To avoid having my father to stay again?

[mrsgregorypeck]

The back story: my parents divorced when I was eleven. I waited for my father to contact me. Radio silence for nineteen years when I , foolishly thinking there had perhaps been a misunderstanding, phoned him, having got the number from my paternal grandmother. He visited a week later to say that unless his wife was also invited and made welcome, he wouldn't be visiting again.

Fast forward(!) almost thirty years. Contacted me to ask if they could come for lunch. Visited with wife looking throughout like a chihuahua chewing a wasp. I was also asked to visit where wife ignored me or was unpleasant. Took to her bed in a fit of pique by Saturday lunchtime.

She died last year. Alarmed by his grief, I bought him an iPad. Since then, I have disabled Skype on my phone since he was attempting to Skype me every day. He skypes my brother every single morning but I claimed to have difficulty with the settings so it doesn't work.

He has just been here for a week. No presents or card. Little digs about wastefulness and late rising. No interest in me, my family or my life, really. He wanted me to look at all his photos of where he and wife ( now to be known as CCAW) have visited over the years.
Some things are just not fixable, are they?
Thanks for reading.

[OohhThatsMe]

Ugh he sounds like a really selfish and uncaring man. Why do you want to have anything to do with him?

[OohhThatsMe]

Sorry if that was abrupt - I didn't mean it to be.

What was your relationship like with him before you were eleven?

[Inkspot]

Nope. I do understand I think, my father didn't stay in touch with his children when he left for OW but was extremely demanding of us as he aged.

Seriously, engage as much or as little as you like and if you choose not to see him that's fine.

[Underthemoonlight]

Sounds like because he's wife isn't here anymore he wants emotional support but isn't prepared to work and build on the relationship with you including you and your family

[mrsgregorypeck]

Thanks for replies. Relationship before we left was practically non-existent since he had checked out of his marriage four years earlier when he met OW/CCAW. Distant, disapproving, uninterested in me. And astonishingly miserly.

[KC225]

I think the relationship you would have liked and would like in the future will never happen. It may be unkind to say but had his wife not died, he would not be in constant contact, nor would he be staying with you.

You seem like a loving and forgiving daughter but he is obsessed with his dead wife and has no interest in your life or children's. I think it's permissible to retain polite contact but not to have him stay. He hasn't been a proper Father to you in the past and you have given him opportunity to make amends for the future. He won't change but you must. Step back. Scale it down and feel no guilt. You don't owe him anything.

Good luck OP.

[mrsgregorypeck]

Thanks for replies, especially the very wise and kind words of KC225. I have told no one about the full extent of my father's selfishness and miserliness so it helps to vent here. I think I will tell my husband the full story so that he will understand why I plan to sidestep any contact in future. Why can some men simply turn their backs completely on their children ?

[QueenArseClangers]

You owe him fuck all.
Make it your NY resolution to look after yourself

[mrsgregorypeck]

Thank you for your refreshing viewpoint, Queen Arse. I'm think I'm just looking for someone to give me permission to ignore his constant calls for attention. And then there's the old Honour thy father and thy mother bollocks...
Fine when the parent in question was wonderful, as was my mother, but when he is a miserly, fault finding git, it is a different matter.

[lorralorraloren]

What's a CCAW?

[mrsgregorypeck]

Sorry: a chihuahua chewing a wasp. My infantile description of father's OW now wife on my visit to their house.

[lorralorraloren]

I think that's effing brilliant!

[mrsgregorypeck]

Can I just share what he brought when he arrived? He stated that he didn't do Christmas presents but here-you are! He threw down an old fountain pen he was given when he retired. FFS...

[user1482778885]

Sadly men like that always need someone in there life to make them feel better. He's trying to replace his wife with you and most likely convinced himself he's got you and everything is fine. My own father did it with my mum years after he left her and my stepmother left him. Men don't not like having no female contact

[Mum2jenny]

I think he's best avoided for your own sanity.

[0nline]

I think you need to do whatever gives you most peace.

Feelings aren't tidy, it's far from unusual for grown up children to put up with a lot because they are living in hope that the parent they had before it all went bent will come back and inhabit the body of the parent they actually have now. I think for decades I sat and waited for the ghost of my daddy to possess my father, and make him back into the man I missed to the point of scars on my soul. And then he would do it right. And we could resolve the gaping chasm between us.

I wish I had answers. I don't. My father and I ran out of time before any solutions could be tried, failed, reworked and tried again. But I have empathy. By the bucketload.

[lovelearning]

I plan to sidestep any contact in future.

Wise plan.

OP: You are not being unreasonable.

[mrsgregorypeck]

Nl NE: what you wrote really resonated with me. I also had the idea that time would heal everything. I do remember him being a loving father when I was very small and I think that, pathetically, I'm hoping for that loving father to reemerge. It won't happen, though, will it?

At the moment, I'm just giving him the politeness and duty of care that I would give an elderly neighbour who has happened to drop in. But what do i say to him in future when he wants to visit? He lives 350 miles away so dropping in isn't a problem, thank goodness.

[mrsgregorypeck]

NI NE ? This was addressed to Online.

No need to put him in a home, user. He is elderly but very capable and very independent. Very nippy and very smug, as well...

[SittingAround1]

You have no obligation to see him. If you don't want him to visit and he asks just politely decline and say that won't be possible.

[ButteredToastAndStrawberryJam]

make him back into the man I missed to the point of scars on my soul
That's truly heart wrenching.

[ButteredToastAndStrawberryJam]

I agree, OP, you don't own him any explanation.

[mrsgregorypeck]

Think possibly one of the strangest experiences I have encountered was after CCAW died and I visited. I was offered a large plastic bag filled with her pants. When i politely declined, I was urged to accept with the assurance that she had never worn them!
I still declined this unmissable offer. Have never regretted it.