Estranged in Public

TW: Anger issues, abuse

It’s been nearly two years since I last saw my Dad in person. The last time I saw him was at the first (and apparently only) family counselling session we’d ever had. I’d been struggling with his behaviour for a very long time (technically all my life I suppose!), but in the past couple of years preceding this I’d finally decided I’d had enough and had been attempting to stand up for myself and shut down his baloney. However, he’d been really nasty about it every time I tried. He’d twist it round to being my fault, he’d bring up his childhood trauma as a way to get out of any responsibility for his own actions, he’d manipulate his way out of every conversation and gaslight me so hard I’d come out of it feeling like I hadn’t even been listened to., let alone have anything change or improve

It’s a long story with a lot of details but I’m going to try and sum it up here.

Whilst I was a kid he was a good dad in a lot of ways, but also a scary dad. He had a horrible temper that meant he would blow up randomly, go round smashing things, use threats as a way to control us, locked us out of the house a lot without shoes and food. And he would never apologise for scaring or upsetting us, would just sort of imply it was our fault, or pretend it never happened.

Mid teens, my Mum left him for someone else. She also left because he’d been very controlling and manipulative towards her, and I think her meeting someone who treated her nicely was what set the inevitable in motion. Anyway, her leaving turned him into an absolute monster. He spent months in almost constant tantrums, screaming and smashing everything in the house, going on long suicidal drives both with and without us in the car, terrifying me and my sister. I often asked him to stop and to calm down, which would result in him throwing stuff at me, and screaming at me to leave and never come back.

Whenever we went to stay at Mums on weekends, he’d call us up and threaten to burn our house down with us all in it if we didn’t come back, or he’d threaten to kill himself if we didn’t come live with him again. Later he’d say he didn’t mean it. Sometimes I’d try to run away and I’d show up on the doorstep of an aunt or uncles house, sobbing and terrified of dad. They’d tell me, a 15 year old girl, to be more sympathetic towards him because he was going through a hard time and I needed to be more understanding. Never mind that I was also going through the same thing, or that I was 15 and maybe wasn’t the one that was supposed to/equipped to be caring for him? After months of him shouting at me to leave and never come back, I did just that. I changed schools and moved in with Mum and her new partner. Jeez, I’m shaking just having written all of that.

He eventually calmed down after a year or two, and met someone else and now they’re married and living together. The woman he met is rather unpleasant and I have a feeling they bond over their shared perception of them being victims of the world, but that’s another story.

So I moved out of the country for many years and saw my family once or twice a year. Dad never came to visit even though I begged, the only times he came out were when I said I needed help moving house. I’m grateful that he came and helped when I needed it, but I’m disappointed he never came just for the pleasure of a visit. There was always an excuse about it costing too much, or that he didn’t want to stay in my apartment and that only a fancy hotel would do and he couldn’t afford that… Then he’d go on long luxury holidays with his new wife to much further away places and stay in 5 star resorts. But sure, you can’t afford a 50 quid flight and a european hotel for a weekend, okay then.

Anyway.

Eventually, some bad stuff happened with my mental health and I had little choice but to move back home. I had the option of living in Mum or Dad’s house and it was a tough decision because I needed space and time and very little pressure. Mum is sometimes a bit intense with that stuff and her partner has OCD that very much pertains to the other people she’s living with. Dad’s house is incredibly spacious and in the village where I grew up so I chose there hoping that it would be the most chill option. I was nervous since I hadn’t lived with Dad since I was 16 and I was afraid he’d be awful again, but I’d also forgotten a lot of what had happened and assumed he’d probably have chilled out a bit given he was 10 years older now.

His wife was clearly displeased that Niels and I were living there temporarily, even though the house was so big that we didn’t even see her half the days. She was openly hostile to us the majority of the time and Dad would go behind her back and tell us lot of personal details about her mental health to justify her horrible behaviour. It made me wonder what he said about me when I wasn’t around to hear it.

