To wonder what has happened to my doting dad?

[Dreamer31]

I am willing to be told I am unreasonable but I just want some advice on what could have possibly happened to my dad and whether he should be told he has changed and not for the better?

my dad was always my hero when I was little honestly he was my favourite person in the world and he was such a family man but over the last few years he’s either changed or I’ve noticed that he isn’t that much of a family man. He and my mum got divorced when I was younger and he had us 50/50 so not absent. He got remarried and they had children but he never pushed us to one side or anything and when I moved in with them I got my own room and he was supportive apart from with education but I didn’t mind that.

The issue kind of happened in the last 11 years since they moved house and it’s a much larger house. He works so much he hardly sees his now teenage children, he describes everything based on how much it is worth rather than just what it is and he doesn’t have hardly any time for family.. my grandparents are old and he is their only child and yet he doesn’t do hardly anything for them. He is in an excellently paid job and is still in his 50’s and his wife my stepmum had her own business which she has just sold and has been able to now retire in her early 40’s. My siblings go to school and they have a nanny to pick them up and a cleaner but still not able to find the time to look after my grandparents or any of their grandchildren and my dad is going to keep working but to what avail I’m not sure.

If it’s happened for the last 11 years, based on his age and the age I’m guessing you are - then the change may not be him, but you.
You’re seeing your “hero” dad through an adult’s perspective.
When you were a teenager you wouldn’t have thought twice about whether he’d look after his parents (who anyway weren’t old then).
It’s just as likely that your values have changed.

Basically my AIBU is shall I say to my dad that I am worried he has become a bit of a workaholic to avoid the struggles he has in personal life. He was devastated when my parents split and he had to leave me and my sister so I wonder if that is a factor from which is stopping him from embracing family time. He hasn’t had any major loss in life so I wonder if he is sticking his head in the sand because he doesn’t want to think about it. The last 11 years would also be around the time that my grandad started to get poorly and he went into a care home.

I just worry something out of the blue will happen and he will have a bit of breakdown and the reason he focuses on money is because it is the one thing he can control rather than potentially losing someone. He lost a baby with someone else before my mum when he was younger and he took that very hard and blamed himself so I wonder if that is why he is like that

@Testina yes that makes sense. He always looked after us and always seemed quite close to his parents but since I’ve moved out and got my own life etc. I’ve just seen him taking on more hours at work voluntarily and he doesn’t have the same relationship with his new family as he did when my sister and I were little, he always picked us up from school and he always helped with school work but now he would rather pay a private tutor and it just seems so odd.

when he and my mum were together money was tight as they always worked full time and because dad was on nights a lot he’d either choose to pick us up so we could be at home whilst he slept before work or he would pay for us to be in after school club we were always in breakfast club though. I think he thinks we were poor when we were little and there is no way he wants to go back to that but I liked the person my dad was then, he would never have arrogantly told me how much something cost. They got a new roof a few weeks ago and he said all paid for via overtime no credit needed here and I just thought god dad don’t need to rub it in. What I said was what about the large sum from stepmum retiring and he said oh no that’s gone into savings and she’s giving herself a salary/ budgetof £3000 a month. That’s more than I make in a year and I just wow that’s a bit of a kicker

Do you think he regrets having a second family? He had the children from his first family when he was young, it was all new to him and he was happy and engaged. As his marriage ended and the children got older, he became more focused on work. Now he's got his second family and feels under pressure to give them a better life, a better quality of life that he could give his first family.

Now he resents his second family, he's older and not interested in raising children anymore. He's in his 50s, his first children are adults and instead of winding down, he feels under pressure to provide for the second family.

The focus on work and money has slowly turned him into a bit of a snob, his only focus is money.

I could have got all of that wrong but it's just what I picked up from the OP. Please accept my apologies if I have got it wrong.

He's maybe been trying to keep up with his wife if she had a lucrative business. Some men feel they should be the highest earner.

