Aibu to not know what to do.... Estranged parent died this evening.

[flirtygirl]

My dad died a couple of hours ago. He was in a nursing home. 63 years old after a massive stroke which kept him in hospital and then he had another massive stroke that rendered him incapacitated, couldn't swallow and was tube fed. This was 4 years ago.
Anyway, he has died this evening from corona virus.

I have had a crappy non relationship with him for years. He was my world when I was little and I remember being daddy's little princess, he would call me that but then he abandoned me. He would be away for years and forget how old I was then swan back in expecting applause. When I had my daughter, I cut most ties with him but I did talk to him now and again and when he first had the stroke a few years back, I did visit him a couple of times. I let him meet my children and he was happy for that.

So what am I meant to feel. Is it bad for me to grief, am I being hypocritical?

I just feel wierd...

Im not posting for condolences or sympathy, just want to know if anyone else has been in this type of situation, when semi estranged/ estranged from a parent who died.

I think, in a way, you'll feel a 'double grief'. Grief for the 'actual' loss of your father as well as grief for the relationship you never had, and now never can have with him.

You're entitled to feel what you feel for as long as you feel it. There is no 'wrong' or 'right' way to feel.

My dad left when I was a toddler and never bothered with me or my siblings from then. He died when I was on my early 20s and it really upended me. I guess I always thought he was going to reach out to me and he didn't. He knew he was dying and still didn't. It took me a while to get through it but, once I got over the initial shock, it passed quite quickly.

It's fully understandable. I had a difficult relationship with my dad. He was a good father when he was there and we got on like a house on fire when together but he also struggled with being reliably there and had a tendency to not keep his word but this was more of an issue as an adult.

He was a far from ideal son to my grandparents and would frequently worry/upset my gran with his choices, he was an appalling husband, and as a father he did just enough to get some credit but the bare minimum and certainly did not always treat me as a priority though not negligent.

He died just a week after my birthday and though it seems even towards the end of him having lied to everyone and even in death failed to protect the interests of his only child I can't fully not love him or not be upset about him no longer being there

I feel I should have tried harder.

I could have visited more after the first stroke. After the second there was no point as he was to all intents and purposes gone. My mum said today that she doesn't know how he lasted this long after that 2nd stroke.

I could have spoken to him more when he would ring. I could have reconciled with him in my early twenties. But I had a two year old and I felt furious that anyone could just walk away from their child.

But I feel I could have done more and my ex husband had said years ago, I would feel like this and he's right, I do. I was adamant that I would not shed a tear.

Now I'm thinking about my own children being estranged from their dad. My own was feckless and selfish but theirs is abusive. Low contact with him is a protection and that's what I've been telling myself but now I feel guilty that I am depriving them of something and that one day they will feel just like I am feeling now. One has already refused to have anything to do with him and the other has intermittent contact.

One day they will be sat there crying too.
Everythings a giant mess.
But I didn't expect to cry and to feel grief.

I agree, feel what you feel, it's honest and it's how you feel. Don't beat yourself up over it at all.

I can't speak from experience but my friend was in your position, and she asked the same question.

It took her time to work her way through it, she did grieve.

Ask your GP to refer you to grief counselling. It’s well known that you have a difficult bereavement if you had a complicated relationship with the person that has died. It was no way as difficult as your situation, but I had a tricky relationship with my mother and really struggled when she died. Counselling helped me a lot.

I was semi-estranged from my father when he died. My mother had divorced him 10 years earlier, after over 30 years of an utterly poisonous relationship. She grieved terribly when he died; I felt nothing. Death and grief are complicated as hell so try to ignore whatever critical voice in your head is telling you that you're not doing this 'right'. There is no 'right'. I think it's different for everyone and each of us has every right to find our own way through it. I hope you have enough support along the way.

Op you’re not wrong to feel whatever you’re feeling. Whether that’s grief or nothing at all.

