with my own children and can’t comprehend how someone could treat their child like this. How do I cope? It eats at me. I will answer any questions in depth if it will help in understanding the situation.
Therapy
After reflecting from the comments, you are right. I need therapy, Thank you. I know that is easier said then done. As I work full time with kids. The comments help, so thank you to all giving me advice as I take it to heart.
Virtual therapy sessions are a big thing now. I’m sure there’s added benefit to in-person sessions, but if time and life are constraints, the option is there.
I’ve done both and it’s possible my virtual therapy sessions were an outlier but I’d strongly recommend at least starting with in-person. I just didn’t find virtual anywhere near as effective as face to face with another person.
Why do you think that is? What do you feel that younger out of in-person visits that you don’t get virtually?
I’m an anxious person and the thought of seeing someone like that in person stresses me the fuck out tbh
Good luck!
Well, yes it’s probably a good idea but it’s a pretty fucking lazy and unhelpful comment.
It’s better than saying “listen to my dumbassed, drive-by, uniformed opinion on the matter”. But here’s mine anyway. There’s no time for shit people in life, with no exception for blood. Actually, they should be held to higher standards than strangers. Bye, Grandpa!
Random people on the internet giving them advice on something that should be handled by a therapist is what is unhelpful. Sometimes people need to be told in unambiguous terms that the situation they are in is above our paygrade.
It’s not unhelpful at all. This kind of stuff is exactly what therapy is for. As others have said, it’ll do far more help than advice from random internet strangers.
Not everyone can afford a therapist. Even people with universal healthcare may be having problems accessing therapy.
That does not make it a lazy comment. If someone asks what to do about being hungry the correc anwser is to eat. The fact that they cannot afford to buy food does not change anything about the fundamental truth that the only way to still hunger is to eat.
OP made it clear, that this has followed him for decades. It is highly unlikely, that someone can just offer him some silver bullet advice here, that solves his problem without doing the emotional work. And doing the emotional work in such a situation is best done with a professional person that has no personal stakes in the whole situation.
If OP will not find a therapist within a month it will not get better by waiting another year on trying random advice from the internet. The sooner he looks for a therapist the sooner help becomes available.
You see, you come close to getting it in your first paragraph.
Telling someone who’s hungry and can’t afford food - just eat.
Don’t you see how callous that is? If a friend came to you and asked to talk would you just shout “speak to a therapist”?
It’s lazy because it’s one word and obvious. It’s callous because it makes no attempt to help the person.
The solution to hunger remains to eat. The question how to procure food is then the follow up. But OP didnt ask that. He asked how to still the hunger.
I told my pharmacist that I had been feeling low energy and lethargic ever since starting adderall and asked if she had any suggestions. She said I needed to eat more food, and suggested I use MyFitnessPal to track my calories and make sure I was getting enough.
OP hasn’t indicated that therapy is out of the question or unobtainable. Given that, the suggestion is still valid.
Also, when it comes to issues that are firmly in therapist territory, bad advice from online strangers can absolutely make things worse than if they didn’t ask at all.
Letting someone know that this is therapy territory is at least a good indication to maybe take other comments here with a fine heap of salt
Please just stop arguing with me and accept that I’m right and you’re wrong.
Thank you in advance.
I’m sorry you are going through this. I haven’t had any experience like this besides having an alcoholic sister.
But I’d just suggest that you need to try to come to terms with the fact that your pop seems like an asshole. This is all speculation. I bet he convinced you to stay with him as a way to hurt your mom. You as a person were not important to him, but he wanted to use you. So when you turned 18, he didn’t want to deal with you anymore because it cost him more than he got out of it.
You can’t do anything to change him, you can just work on you. For me with my sister, I just sort of accepted that she is who she is and I’ll never have the relationship I wanted with her. I don’t go out my way to avoid her, but I certainly don’t really ever try to interact with her. It has worked, but the relationship between siblings is less important I think than a parent child relationship.
Maybe therapy could help? Or read up on narcissistic personality disorder and see if that fits your dad.
Thanks for the response
You are under no obligation to answer the phone.
It doesn’t sound like a you problem. Sounds like a problem with him. As such the agency to fix the problem lies with him.
Move on and forget about him.
My mom kicked me out when I was 18 and I was homeless for 2 weeks. She took me back in when uni started.
This is one of the reasons I don’t speak to hear anymore. At all.
This year, she sent me texts demanding to see me on my birthday. I did not speak to her. At all.
I am now waiting for her to die and for one of my siblings to inform me. Apparently, my sister (who lives in another country, we don’t talk much) is also done with her and doesn’t talk to her at all. I guess our brother will let us know.
