Reply to Just ended my relationship with my father

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Just ended my relationship with my father"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Thanks for this. 
My kids just don't see any negative qualities in him yet. He is great with them and never said anything remotely negative to them. Now I just tell him he is "busy" when they ask about him. They are all under 10 so I don't know if it is appropriate to tell them what is going on.

Has anyone ended a relationship with a parent/sibling and they actually changed because of it?[/quote]

No, and you will not help yourself by thinking he might.  He is who he is and if you expect him to change you will be disappointed.  That said, after a while you may be able to draw better boundaries - and as long as you stick to them and cut him off when he crosses them, he my learn to check it around you.  I have cut my father out of my life several times.  Every time he crept back it was the same misery.  Now I have kids that he wants to see, and while he hasn't changed one bit he is a little more careful around me, because he knows one false move and he's out.  He is still the same miserable bastard, it just shows more with my brother, who tolerates the bad behavior more than I do.[/quote]

Hmmm I wonder if we have the same father...

Thank you for this. It is a good reminder. Of course now, I feel terrible for cuttin him off. He is a lonely, miserable, old man and I feel guilty cutting him out, but you are right about boundaries.

What did you do, PP? How long until you had this relationship with him. [/quote]

You have to do what's right for you.  Maybe I'm cold, but I feel like everyone has obstacles to overcome.  My dad had many chances to get therapy (my mom begged for years before leaving him).  Yes, he is a sad lonely old man but at some point that's not my problem - he chose not to get help.  Although, I feel better now that we have a relationship with boundaries - I used to feel worse when I totally shut him out, but I was doing what I needed to do for my own sanity.  It was years and years - starting in high school - that we had the off and on thing and he had the ability to bring me to the brink (like, he would drop in on me at my dorm in college, lay on me some crazy guilt trip about some perceived wrongdoing, and I would be paralyzed for days).  I have made peace with the fact that I'll never have the dad I want, I accept that he is flawed, but if he talks to me in a way I don't like I am capable of saying 'do not talk  to me like that' - and meaning it.  It helped when I stopped accepting things from him.  For ex., he could have paid for my grad school but I knew as soon as I did something that dissatisfied him he would threaten to pull tuition ( he actually did this to me in college and I got a call from the registrar and had to come up with $10k), so I financed it myself and never looked back.  I make good money now and he can't pull that string, and I remind him of that by paying my own way for everything, whereas my brother still has fantasies of dad supporting his business or whatever.  I also set house rules - what he can and can't do or buy for my kids, and I reinforce them regularly.  He tests his boundaries and it is like having another kid - wash, rinse, repeat.

Sorry this is rambling, but I guess to answer your question, it was years of falling into the same trap before I accepted who he was and understood where and how I had to draw the lines before I made it work.

Best of luck, and most importantly, remember that you have a right to take care of you.  If that means cutting him out, you need to do it.  Don't rush to bring him back.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics