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.

@Testina that is very very accurate he had no O levels which is what I think they were back in his day and he worked in a local shop until my grandad helped him get a job by recommending him to a friend and as long as my dad passed the tests he was in. He’s never changed that job and not even ever applied for higher management or anything because in his words he earns more this way and manages his own time this way than if he became a manager. He never went to college or anything and has never had any hobbies apart from golf and he plays that alone because he worries that the men on the golf course will see him as a fake… those are his words

The school run thing…
You started off by suggesting he was such a hands on dad doing your school runs but now he wasn’t with his second marriage children.

But it all looks situational to me!

He picked you up from school because practically, his shifts meant he could. But he didn’t take you in the morning. Primary is a school run period of your life. As soon as you were at secondary and his second wife was around - he didn’t bother.

So why would his younger children school run set up not also be driven by practicality and not the emotional reasons you ascribe to it? Their mother was retired, they could afford a nanny.

Your siblings are teens now… lots of parents aren’t obviously close with teens! You see him not taking them to school (why would he?) but you don’t see everything. Maybe he’s just as supportive on other things as he was with you - like the bullying.

The more you say, the more I think you’re over analysing your hero on a pedestal and as you were a child, you never saw the whole of him.

If he avoids his perception of golf club “types” perhaps he was just avoiding his perception of “parents of graduates” types when he didn’t go to your graduation. He may have worried about being out of place - which is sad, but sounds like it was always there, not a change in him.

If your siblings are teens, and the mother is retired, what does the nanny do?

Maybe I am over idolising the hero I had when I was younger. I would just like to maybe tell him slow down at work, you don’t need to bite their hand off for overtime, you don’t need to not be available to take your mother to a hospital appointment (which I am driving her too and from by the way) and you could remember your own dads birthday, you could come to your grandchild’s birthday party and just be a bit more present when family does come to visit, talk to me and hug me and hug my children not because we are leaving but because we are his family and we love him.

I had a bad labour with one of the children and he was the 1st person I thought of whilst I was laying in that room having emergency surgery and It’s just Father’s Day today and I don’t feel like I know him anymore

Also, maybe your dad simply wants to earn more now to make sure he can retire soon, and also do that his children can be put through university

“even when he is home he is sleeping from the shifts or playing golf in order to not be at home“

You attribute him not wanting to be at home to him being a workaholic or needing the money due to fear of failure or that he’s actually unhappy at home.

Can I float a far simpler explanation that’s very common and doesn’t need the psychoanalysis?

He may just be selfish 🤷🏻‍♀️ He likes playing golf. He’s happy to opt out of family life - rather than actively disliking it.

Just another averagely selfish person doing what they want.

the nanny picks them up and drops them off to school, takes them to their after school activities as their school hosts lots of sports and they also do individual hobbies as well and my step-mum has plenty of time to do her hobbies such as her horses and she does have a smaller business which she only started last year which is not as profitable so she’s still busy but I think my dad worries because she is still younger than him that she might get bored and leave him

So what’s going on with your mum?
You thought of him during a stressful labour, not her. Although she’ll have her own bias, she may have a clearer insight into his behaviour than you do. I do wonder if she’d say he hasn’t changed, just as we become older some existing tendencies become stronger.

I mean my mum always called him selfish but as a child I never saw it I thought he was anything but and my step-mum calls him selfish sometimes but she says it in a more joking way.

I think my concern is if he keeps closing himself of in this way that he might have some regrets or we will if something happens to him, he falls asleep whilst driving sometimes because he is that tired from keeping himself busy. It’s like he cannot risk his brain and body relaxing. He worries so much about being old as well and I just don’t understand it.

“I think my dad worries because she is still younger than him that she might get bored and leave him”

You seem to do a lot of thinking about what your dad is thinking, feeling, his motivations… you don’t mention actually talking to him.

You said he’s not happy. His first wife leaving worked out fine for him. He’s not financially dependent on her. Why would he particularly fear her leaving?

You seem to spend a lot of time in the armchair psychologist position… when it sounds from the outside like he’s just happily doing what he wants to do, a bit on the selfish side - but that’s not unusual.

“I mean my mum always called him selfish but as a child I never saw it I thought he was anything but and my step-mum calls him selfish sometimes but she says it in a more joking way”

She’s not joking 🤷🏻‍♀️
Nobody just jokes about stuff like that. Which is not to say he’s awful - just, well - there will be truth in it. Not necessarily marriage ending hatred truth - just truth.