What I’m getting at is that you are under no obligation to cater to people who don’t want to tolerate you in the first place. If a guy you lived with for a while was an asshat and demanded to see your children, you’d think he was demented. But suddenly he nutted in your mother once and now it’s fine? Family means nothing on its own. Family means you have a default group of people you interact with, but it’s up to each individual to actually be friends and allies with their family members, and if someone isn’t being a good friend or a good ally, and even is actively antagonizing you, then why do you still feel like you owe them anything? What do you mean “finally getting to the point you should accept it”? Accept him into your life? Why?! What good will that ever do to you? Oh sure maybe you’ll get to think “well I made amends before he died” once he’s dead. Guess what, if you’ve never held a grudge against him like you seem to imply, then it’s actually not up to you to make amends. Don’t tolerate bullshit from people just because they happen to be related to you.
Yeah Ghost those mofos, best thing i ever did.
I’m starting to second guess myself. I’m 25 and haven’t talked to my mom in about 7 years. I feel like I at least owe her to talk to her about why I felt the need to shut our relationship down. I am also afraid of regretting not talking to her before her eventual death. But I also don’t know how to approach her after all this time.
Does that feeling come up more when you’re sober and healthy, or when you’re high, sleep deprived, or under systemic inflammation?
If the feeling is coming up when you’re at your clearest, it’s probably worth following. If it’s coming up when you’re at your most muddled, that’s probably a sign it’s worth ignoring.
Thanks for your input. I’ll try to take note of that when it comes up again.
Probably TMI but I wasn’t close with my mom, like the poster above she kicked me out when I finished high school at 17, I do understand, my dad had died and she had a lot to deal with, more younger kids at home.
I did not feel regret for not being closer when she died. It’s fine, we had what we could and she was close to my youngest sister, and I’ve been quite lucky in Mother-in-laws, mom of my ex and mom of my husband I am closer with. My mom I just would text on her birthday and mother’s day.
Don’t give what you can’t. Focus on your life and stay polite with her, and distant is fine. It’s not wrong to take care of your own life and it won’t keep you from being close with other people.
The thing is I’m not just distant, I’m full on no contact with her. And sometimes I think that maybe my reaction is a bit too harsh. But I think you’re right, I need to get myself in good position/mental state before I should try to reestablish contact. I can’t handle her problems if I don’t have my own in check.
Thanks for sharing.
I have a mother who used to act like she hated me a significant amount of time until a few years ago. I have a father who does not think I am that important. I used to think both of my parents hate me, or did not love me at least. I now have a more nuanced view of that. They are just people who are very damaged and almost handicapped in certain aspects. In any case, I think I might be able to understand your situation at least a little bit.
For me the most difficult part was not deciding whether to keep in touch with them or not. I mean, that is a very difficult decision and if your father is still hurting you, you should protect yourself. However, for me the most difficult thing is dealing with the damage.
I am not sure if this damaged you in the same way it damaged me. But if it did, I want to tell you that it is not your fault. Your father acting like he hates you is not because of anything you did and certainly not because of who you are. It is because of who he is.
A lot of children who are not loved or who are even hated by their parents think it is their fault. They think something is wrong with them and they deserve it. I mean, that makes sense, right? If it is your fault, then at least the world still is a fair place. And if something happens to a bad person you do not need to be compassionate, so you do not have to deal with any pain you are too little to be able to deal with. Also, you depend on your parents, so you cannot get too mad at them or leave. From the logic of a child, this makes sense.
And it works, it helps you survive. But once you get older, you keep thinking in the same way. You have a very low opinion of yourself and feel like there is something wrong with you or as if you are worthless. And to keep living in this way is familiar, you know you can survive that. You do not know whether you can survive the pain you suppressed all those years. Or it might still be so suppressed that you cannot even feel it. Until one day, it becomes too much and you start thinking that you might want a different life. You might not just want to survive, but actually live.
You do not discuss your mother. If you have a mother that was able to show you love, that might have had a protective effect. I hope so. But if you recognise this story in any way at all. I think it is import for you to know that it is not about accepting that your father hates you. It is about accepting that you are someone that did not deserve this. And that is very painful, but going through the pain of it, is the only way not to feel that anymore. It will free you from it and enable you to live more than survive.
It is a very difficult thing to do. I myself have not yet been able to go through the pain fully. It often feels too overwhelming, too much. However, after each small step I make, I already feel a little bit more free. I really think this is the way to cope with it. At least for me. It might help you as well maybe if you have similar feelings.
Edit to say that therapy can help a lot with this process. Others have said this as well, but I agree with them.
You won’t get justice or change anything about how the guy acts so you have to make changes yourself that you can control. Let yourself be free of needing his approval and attention. You deserve respect at least as much as you’d expect from any other person, being family doesn’t absolve them of it. If he won’t be respectful, then stop calling him, let his calls go to voice mail, stop seeing him and fill your time with people who are respectful. You can’t change him but you don’t have to put up with it either.