Dad asked us to pay for bills but didn’t charge us rent, which helped since we didn’t have jobs upon returning to the country. He also asked that we contribute by doing odd jobs around the property that he would sporadically list for us. Weirdly though, he’d list these jobs and we’d ask for specifics, like if certain tasks had a timeline, etc. He would be very vague and wave us off, but then if we didn’t do certain tasks within his invisible timeframes, he would do them instead and complain to us that we hadn’t fulfilled our duties and that he had to ‘step up’ and do them. When we again asked for clearer rules and boundaries so we could achieve what was expected, he refused.

At some point I brought this vagueness up with him and said it was making things difficult for us as we wanted to contribute but constantly felt the rug was being pulled from under us, he said that none of that was true, and it was probably my mind playing tricks on me because I ‘wasn’t well’. He used that on me a few times - whenever I’d question his behaviour or ask him to adjust - he’d say that my mental illness was causing me paranoia and that I was just seeing everything wrong.

He’d also never ask me directly how I was doing, but was keen to talk to everyone else about my mental health when I wasn’t around. Once during a shopping trip I directly asked him why he never just asked me personally how I was doing/feeling and he turned towards a pile of cleaning supplies in the shop and said “Oh look! Buckets!”. Many times when I’d ask him about his behaviour he’d, right in front of me, pretend I’d never said anything. It was so unnerving.

Finally, I was well enough and financially stable enough to move out. Niels and I decided to get married and Dad had been saying for a long time that we should have the reception at his house, since it had a massive garden and lots of facilities. We agreed since it was budget friendly and we were looking to do a very cheap and cheerful type of wedding. I wish we’d just hired a random venue, in hindsight.

First, he and his wife, weeks after agreeing to have their house as the venue, said that in order to host the wedding they would need us to facilitate lots of cosmetic upgrades to their house. We said we were happy to do all of the prep in terms of set up, but that we didn’t need the whole house to be freshly painted, new garden statues etc, as we were trying to keep things easy and affordable. They got annoyed that we weren’t being grateful enough and that these upgrades were absolutely necessary. None of them were functional, they were just things that would make the house look fancier. We kept saying we didn’t want or need anything to be fancy, and they begrudgingly decided to make all of these upgrades themselves anyway. (Well, they got my sister to do them… And she agreed because she is very sweet and a bit of a pushover.) Let me be clear - the house was all in very good condition - nothing was dangerous, or falling apart, or looking disgusting. The changes they proposed were genuinely unnecessary to the function of having a party in their garden.

Next, Dad started a lot of drama regarding his wife and ex wife. One day he took Niels and I to breakfast and gave us a whole speech about how we’d have to close off the entire house to all guests because his wife was paranoid that his ex wife/my mum was going to snoop around during the party. He said that his wife was being weird and crazy about it and that he was just ‘caught in the middle’. Firstly, Mum for sure isn’t the snooping type. She couldn’t care less about the contents of Dad’s house, especially during her daughter’s wedding. Secondly, he painted his current wife in a very unflattering light in this conversation, which I know she wouldn’t have been ok with had she been present. Niels, who is the most chill person I know, balked out loud when Dad said all of this, which is so out of character for him, and speaks to just how ridiculous Dad was being with this. The request also meant that people wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom or go inside if it rained. Roping off areas wouldn’t have stopped anyone determined anyway, so the whole thing just felt dramatic and weird, and honestly shouldn’t have been brought up. It felt really odd and inappropriate.

Later, Dad and his wife sat us down and asked us if we had heard any rumours about how they had gotten together originally. They claimed that Mum was spreading rumours that they had been cheating on her together long before the divorce. Honestly, I couldn’t care less if this is true or not. I think it probably is, since Dad is 100% a cheater based on lots of evidence I and other have seen in the past, plus he and his current wife knew each other for decades before the divorce, and he is very good at his mental gymnastics when it comes to justifying what he does with other women (EW btw, I really shouldn’t even know any of this). Anyway I just said I hadn’t heard anything and didn’t care either way. But they wouldn’t let up, and it felt so weird and inappropriate to be involved in this discussion at all - especially when we were stressed with wedding planning. They kept insisting my mum must be spreading rumours. Even if she was (doubtful) WHY was this appropriate to bring up with me?!