My mum and I didn’t have the best relationship when I was younger. We are a lot better now since I’ve got children, she started the proceedings for the divorce because she was worried he was having a divorce as he was spending a lot of time focusing on himself at the gym and trying out all different hobbies.. think midlife crisis.

my mum has said he has changed she said he was always focused on money but that when we younger he was torn between earning money and being present in our lives. She says now he just comes across like it is all money and to hell with anyone else, she provides emotional support to my grandparents and they are her ex in laws 😕

He was having an affair*

Have you heard of spousification? After divorce, when a child is put in the position of emotionally taking on more of a spouse role to a parent. It sounds like you’re putting yourself into a role like this. You talk about your worries about him like he’s your partner. He’s a grown man. It’s not for you to worry whether he’ll regret not taking his own mother to hospital appointments. You’re making up reasons for it… excusing him… but the truth is - in an averagely selfish fairly minor way - he just can’t be arsed.

You want him to be “Family Man Hero” - but he probably never was. So you don’t need to make up reasons why he’s changed.

“spending a lot of time focusing on himself at the gym and trying out all different hobbies.. think midlife crisis.”

You’re finding excuses for him again 😉
He wasn’t having a midlife crisis. He may or may not have been having an affair. But what he was being, was selfish.

Maybe he is just selfish but who is going to point out that actually it will be a massive blow if something happens to someone in the family and he didn’t notice and spend enough quality time with them. If someone sits down and calls him out for being selfish.. he’s going to say he’s worked for years non stop to provide a stable home which has no mortgage for his wife and kids to live in if he dies and they won’t want for anything and they can keep their way of life and he’s not poor anymore (again these are genuinely his words when someone even jokes about him working too hard and being absent)

but all we want to say is two families you’ve had build up in that time yet you’ve got no real emotional connection to any. Your parents are young not even in their late 80’s or anything and yet you can’t remember your dads birthday and you don’t just pop in to see them and they need their son and we need our dad.

how do you tell them that? How do you tell them that when you thought your youngest was going to die that your dad wouldn’t even refuse an overtime shift to console you and that’s the opinion you’ve had of him as late 😢

I'm in my 50s and I would not appreciate if my Adult child told me how to live my life. If I want to spend my days working or at the gym, instead of visiting my parents, that's my decision. I'm not a senile person not able to make conscious decisions. Stop trying to think for your dad. It's very patronising

“Maybe he is just selfish but who is going to point out that actually it will be a massive blow if something happens to someone in the family and he didn’t notice and spend enough quality time with them”

Stop thinking that you know how he will feel! You’re back in the armchair psychologist’s - well, armchair! - again and being patronising.

He’s selfish and not emotionally connected.

You think he’ll be devastated at missed opportunities and have a Damascene if, say, his mother dies tomorrow?

Maybe. More likely, he’ll feel sad… then after a while (I’m not talking hours here!) he’ll go back to playing golf and seeing his dad no more than he ever did.

I know I sound unsympathetic here. I’m not, really. I just think your post should be “AIBU to wish my dad was different?” (No, not U at all!) and not think he’s changed.

What should you do?

Tell him you love him and that’s why you want his presence?
Tell him he’s shit and to buck his ideas up?
Tell him he’ll regret it when someone dies?
Accept that he is who he is and feel sorry for yourself and either accept him or reduce contact?

Any or all, but I doubt any will change his behaviour or who he is.

Interesting that there’s your mum doing his wife work for his parents and yet he’s the one on the “Hero Family Man” pedestal.

Unusual I think for a woman with children to instigate divorce on the mere suspicion of an affair. I do wonder if - as is quite normal with children - you don’t know the half of it.

I see that you're hurting but this whole thing is weird. You can't make him be who you want him to be, the person you believed he was. You need to accept him for who he is.

As a child I thought my mum was some sort of angel, I lapped up any scrap of attention she threw my way and thought it made me special and loved. As an adult I can see she was neglectful, controlling and selfish.

If your dad stopped with the helpful education stuff when your parents divorced, maybe that behaviour was driven by your mum and he only did it because she expected it of him?

He sounds typical 50s to me. He's been skint, he sees the retirement his parents have and he wants more for himself and his family. He could be putting a lot of those wages into a pension so he doesn't have to curtail his lifestyle too much when he retires.

I wouldn't say anything more than you already have to him. Selfish people never think they're selfish they always think their actions are justified, so he's not going to want to hear it and he's not going to change for you. He's told you his reasons for why he works a lot and they sound sensible to me. Your reasons for not working so much sound sensible too. You have a difference of opinion that's all.

You can't understand his reasons because they represent different values to your own. You worry he's going to regret his decisions in the future, but he's not you and doesn't share your values so perhaps he won't and you're worrying over nothing.

I don't think this thought process is healthy for you and you should let the whole thing go.

I don’t think you know the reality of what happened. Your mum did the grunt work - dropping kid off at school does not make a parent.

coparenting 50/50 whilst he had an affair and allowing you to hero worship him - she’s a bloody saint

just stop telling a grown adult couple how to bring up
the children and concentrate on your own marriage and careers and your mum and grandparents - you are overly invested in money etc and what he does etc they have two parents and you are an adult now

Electric gates, tutors, nannies and horses on £120,000 a year

doesn’t add up