What’s your relationship like with your dad?

[RosieLemonade]

I haven’t seen my biological father in years. I very often forget that he must exist somewhere in the world.
My relationship with my stepdad is very strained. He has made some awful choices in his life and hurt a lot of people. He isn’t with my mum anymore so I don’t actually know what our relationship is. I sent a card and text him today.
I find it so unrelatable when people have happy healthy relationships with their fathers 😳😳😳

My dad is brilliant. He was always around when he were little and has always worked 7am to 3pm so he’d be home for dinner and to see us in the evenings. He is the kindest person I know and he would move mountains for me.

We don’t have a super close ‘talk about anything’ relationship and conversation can be a bit awkward without a social buffer (i.e. my very extroverted mum steering the conversation) but I’m autistic and, quite frankly, I think I got it from him

Strained.

He’s in his 80s now and very difficult, but he’s always been that way. I’m an only child, My mum died when I was very young and he’s always had to be the centre of my attention.

He’s stopped me doing so much in my life - careers, moving countries etc - with huge guilt trips about how he would be alone and would kill himself.

My first marriage ended because my husband couldn’t take an amazing job opportunity abroad because my dad was threatening suicide if we moved. Ex h hard worked for career suffered and he never forgave me.

I’ve done nothing with my life because of him. I’ll only be free the day he dies to be honest.

I had to send a card and present today or I’d never hear the end of it or how he’d told so and so and they think I’m a terrible daughter. It’s draining.

Brilliant. He's my rock and my hero and we are weirdly similar.

He was in the army for 30 years and was away for about half my childhood, and I think he feels guilty to this day about that.

Distant and superficial. I see him a few times a year for a couple of days at a time. I don’t feel like I know him at all though and he definitely doesn’t know me.

@RosieLemonade

I haven’t seen my biological father in years. I very often forget that he must exist somewhere in the world. My relationship with my stepdad is very strained. He has made some awful choices in his life and hurt a lot of people. He isn’t with my mum anymore so I don’t actually know what our relationship is. I sent a card and text him today. I find it so unrelatable when people have happy healthy relationships with their fathers 😳😳😳

I feel the same, I've never met my father, but he's out there somewhere, unless he's already passed away which is possible as he'd be on his 80's now. I think it must be a wonderful feeling knowing you have a father who can protect you and who loves you. I see the relationship my husband has with our children and can see what I missed out on.

Excellent.
I know it’s cliche but he is my hero. I can count on him for anything and everything. He’s dopey and forgetful and not into the lovey dovey stuff but he will drop everything to help me.
There is nothing he can’t fix.
I know I am bloody lucky to have him.

My relationship with my dad went from

Child: Non existent
Teenager: Toxic (he put me into counselling)
Now: OK

We will never have an amazing father/daughter relationship. Too much has happened in the past. But he is my dad so I've tried to have some sort of relationship with him. He's a much better grandad than a parent.

I'm no contact with my Dad. Life is much better this way, his narcissitic ways and drinking problem was just toxic. It doesn't hurt me, I know full well I gave him too many chances. My stepdad is amazing though. I pushed him away for a long, long time growing up which I regret but you can't reason with childrens emotions. He never gave up on me though and now we've got an amazing relationship and he is the best Grandad to my DC.

My dad is super cool. He raised 4 of us after my mum died when I was 3.
He's 77 now and looking back over the years he has always had a smile on his face and is kind to everyone we know.
A big softie but probably winds other people up ha ha

Superficial. He was a terrible dad when we were younger. An angry man, a disciplinarian, horrid to my mother. We get on “well” now because I’ve put thousands of miles between us.

Non existent. He's an arsehole. He trashed my life

Weird.
Not around much when we were kids because of work.
Heavy drinker, domestic violence, intolerance to us kids.
Affairs, selfish.
Occasional kindness and concern towards us.

Then as adults again, aggressive, cold, heavy drinking, not at all pleasant.

Then he met his now wife. Transformation was absolutely stunning.
A different person entirely.
No more drinking, happy, healthy, had further children at a much much older age and is the father to them kids that I wish he was to us.
He is how he should be.