He also made drama about who was walking me down the aisle, saying he’d heard ‘rumours’ my mum would be doing it. In fact, I had never planned for anyone to walk me down. Niels and I were gonna walk down together and there had never been any other plan or suggestion, so where he picked this up, who even knows. Felt like he was trying to create drama again.

He then got weird about the alcohol at the wedding. He has this tendency to make grand gestures and then renege on them later when he actually thinks through the practicalities of them and decides he doesn’t want to part with the time/money involved in following through. This was one of those. He offered to pay for the booze for the wedding, to which I said thank you and was grateful for the help. When the time came to choose the drinks, Dad sent me a link to a list of kegs of very specific niche ale and said I could select one. I told him that Niels and I both didn’t like ale, and that if we had to go for a keg I’d rather get a generic beer that majority of the guests would enjoy. Dad acted as if I was being a spoiled little princess, and made a big fuss about me not wanting what was offered. I stood my ground because I at least wanted something either Niels or I would enjoy, preferably something not niche that everyone would like. Eventually, he just gave me money for the exact price of one of the kegs he wanted (not nearly enough money for 50 guest’s worth of drinks) and me and my friend had to go to Costco and get the actual lot ourselves, which ended up costing three times as much as what he’d given. At least we had covered a decent selection for all of the people attending. It was so silly and weird though, I would’ve happily paid for all of the drinks to begin with, why add this unnecessary step of the fruitless grand gesture that just added more stress to the whole thing?! Why act like I was being a spoiled brat that I wanted to enjoy a drink that I like at my own wedding?

Anyway, the rest of my family were very sweet and helpful in regards to the wedding, but for whatever reason, Dad saw fit to just add drama and stress to it all. This was the last straw for me, and since I’d been having therapy I finally felt strong enough to bring up his behaviour with him meaningfully. But, of course, in every conversation, it would get twisted and manipulated, and he would end up being the victim of the conversation, and nothing would change.

Two weeks before the wedding was my birthday. The night before, I’d sent him a clear email outlining my boundaries and issues with his behaviour, put in a very kind and loving way. He showed up with a birthday gift in a huge sulk, and kept muttering about how ‘everyone was too concerned about their own feelings these days’. I called him out on that because it was clearly referencing the email I’d sent to him, and he got really shitty about it. I said he was in denial and wouldn’t listen to me or respect any of my feelings and experiences, and told him that if he didn’t stop hurting me I would take a step back from our relationship to protect myself from further hurt. He accused me of ‘emotionally blackmailing’ him so I told him to get out if he was going to be like that. He sat there and glared at me, not moving. He kept telling me that I was wrong about everything because there were “things [I] didn’t know that [he] couldn’t tell [me]” but if I knew them, then I’d ‘realise how wrong [I] was’. What a weird type of power play, that made no sense anyway. He wouldn’t leave, even though he’d upset me so much I could barely breathe, let alone speak. Finally, after sulking in his chair a while, he went home and I spent the rest of my birthday sobbing. :(

During the wedding he set himself up in his workshop with a selection of his friends to sort of make a weird show about what a good time he could have even though Mum was there. He didn’t mingle because then he might run into Mum. Meanwhile, his wife made special cocktails that weren’t available to anyone but him, her, and their friends. Like, seriously, they didn’t even make any for us, the bridge and groom. It was like they made their own private party during our wedding that none of us were invited to.

I would’ve stopped talking to Dad sooner if I hadn’t committed to having my wedding at his house, but since it was all planned and paid for, I grit my teeth throughout that entire month so that I could get the wedding over with and then would be able to stop talking to him altogether. And once it was over, that’s what I did.

He spent a few months trying to get me to see him, and so eventually I said yes, you can come to one of my therapy sessions and we can work things out. Unfortunately, all that therapy session did was confirm what a shit he was.