I was distant from a grandparent that recently died me while I wasn’t necessarily sad in the way you’d expect, I was sad to have lost the grandparent from my childhood but not the one from my adulthood. It’s a confusing emotion

Oh you poor thing. Be kind to yourself, people like us who are brought up by abusive parents often have a deeply buried hope that the relationship can be fixed one day. When the parent dies that hope is gone forever. Please dont be hard on yourself though, it's up to a parent to show their child they love them. Your father's shortcomings as a parent were on him, not you. Please dont feel guilty, it was not your fault. Break the chain of this behaviour, be kind and loving to your own children and hopefully in time you will come to terms with not having had the parenting you should have had.

I never had a good relationship with my dad. As a kid he beat the daylights out of me - I was a cheeky kid I know. But my sister was never touched. I left home as soon as I could. As an adult we sort of tolerated one another but were never really close. I could never really forgive him for all the beatings. If he had been tough on both myself and my sister I could have understood he was a strict father. But there was something about me that annoyed him. Maybe because I was a lot like him. He was hard and smart but never had the chances to get on because of the last war. I made myself chances he never had.

He died of cancer when I was in my late 40s and it was not until he was dead that I felt sorry for the relationship we had missed. I was never really able to do what most people feel grieving.

We all react in different ways and feelings for other humans are not selected.

When you lose someone with whom it was difficult, you don't just lose them, you lose that tiny seed of hope in the back of your mind that one day everything will be fixed between you.

This. I'm estranged from my dad (mostly). He's a narcissist who was an absolute arse when my parents divorced, left us with nothing and started a new family (only met one of my half sisters and they're in their 20s!) and whilst I've tried to build a relationship in adulthood, I slowly realised that he only cares about himself. He has serious lung issues and had 3 heart attacks last year so is at risk, so I checked in when all this started (March?) and he just lapped up the attention. But he hasn't bothered calling to check how me and mine are. I know he's ok as his whatsapp 'last seen' is regularly updated, but I won't bother again. It's crossed my mind 'what if' but it is what it is, I'm not going to run around feeding into his need for attention when it's so one sided. I accepted a long time ago he doesn't give a shit about me.

Sorry for your loss. You're allowed to feel however you feel. Be kind to yourself.

Please don't facilitate a relationship with someone who abuses your children.

I am sorry you have been giving yourself such a hard time. Be kind to yourself.

My mother abandoned me as a tiny child and has caused life long problems for me. I've often thought I will feel relieved when she dies as then my children will be safe from her. I'm worried though I will feel anxiety about never having a conversation with her rather than relief she is dead. Dh tells me there is nothing she can say that will help and I won't get the response I want. I'm different to you in that I have no happy memories as she didn't do anything good for me, but we all have our difficulties and how you feel is yours and you don't have to justify it to anyone.

Take care of yourself. .

It's so easy to think about what we would have done differently when someone is gone but it doesn't really help. When my DF died I thought a lot about things I would change, we weren't estranged but we weren't close and there are lots of things I would like to go back and do but I can't and it's taken me a long time to come to terms with that. It does get easier though.

Right now you will have so many emotions and they're all valid! Be sad, be angry, be happy for the memories you have. It sounds as though he was just existing for the last while rather than really living so take some comfort in the fact he will have peace now and be kind to yourself.

When my semi-estranged dad died a few years ago I found it really hard. I had young kids and I grieved for the relationship I had never had.

Just let it roll. Don't be hard on yourself. Take care

Whatever and however you feel is alright. My mother died at the beginning of the month, and we'd been estranged since she left the family home when I was still at primary school. I remember the good times, the occasional contact visits as a teenager, the few memories from before she left...but i also remember the abandonment, the confusion and the argument that i was actually the oldest child, not my eldest younger brother. I feel like part of my grief is for what could have/should have been. My inbox is open if you need an ear to bend.

Be kind to yourself

When my father died I hadn't seen him for years as he was abusive and neglectful.

When he died I was very surprised by how strongly I felt. I felt like I was grieving for the man in the very few memories that I had that were good.