I would say something to your dad, and think he'd actually be touched at your concern and that you'd noticed.

After splitting from my mum, my own dad had very little to do with his parents until later in life (I think he felt a failure compared to his brother) and they became poorly which I know he regretted.

I guess that could be it, he said he’d only had my siblings with his new wife because she was in her 30’s and didn’t have any children of her own. My siblings are still younger than 18 so going to be providing them for a while yet. This is one reason why even though their mum has managed to retire early he’s always been working the night shifts and they hired a nanny to make life easier but she’s basically retired now and he’s still working as hard as he can accepting any overtime he can because he worries about losing it and he doesn’t like being at home, even when he is home he is sleeping from the shifts or playing golf in order to not be at home

@Lunarpsychobitch she had a business and her parents have money too so I think he feels a sense of keeping up with them especially since they moved to the country and he’s got to fit in. I am worried he will regret it because even though my grandad has an incurable condition now he is still not slowing down and seeing how much my grandparents need him even if it is just emotionally. He has the money to help out financially though but he doesn’t think to offer and my grandparents are too proud to ask.

the worst thing is I am worried something will shockingly happen to my grandma first and grandad will be left and my dad will regret it because I think he has been setting himself up emotionally for my grandad going first.

Could be a number of things - the pressure of the new much larger house and increased living costs due to the style of living they are now doing, keeping up with his new wife, being seen as a 'proper' provider financially, you know a sort of keeping up with the Joneses attitude looking good for those looking on, and also maybe burying his head in the sand as he does not want to face up to the reality of parents ageing and becoming infirm.

It does sound as if he has become one of those who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing and that does seem one hell of a change to his previous outlook.

Are you able to sit down and talk to him about how much you've seen him change?

His wife is really family oriented though, the land they bought had loads of space so she built a bungalow on the land which they funded from their own money. My grandparents live in a council bungalow and me and my full sister have both bought our own houses with our jobs. It’s not like I am interested in all their money because I have none because my other half and I are on good salaries ourselves so when I say that he tells me how much something cost him and that he didn’t need to even consider the cost it’s not because I’m thinking I’m broke it’s more because he would never have dared talk about money before like that & it shocks me a bit

Maybe his dw puts more priority on 'stuff' than your dm did?

one of the recent conversations was the brand new roof and I told him his new security system and gates were nice and he just replied £25,000 in total.. I felt like saying ah I didn’t realise I’d asked how much they were rather than the fact they were just nice. It’s not like I need them for my house or would be able to afford them

The tragedy is he will never get the time back with your siblings or his parents and the stuff he has accumulated, the money he has made, the hours he is working won't compensate.

I would definitely say something to your dad. It definitely sounds like he's trying too hard to keep up with the in-laws and needs a reality check.

Do you think he's happy?

My mum was always more of a spender then he was and more than his new wife is. My stepmum was very particular about money until she sold her business, she didn’t want anything to do with my dads money which is still kind of the case now, she gave everyone in the family some of her money even me which I put straight into my children saving account. he is still very tight now. Dad however I don’t know who he seems to be working for.. I don’t know whether it is a bury his head in the sand type thing. My main concern is that he is working that hard to keep appearances up that he can afford this lifestyle even if my stepmum was too leave him like my mum did. I worry he doesn’t want to get this close to the second family in case he loses it again. I remember him telling me when I was little that all he wanted growing up was to settle down and have a big family with a loving wife so I think he thinks he may lose it again

As someone else said I think you're just seeing it through adult perspective. And also people change. As people get older they tend to worry more about money, so whilst he may have been living hand to mouth when raising you, he is perhaps also now focusing on retiring comfortably and working hard to afford that. I doubt work is preventing him from being in touch with his parents, it maybe an excuse but I doubt it's the reason. If I were you I wouldn't make any suggestikbs around money or lifestyle, just voice your concern that you think his parents would like to see more of him but are too proud to ask. Or softer still suggest doing things with his parents, organise stuff with him your step siblings and grandparents.