He turned up with a massive sulk on, and flopped down on the sofa refusing to make eye contact with me or the therapist. With love and kindness, I explained my issues from childhood and recently, how I felt intimidated by his temper, how I felt like he stonewalled, manipulated and gaslit me. I did it all with “I” language, and was gentle and kind about it. In turn, he was given space to respond. His responses centered around subjects such as “None of what you’re saying has ever happened.”, “I’ve never had a bad temper in my life.”, “I will never change because this is how I’ve always been and you can’t expect me to.”, “The only reason you brought me here is to tell me I’m a bad father and essentially just saw horrible things about me.”.

Even though I had very fair proposals to boundaries and ways of communicating that would improve our relationship, he’d just look straight through me as if I wasn’t even saying anything. He’d often sit there and pretend like I hadn’t said a word. When we tried to sum up the session at the end, his summary was “You all just think I’m a bad father and you brought me here today to tell me that.” The therapist and I looked at each other with incredulity and both exclaimed “No one ever said that!! That wasn’t the point of this at all!” but he was just so determined to be the victim rather than listen to how he’d been victimising others. He then left in a massive sulk.

In my next therapy session, it was painfully clear how upset even the therapist was with how Dad had behaved during our session. I decided he’d shown his true colours and I’d have to learn to move on with my life without him. He sent me a message a couple weeks later that said that clearly we’d have to ‘agree to disagree’ but that he’s ‘ready to move on now’. I was shocked at how self-centered and lazy it was, how selfish it was of him to think that he ‘didn’t agree’ with how his behaviour had affected me. How he was trying to strong arm me into moving on now I’d ‘said my piece’, even though it was clear nothing was going to change.

So I didn’t reply. And over the last two years, he occasionally would send me a message saying how much he loves me and that he’s ready to move on when I am. And each one is just so insulting. I don’t care how much he says on the record that he loves and misses me. That means nothing when he doesn’t care how he’s hurting me, how inappropriate he’s being, how much trouble and strife he brings to my life, how worthless he makes me feel, how scared and afraid he makes me. It doesn’t feel like love. It feels like the only thing he loves and wants to protect is his own ego.

I would never reply to these messages because they just proved he wasn’t ready to look at his own actions critically, or be open to real change or even growth. The whole of that side of the family shunned me, as he kept going round to them saying I’d cut him out for ‘no reason’, and was then implying the reason was probably my own mental health issues. My sister would tell him that us doing more therapy together would help, and he’d pretend like she’d never said anything.

Recently, I even finally replied to his stupid love emails and said “Whenever you’re ready for therapy, let’s do it, I’m ready when you are.” and he’d just ignore them. So then I sent a message saying that him ignoring those suggestions just made me feel like he didn’t care. I included a link to a very satisfying article that gave examples of behaviour he was exhibiting and how that was hurting our relationship. And he responded with such garbage.

He said that he’d acceded to all of my requests throughout my life, to the point of over indulgence (!) and that it took him months to get over our therapy session. He then refused to ever be subject to that type of ‘emotional abuse’ ever again.

I’ve never in my life heard someone describe a therapy session as emotional abuse, but I suppose that’s how far gone he is. And so cruel and unnecessary to imply that I was being spoiled about the whole affair. And to think, he said he read the article (his reading it was an example of him always ‘acceding to [my] requests’....seriously), and then behaved with victimhood and stonewalling, exactly how the article said he would.

I didn’t reply. I keep thinking what’s the point? And then I keep wanting to have hope, that maybe one day he’ll realise the damage he’s doing, and try to reach out in a meaningful way. Because I do miss him sometimes, because there were plenty of times we had fun together. Even though part of that was manipulated - he was good at questioning ‘loyalty’ and getting you to be super nice to him and get along with him at all costs to prove you were loyal… But it’s not like we have nothing in common. We did have good jokes and chill times too.

But I think I have to accept the possibility that it’s never going to happen. And that he’ll likely manipulate that side of the family into thinking I’m the bad guy. He’s so good at getting people to think he is wonderful, faultless, generous and laid back. No one sees what he’s really like, and so when I cut myself off, they think I’m the crazy one because he can do no wrong. They say it’s all MY choice to not have a relationship with him, although it never feels like my choice. And ultimately I’m left alone, without a dad.