So what if your father was a misogynist bully?

rose..you still around?

hope you are ok, you said this was a sensitive area for you

Hope everyone is ok with this hijack

I should join the Stately Homes thread, but can't do it. These little snippets help me though, and are all I can cope with at the moment.

So awful, the legacy your parents can leave you with

I think I started to forgive my younger, stupid self when I had children. And got over the fear that I would be the same as them.

I still cringe inwardly at the shit I allowed myself to experience. I feel bad for that person. DH doesn't know any of it. I have actually suppressed a lot of it I think, for a long time, but it catches me unawares sometimes.

I have a teenage dd, and find it very difficult to allow her the freedom to make the same kinds of mistakes I did. I have to trust in DH and I that we gave her a better sense of self-eseem and a better radar than I did back then though. Very hard.

I have only just(within the last year) started to forgive myself and work through my issues, with masses of support from DH and reading bits and pieces on here.

I did alot of silly things when I was young as I craved love and attention which attracts the worst kind of men. Looking back now I realise that that wasn't my fault it was down to the relationshiop with my dad. For ages I hated myself

aww, TFTIL, have a

I still cry too when I write words like that. I am 45. If I were to tell you how stupid I was in my youth, and the shit I put up, we would be here all day. I have forgiven myself (eventually) though. I hope you have, love.

I blame him. I will always blame him. And my mother for standing by.

Anyfucker - "I broke the cycle, inde

I am not the parent my father was

and I married a man who is so far from him, it is out of sight

thankfully, I didn't stay with some of the fuckwits I met in my stupid youth, or the cycle would have been perpetuated

there was a nugget of self-preservation in me somewhere that said I deserved more than that"

This made me cry, I could of wrote this word for word

I'm not sure about my father he did say some horrific things to me and my sister about our weight, appearance etc but he is was even nastier to my brother.

I am not the daughter of a misogynist. To call him a feminist would not be accurate either. He's always been very laissez faire in his approach to everything big politics or small.

My FIL is however a misogynist bully. I can see the way it has effected my SIL's.

Like has been described here he oversteps the limits when it comes to commenting about the physical appearance of my SIL's. They are both slim attractive girls but he feels compelled to comment on every weight gain etc. He's tried it on several occasions with me but I am able to tell him literally to fuck off as I don't have anything invested in the relationship &therefore there is no emotional impact.

Both sisters have complexes about their appearance and would never be seen without makeup. One of them compulsively shops for clothes to her financial peril and the other is prone to under eating-even when pregnant.

SIL1 has married a man who also had entrenched views of how a woman 'behaves' however he is not a bully in the true sense-and he is slowly re-arranging his world view. The other SIL keeps herself emotionally distant from her partners to an unusal degree.

Both are unable to connect sexually with themselves and thus with men.

FIL is a seething mass of insecurity and fear underneath all the bullying and bullshit, like most men who seek to control in this way. I fear for his emotional heath just as I do for the SIL's

My Dad definitely falls into this category. He physically, sexually, verbally and emotionally abused me througout my childhood. He also was abusive towards my Mum and sister.

I'm a Stately Homes card carrying member and it is only in the last year or so that I'm really recognising that my upbringing wasn't even close to normal.

My Dad is very genteel, upper middle class, shops at Waitrose. However he is utterly dismissive of women. We were sent to university 'to meet a better class of husband.' My Dad has frequently told me what a disappointment I am to him.

I have no contact with any of my family and I am breaking the cycle. Excellent thread, roseability - sorry it's so true for so many of us.

yep...

IT's only after reading LUndy Bancroft that I now finally "get" how patriarchy supports these abusive men and their behaviour.
OUr culture, any patriarchal culture, supports and rewards misogyny, but tries to pass it off as the failings of individual, narcisstic men.
Yes, the men are narcissitic, but they have been encouraged every step of the way, by patriarchy, to look down on and despise women

I reckon there are lots of them out there. I thought these misogynists were rare cases because that's the myth society peddles, but now women have the blogosphere can can compare notes with each other, I've got the feeling that it's more normal than it's made out to be

And in those days porn wasn't everywhere like it is now...!

< nods >

Yup, my dad too. Though as he absented himself for nearly all of my childhood I only directly experienced the damage of his absence, rather than the much bigger damage of his presence. But the physical and psychological abuse he meted out damaged so many people - my mum, his other women, his many children - that even with that little exposure, it has undoubtedly shaped me, my relationships and my feminism.