”she’s giving herself a salary/ budgetof £3000 a month. That’s more than I make in a year and I just wow that’s a bit of a kicker“

“my other half and I are on good salaries ourselves“

Which is it?

And reading these:

”I felt like saying ah I didn’t realise I’d asked how much they were rather than the fact they were just nice.“

“he would never have dared talk about money before like that & it shocks me a bit”

Just sounds like your issue. There’s nothing wrong with talking openly about money.

I don’t think he is happy. I think something has died in him a little bit and I don’t know if it is the loss of his 1st marriage which I admit wasn’t happy at most but he hates being a failure. He pushes his children to not be failures and he takes our mistakes really hard so I think he is worried he will be a failure and a disappointment but what he doesn’t realise is that by being closed off from his family and his grandchildren he is disappointing us. I am the oldest and my daughter actually says my grandad is her grandad rather than my dad and it breaks my heart because I always imagined he’d been an amazing grandad. He’s still in his 50’s but not long left until he’s 60 but he still
plans to keep working

@Testina my other half and I are on good salaries and we bring home over £3000 between us but could never imagine one of us bringing home that alone. My dad also brings home about 5-6K a month depending on how much overtime he does.. that’s what I mean about having £3000 as a take home when it total their take home each month is about 8K

” he was supportive apart from with education but I didn’t mind that.“

”and he always helped with school work”

Your posts are like they’re written by different people!

Honestly, you sound like you swallowed Psychologies magazine and are sounding quite patronising about him and his motivations.

Helping you with your homework but getting his younger children a tutor? That’s just money giving more choices, not a sign that he doesn’t want to get close to them in case he loses them.

He didn’t lose you via divorce. Quite the opposite, you say he was very present. So why would he fear losing these children in a divorce?

You seem to be interpreting anything different from your own childhood as bad.

Primary school he always helped me with homework and he taught me to tell the time and he taught me to tie my shoe laces.

high school when he and mum were divorced he had us 50/50 and he stopped helping with school work and he didn’t really encourage any kind of after school activities or career interests. However he was very supportive with the fact that I got bullied.

i am sorry if my post is a bit of a ramble. My mum and dad split up and he began to change behaviour wise towards the back of my high school period and university. He didn’t go to either graduation of me or my younger sister 🤷🏼‍♀️

You say he was such a family man when you were a child. But you also say his marriage to your mother was unhappy. Perhaps he put his focus onto you / being a parent because he didn’t want to put it into your mum /being a husband.

I’ve not seen that in a man, I’ve seen it in female friends though.

Maybe he’s more his true self now? With a more equal share of parenting, or even happy with less because he’s not escaping his marriage into it?

It sounds to me like you had him on a pedestal as a child - not unusual - and, like all of us, he doesn’t deserve that pedestal place.

I think it's partly you've grown up and obviously now realise your dad is just a normal human with strengths and weaknesses, rather than 'a hero'. And also just that people naturally change over their life as different things happen to them. I think perhaps you are too young to have that perspective yet. But it's normal to go through different phases in your life. I mean if you think he's turned into a bit of a dick there's no harm in mentioning it, but if it's just your nostalgia of childhood it's not really fair for you to hold him accountable for that.

The only reason he could have us 50/50 in the divorce was because his new wife’s business was smaller and mainly at home then so he left us with her until he finished his shift but because he worked 12 hour shifts he would usually be asleep for morning school runs to high school so my stepmum would take us or we’d get the bus.

i don’t think he would be able to find that kind of set up again if they divorced and genuinely he does love my stepmum more than he did my mum so he’d be broken if anything happened but that’s what i am worried about. Money is the only thing he can control so he seems to have focused on that more than anything else

In my experience, people who earn a lot via night shift premiums and overtime aren’t always academically strong, the way you might a salaried day time manager to be.
It often fits a more vocational / practical profile.
Is it possible that he was fine with primary homework but secondary + “careers” he was out of his depth?