Sense check regarding my mum dying & my dad being a pr*ck

[weehector]

I'm a little drunk but have just watched The Descendants - the George Clooney film where the mum dies & the dad tries to make sense of the process including the revelation that the mum is having an affair prior to the accident leading to her death.

I've had a bottle of wine, I admit, but I'm in bits after the film. I need a sense check on reality. My mum died when I was 11 (30 yrs ago) she'd been unwell with myasthenia gravis & died suddenly after a blood transfusion resulted in a blood clot. The aftermath wasn't pretty - my dad introduced my to his new girlfriend (the 22rd old nurse who nursed my mum as it happened), 9 days after my mum's funeral & there was a spiral downwards afterwards of what I now realise was mental & physical abuse (comments regarding my dead mum, locking my in my room & stopping me going to school, beating) resulting in me going to live with my aunt when I was 14.

After my Stepmum died when I was 21 and at uni, my dad re established contact & we stayed loosely in contact until my late 20s when I realised the relationship was doing me no favours as my dad could never be the dad I wanted him to be & kept letting me down.

He's never met my son, now 4 and denying my son a grandfather is something I've struggled with - his other grandfather is 80 but amazing & I know my own dad would be a half hearted grandfather so I've shied from establishing contact - not that there's been any from his side.

My question is; lots have people have disjointed relationships with their parent but how f*cked up is my situation? I know it's normal to weep at Forrest Gump (where the mum dies) but I'm beginning to wonder I'd I need a bit of therapy...did anyone normal weep at The Descendants?

What quietly said!! She said almost everything I'd have said to you.

You are lovely by the sounds of it. Stay no contact. he does not deserve you or your son in his life. You look after you and your son ok leave him and his abusive ways to it.
By the way what he did to you was atrocious esp as you lost your mother. You deserved to be extra looked after, after your loss never mind what he did to you!

As one survivor to another stay strong you survived be free!

Sobering up a little but the sanity votes helped - thanks quietly & fatalomo. To be clear, the abuse was at the hands of my Stepmum (dad was at sea for months on end but sided with stepmum's versions of events). I've a fab life now - rock solid DH & extended family for 19 yrs but I still get derailed every now & then & wonder if I'm suppressing things.

I know nothing about psychiatry, but wouldn't the fact that you do get derailed and upset by the past indicate that you are not repressing bad memories but dealing with them in a very healthy manner when they do pop up?

You do sound lovely, and though I usually think it is sad when posters go NC with their parents, I really cannot see what you or your family could possibly gain from letting this man into your lives.

"denying my son a grandfather is something I've struggled with"
Please don't think that - you are not denying him a grandfather, you are protecting him from someone who while technically is his grandfather, would not be capable of being a grandfather .