I just cannot stand my dad!!!!

[colt45]

I'm just so exasperated, he has never been a good dad, fucked off to America when I was eleven to marry a woman he'd only known for three months (who was absolutely lovely so nothing against her). He struggled with painkiller addiction, got a divorce and moved back to the UK and in with me and my daughter when I was 23 and she was 2. He then shat my couch when high on drugs and tried to hide it by turning the cushion and leaving it for hours. When I went mad he had the cheek to ask, 'who do you actually think you're talking to?' I lost it and chucked him out.

Since then he's been settled in a flat. Our relationship has always been strained and always will be. He has had periods of sobriety but it's clear to me he's using again but he denies it and I just don't care anymore, he can do what he wants. I have my only family to think of.

I am just so fucking fed up though, he phones me and moans that I don't see him enough and to be perfectly honest, I am busy, I am in the middle of a masters course, a single mum to two kids, working etc but also why would I want to be around him when I find it so draining? All he does is moan when I'm with him or tells me how to do things.

Like my two dogs, he always tells me what I should be doing with them, how I should be training them, make sure they have enough water. And in my head I'm just screaming why the fuck would I take any advice off of you, you haven't raised a thing in your full life fuck off. I have so much anger inside of me towards him.

I have great relationships with everyone in my life, I'm very laid back but for example yesterday he got into my car as I was taking him to a hospital appointment and straight away it's giving me advice about uni, giving me advice about my kids, my dogs, my work, I cannot say anything without him putting his two cents in. And my full body just goes tense as soon as I am around him, I am constantly biting my tongue. God forbid I say anything though, he's such a defensive man, and turns it around on me and says I am attacking him if I disagree with anything he says.

I have no interest in anything he says. He pretends he cares about me and his grandchildren but he doesn't. He is a liar, he says he's a vegetarian and then I see he's been ordering meat dishes from take aways. He claims he doesn't believe in using cards for occasions due to the environment but the other day there was a whole pile of Xmas cards in his kitchen.

My kids can't stand him as all he does is nag at them when they are around him. He has literally no one other than me as he has pushed every single person away. He has 3 siblings and none of them want or take anything to do with him.

I am stuck with him, can't go no contact as he has suicidal tendencies and I don't want him to be completely alone, that thought does make me sad. But I don't know how to control this overwhelming anger towards him that is eating me up.

Not to disparage other posters on here, naturally.
Firstly I’m not saying that you should go NC, I’m just going to say you can.

You sound like the diametric opposite of the man who fathered you (and I mean that in purely the biological sense). It must be a total mind fuck and I worry about your health too.

Your anger is justified , (I’m raging internallly on your behalf in a keyboard worrier style anyway)

(Apologies in advance of anything sounds patronising, I genuinely hope I’m not! It’s my delivery, unfortunately, which I’ve tried to .improve)

I hope that You reaching out on here helps to clarify your way forward .

I promise you will be able to look back at this and marvel at how far you’ve come in protecting your own boundaries. Your life is full to the brim of you already doing as much as you can for your family and yourself. I feel anger on your behalf that you’re in this situation mainly because of the repeated bad choices of one individual. He is choosing to be a toxic piece of shit.

There’s been some great advice on here and from what you’ve said I have no doubt that you will be able to summon the ovaries to tell him to fuck off, in whichever way you choose. That’s the crux of it ro
me, his behaviour is designed to take away your ability to choose, to take away your agency. He’s asking you to make two pseudo choices , either live with the guilt of k owing you sent a man go his death *or put up with me and continue to be deeply uncomfortable.

He might kill himself. He’s probably had a whole heap of near misses. But if he does then it is absolutely nothing to do with you. I’m sorry for being super blunt but his lack of regard for your actual feelings is what will make him try to manipulate you. And if it’s not you, it will be someone else , although it sounds like you’re the last someone else.

He does not deserve you anywhere in his life and I’m so sorry you have had these experiences with him all your life. It must be beyond exhausting. Sending you strong woman vibes and an unmumsnetty hug.

• in case it needs explaining, this is his viewpoint.

Ive lived with two men who used to threaten this . One hanged himself nine years after I left him. My DD was four when I’d had enough, in 2004.
Surprisingly enough , the other one is also dead. Coroner ruled suicide but to me it was more self assisted as he was high as a kite on prescription drugs, alcohol and benzodiazepines that at the time were legal to buy in Uk.

These men all operate in strikingly
Similar ways .
Women and children are the collateral damage wherever they go and he has no fucking right to offer you anything other than sincere, self awareness of the ways he has wronged you.

shit.
massive typo at the top there after I’d previously quoted another pp for an excellent post.

now it looks like im being an argumentative Twat

You might find the Stately Homes threads on the Relationships board useful OP, lots of people with toxic parents there who will understand and can give you ongoing support

No it doesn't 😊 your post was excellent. Thank you so much. Thank god for mumsnet honestly, you have all made me feel not quite so hopeless and powerless in my situation. I just now need to decide how to proceed.

Sorry another rant - but for example, I invited him to come to my mums for dinner. My mum is happily remarried and has been for 25 years. I have siblings by my mum and stepdad and my mum absolutely cannot stand my dad but she knows I worry so she always invites him to things, to my birthdays, to my graduation, for New Years dinner, she always invites him for me and is always lovely to him. So I said to him a month ago, you're invited to my mums for Xmas and he said no I'm not going to go this way. Fair enough, to be honest I was relieved as was probably my mum bless her. The other day I said so what's your Xmas day plans? And he said nothing I'll just be sitting on my own since no one wants me. And I'm like ??? You were invited and he has no answer to me when I said that, he's just twisted. Anyways as i said another rant but I need to think about the best way forward for me.

One way forward would be not to reoffer the Christmas invite. Please don’t fall for the “woe is me” act. The cheek of the man!

And don’t apologise for “ranting”. If it helps you get things out and to
clarify how you feel then that can only be a good thing.

You are not responsible for him or his choices. You cannot prevent him taking his own life if he so chooses. And even if you do try to appease him he may still take his own life as he may never do this even if you do cut him out. So whether or not he chooses suicide should not be your concern.

Your primary responsibilities are to yourself and your children. Put on your own lifejacket, cut loose this awful human, and get on with giving your children a lovely life. To be honest, you are only losing a problem, noone of value.

He's not your dad. He's never been a dad to you! He provided the sperm that partly made you, and that's it, and it's not a reason to let an abuser ruin your life.

Because that is what he is, an ABUSER, and you need to take that in and accept that this is the case.

He's holding you to ransom, based on that sperm he contributed decades ago.

If a boyfriend was treating you this way you would have dumped him ages ago. This man is an abuser like any other and you MUST get him out of your life. Stop being held hostage. You are not responsible for anything he does. He's a grownup and makes his own choices.

And one of those choices has been to choose to abuse the only person in the world who was willing to love him.

He blew it, big time.

Give him an altimatum if you like but I guarantee he will never change. He thinks he's got you trapped by obligation and fear and female niceness.

Your is by far the worst instance of abuse I have read since joining Mumsnet. Please, please, release yourself from this nightmare.