I agree with this post. Move on and build your life your way.
I’d like to add, in case it’s helpful, from my own experience the thinking about it never ends. My dad passed 40 years ago and i still have the same thoughts, feelings, arguments even (a little more one-sided now that he’s gone, though). I mean the dynamic might last forever, but you can separate that emotional internal dynamic from how you live your life. And there’s a kind of “this stops here” effect, because your own children will never have to deal with all that stuff, because you dealt with it and moved on. That’s something to be proud of.
There are already a lot of good answers/opinions/experiences/etc. here and I don’t want to rehash all of that, but I will mention this:
If you’ve heard the expression, “blood is thicker than water,” you should know that the original unedited expression was actually, “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” Basically meaning that the friendships (covenants) you make in life are stronger bonds than the family you just happened to be born into.
You can’t choose your biological family, but you can choose your friends and (non-bio) family. Don’t let people drag you down just because they’re related to you. Cut the dead weight out of your life, regardless of relation, and live your best life. If your dad doesn’t care about you, then why should you exhaust any energy caring about him? He hasn’t earned your attention, nor the attention of his grandkids.
My wife came from a poor trailer trash family and felt obligated, as the only person who made something of herself, to attempt to support her grandparents (who raised her), mother, and 3 siblings. But it only led to greed, gluttony, and dishonesty. Eventually, she had to cut ties with most of them because they started to feel entitled in sharing her “wealth.”
We had to draw the line when one of her pregnant sisters was about to have her baby taken away by the state. (I believe it was her 4th one the state had taken from her at this point; she had been deemed an unfit parent, but kept pumping out kids regardless.) My wife’s family tried to guilt us into adopting the kid, just to keep him in the family. She finally put her foot down. Taking in illegitimate children from her family was just trapping her with the burden of her siblings (who were already trying to pawn off their kids to their grandmother). My wife cut ties and now only speaks to her siblings (and mother) if they call. But she makes zero effort to stay in touch otherwise, and she won’t give them anything except functional Christmas gifts - the one time of year she indirectly contacts them.
My wife had deep-seated anxiety for years, worrying about supporting her deadbeat family. Now she’s low-contact and made a rule not to support them financially. She’s living stress-free now and is in a much better place for it. Their lives are their own and she refuses to feel responsible for the horrible choices they’ve made.
Well, this sort of thing is honestly above any social media’s pay grade, so I will only tell you what I did after talking with my therapist
I know how this feels and I’m sorry you are going through it too. After the only member of my family who was even remotely kind to me died (and even that was an abusive relationship), I cut off contact with everyone else related to me and my life has only improved. It’s been about 6 years now but i am much happier for it, no judgement, no yelling, no control, life is just… quieter.
You can’t control how others act, and your father has had several decades to reconsider. At a certain point, you should just protect your own well being and go no contact.
Being a part of your life is a privilege, not a right.
I called my father a cunt last weekend cause he talks to me like disrespectful nutjob. I’m 34 and work for him. Never work with assholes. Especially family.
I’m too scared to have children cause they’ll end up like either him or myself.
Sorry have to go through that.
Ending the cycle. I’m with you on that.
My advice is to stop trying to be pleasant in every interaction with him. That is fake and interacting with fake people is indeed exhausting.
Based only on what you wrote, my advice is to commit to developing authenticity rather than pleasantness.
The fact is you have reason to be upset with him. If you haven’t expressed that upset, you’re being fake.
Stop letting him. You don’t owe him even an explanation. The nicest thing you could do for him would be to let him figure it out with as much time as he needs to do so. He hasn’t listened thus far or had any appreciable or effective consequences that gave pause to or caused change in his behaviors. I think you probably know this and are just looking for confirmation.
Take yourself and your family back. Why let someone like that be a further influence?
As a father of 2 kids you need to know that you owe him nothing. Just because he is your parent doesn’t mean anything.
Instead of thinking of him as your father think of him as a friend. And would you keep a friend like that in your life. If possible go 100% non contact and don’t ever worry about him again.
Don’t let him round your kids. He treated you terribly and hasn’t changed, you shouldn’t expose your children to someone like that. It doesn’t matter if he’s your dad.
Was thinking that as well. Why open them up to someone who damaged your mental health and worth so badly? What if he does the same thing to them when they get older?
I’ve got a “father figure” who I’m not on speaking terms with. I’m in my early 30s. I am also a father. I have also tried to keep the door open and have been punished for it.
This is the part where I give you advice, but I don’t really have any. You’re not alone. Our generation had a large shift away from believing that respecting your parents meant that you had to do everything they said. Some people simply don’t comprehend that respect must be earned. I will make sure that I deserve the respect of my child.