My brothers, btw, are lovely men - great husbands, great dads.

My dad is a misogynist and its starting to rub off onto my brother which makes me

thanks inde, and I am sorry for how your life has been affected too

abuse is not just a gendered horror

inde, that's so sad. It's good to hear you have step-daughters now. Like you I worry about being the parent my father was, so it is good to hear of so many people who've managed to break the pattern.

I think (wild generalization) that men who're misogynistic are likely to be nasty, controlling types in other ways too. It's a fallacy that you find people of whom everyone says, 'ooh, he was a sexist bully to his wife ... but otherwise such a nice man'. I find it odd that so many people post on MN about their unpleasant-sounding partners and qualify that they're 'great with the kids'. I bet it's the same kids, years later, who remember their parent as a bully.

y Dad is a misogynist bully. Routinely calls women 'cunts' in casual conversation. He is the most appalling person I have ever met.

When I was 13 I told hom to shut the fuck up, or I would leave and he would never see me again (my parent where seperated, so this would be easy enough.)

He didn't, so I did.

I've seen him about 5 times in the last decade. I don't care anything about him. He can live his sad, fat, drink soaked life far away from me.

Listening to his bullshit, and being able to decide to stop listening, has certainly made me ensure I don't have to listen to anyone elses bullshit.

My husband, and my step-dad are lovely in every way.

Good for you. :) I'm glad that self-preservation kicked in.
I will never know what sort of parent I would have been because my confidence was destroyed to the point that I didn't get in to a proper relationship until I was much older. I was always determined that I would learn from my Fathers mistakes though and I now have step daughters and step grandchildren who I have always tried to help and never abused. It seems to affect different people in different ways. Some people go on to repeat their parents mistakes and others learn from them. This may sound a bit self pitying but I have at last left the past behind and am much more happy and confident.
Anyway come to think of it I am off topic here as my problem and I think my sisters was verbal abuse or in my sisters case mainly just bad parenting rather than misogynism. To be abused and put down just because you are a woman along with all the other abuse must be awful.

I broke the cycle, inde

I am not the parent my father was

and I married a man who is so far from him, it is out of sight

thankfully, I didn't stay with some of the fuckwits I met in my stupid youth, or the cycle would have been perpetuated

there was a nugget of self-preservation in me somewhere that said I deserved more than that

The trouble is these things are self perpetuating. A bit like sexual abuse where the abusers were often abused themselves. I don't know how you break this endless cycle.
I doubt it ever will be broken. :(
Some people both men and women should never be parents. Many more men than women though I think.

I think it's a major issue for feminism.

There is a complete lack of discussion in the media and politics about abusive, dysfunctional households. One of the things that most pisses me off about the rhetoric of "broken Britain", "broken families" etc., is the implication that as long as both parents are living together and one is working so the family aren't claiming benefits, all is rosy in the garden.

One of the reasons feminism is so vilified of course, is because it challenged that view of the family. It pointed out that for many women and children, the family is a prison at best and a training ground in how to be an abuser or a victim. This is terrifying stuff for the patriarchy as the form of family we have, is indeed the underpinning of our mysogynist society and every blow to it is deeply threatening. The right wing are quite right to feel scared of the "break up" of the family as they have formed it.

My father fits into the category of bully, one of those men whose status as head of the family gave him loads of rights and no responsibilities, he was a drunk and violent and generally hopeless. My sister is an alcoholic, I had a period of allowing myself to be used by men when I was young and was involved in a deeply dysfunctional relationship with my (alcoholic) XP, my brother teetered on the edge of alcoholism when he was young before he sorted himself out and my other brother was clinically depressed for some years in his youth. But hey, they didn't get divorced, so the family wasn't broken, an ideal family, phew.

Such sad stories here. I guess you all know about the stately homes threads? For people from dysfunctional families / horrible parents / that sort of this.

My father is a patriarch, but a benign one

It disturbs me the amount of abuse people suffer at the hands of the very ones who should be protecting them. I'm male and have only really got over the (mostly) verbal abuse from my Father now I'm in my fifties. It destroyed my confidence. I didn't get any protection from my Mother although she was struggling to bring up six children. Mostly he was a good husband to her.
I'm really happy that the op has had the strength to get over this though. It's not easy.

I am not able to type more here

but yes, he was

and yes, it affected me (badly, when I was younger) and still does, in many ways

he is actually mellowing as he gets older though, and I am struggling with that