However, I was also grieving for the Dad I always wanted to have. The one who would have taught me to ride my bike, or help me with my homework.

My father was a violent angry spendthrift who had multiple affairs and kept tapping me up for money. I was still absolutely devastated when he died. It's normal, it's your childhood you grieve really.

@lyralalala I felt much the same when my father died, I hadn't seen him for 10 years - I was 30 when he died. And I felt all sorts of emotions, but most of all sadness for the father he almost was.

I won't go into the nuts and bolts, but OP, I totally get it, it's totally fine to feel anyway you want and need to feel right now.

I’m in a similar situation,not seen or heard from my dad in 30 years ..he’s not dead yet ,that I know of ..however you feel is ok .

My grandfather died this year after a very difficult relationship with the whole family. He was difficult when younger and then lived his life very bitterly, falling out with everyone, insulting everyone who came near him so by the end it was really just immediate family who visited. Also he had copd and was bedridden and on constant home oxygen for the last 5 years, it really was no life at all. He coped by being sexist and racist and homophobic to all the amazing care workers who spent their days catering to his every need.
When he died my husband woke me up to tell me and I said "ok" and went right back to sleep. I have not grieved him at all and I know my father hasn't, he has only spent time worrying if he was a sociopath that he simply wasnt feeling sad at all merely relieved that he wouldn't have to visit. Honestly his life had been prolonged by oxygen and antibiotics, it was no life.

Not spoke or seen my mother for over 25 years, I was told she was ill, I did not go and see her.

She died a few weeks later (this is recent), my first reaction was I cried a little, talked about it with DH as to how I felt. Then thought about why I have not wanted to be in touch with her, and I felt better.

I did not go to the funeral and Im glad I did not, I think about her sometimes, and really I dont get upset, because she did not care how I was, and was never interested in if I had a roof over my head or food to eat. So to me she died a long long time ago.

OP we all deal with grief very differently, and you thinking about all the if's and buts is a way of dealing with it, but you cannot change the past. But dont feel guilt for not going to see or talk to your dad at the time to you, it was the right thing to do

All of your feelings are valid and I am sorry you are facing this.

As adults, we choose to have children, to whom we owe unconditional love but we have no automatic right to expect anything in return. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, you may house their bodies but not their souls. You can give them your love but not your thoughts.

You may be wishing you had a better relationship with your father but that responsibility does not lie with you. The hardest time for a child who was abandoned / neglected is when they have their own children and cannot see how they would ever do the same to their own offspring. We often yearn with all our heart to have a relationship that was never within our power to create. You are giving your children the power to say no to the abuse of your ex partner while teaching them love. If, one day, they are in the same position as you are now, someone will point out to them that the relationship with their father was his responsibility not there's and not their mother's. Your responsibility to them is to keep them safe and to love them.

It is OK to cry, it is OK to grieve, it is OK to feel sad that he is dead and it is OK to feel sad that your relationship was not what you had hoped for.

Remember that we feel sad, cry and grieve when we hear of other people that die even if we don't know them and we have these feelings when we read stories that are not true. So really.. it is OK to grieve!! You don't need to reach a bar of acceptable behaviour to enter the club.

You seem very in touch with your emotions which is really good. Write them down if you can, even if you will never read them again. Explore them yourself, if you can't find someone in real life to talk to, you can find people on line who will listen and not judge.

www.cruse.org.uk/get-help/local-services

Don't hesitate to talk to people in real life, find someone who you know will listen to hear what you have to say rather than to fix things or give you a solution.

Firstly, and condolences. You only get one Dad.

You are perfectly entitled to whatever you feel at the moment. I had a difficult relationship with my Dad and I was very sad when he died. A major part of that (for me, and you may feel very differently) was that he couldn't then ever make our relationship better. That it was the end of the story.

Sometimes I'm able to pretend he's still alive and living the life he was before, it just not contacting me. Weirdly, that helps. Anyway, accept that however you feel is exactly that - how you feel. You're entitled to that.

Embarrassing there / their error.