I don’t see him often despite him living only 10 minutes away, it’s superficial but easy.
It’s like I am a visitor to his home, not his daughter.
I adore his wife and love his kids, I have forgiven and forgotten a lot.

Practically non existent. He left my mum and sister when I was 5 for another woman 45 years ago. I saw him once a week growing up but he had a terrible temper and I was always scared of him and still am actually. I see him and his wife twice a year for a few hours. He told me when I was about 20 that he didn’t believe in Father’s Day so I stopped sending him a card. It makes me very sad but I switched off from the pain a long time ago. When I do see him we pretend that our relationship is normal just to smooth things over. I am so jealous of friends who are lucky to have loving, unselfish fathers. I can’t look at Facebook today! Luckily my own DH is a fantastic dad.

Minimal. False for my mother's sake.

He was emotionally abusive to me as a child, causing me to make some awful decisions as a teenager.

I withdrew almost completely from my parents life for a while but now they both have serious medical problems I help them practically. With not very well hidden poor grace.

I don’t see him and am better off that way.

to anyone finding today hard

It's quite 'formal', we would never hug or kiss but he's always been very supportive, endless coaching through maths O Levels etc (showing my age), he would always be the Dad that picked us up from the Youth Club disco, very generous financially. Strong sense of community involvement (local politics etc) which has rubbed off on me - although we are opposite sides of the political spectrum but he has never tried to influence my views and enjoys a healthy debate.
He's beginning to suffer with dementia now (90), it's very sad to see his personality changing from a really bright, outgoing, articulate, sports playing (outdoor tennis up until last year) culture loving man to someone who shuffles around not really knowing what he is doing.

My dad died 20 years ago when I was a teenager, but even before that, our relationship was strained at best. He wasn't a very nice person. My stepdad turned out to also not be a very nice person (abusive, thankfully not to me, because I was an adult then).

I've been lucky though to have some wonderful men in my life who did act as father figures to me, and dh is also a great dad. My own though, pretty shitty,

The best! Always there for me and always has unquestionable faith in me, he is not perfect by any stretch but has been the best Dad I could ask for.

I haven't had one with him for about 22 years. No contact due to him being a toxic piece of shit.

I’m just working up to phoning him. He’s not abusive or anything just was never there both emotionally or physically even though he lived with us. My mother has NPD and totally took it out on me, he was never there to see what was going to, it was like a benign neglect.

Even now I’ll phone him he’ll chat away for an age about all he’s been doing and won’t ask about me or the DC just rant about Boris or the stories for example. He has no empathy or social skills whatsoever. Growing up we often went without things like heating or food and I don’t know why he was a plumber and was always “at work” 7 days a week.

We probably see him twice a year. His choice.

I grew up with a controlling father and a mother with MH issues that were swept under the carpet.

As an adult I find it hard to like him as he’s a real mansplainer. I made a career change about a decade ago and he’s always been patronising as fuck about this and never supportive.

He prefers my sister and it’s really obvious. She can do no wrong despite needing financial help right into her 40’s. (She has no dc’s and lives an alternative lifestyle that she can’t actually fund herself).

I moved to London to get away from the lot of them.

@sweetkitty

My dad does exactly the same on phone calls. Lots of politics and then a story about a random neighbour.

I've not seen my real dad in 40odd years I know he is still alive but he never bothered about any of his children I'm the eldest of "a few" . I have a step dad and we get on ok not terribly close but not a strained relationship.

I haven’t seen him for about a year but I text him or call him every week although it’s always me who has to make the effort.He never sees my brother or keeps in touch with him
After my mum and dad split up about 40 years ago he met someone else and had two dc’s but then they split up and he hasn’t stayed in touch with them or seen them since they were toddlers
I see one of them but not the other as she lives abroad
My grandad was in mine and my brothers eyes ‘our dad’ he was an amazing man who passed away nearly 5 years ago and I miss him every day.He was my hero for sure
for all those struggling today x

My father died just over a month ago. It wasn't the best father-child relationship. He never failed as a provider but he was a crap parent - bad-tempered, selfish, moody and worse when he'd been drinking. I only heard him apologise once in the fifty-odd years I knew him. I don't miss him.