My dad hasn’t spoken to me in 3 months. I’m thinking of reaching out to him first as I really can’t see him doing it, but I’m still hurt by his actions and I’m unsure.
This may be long as I don’t want to dripfeed but I’ll update with more details if asked.
My dad lives around 100 miles away and lives alone, my parents split up when I was very young due to his behaviour, but he and mum got on fine for most of my life and had a friendly relationship afterwards. He would come to visit my sister and I or we’d go to him on weekends, but time between seeing him got further apart as we got older. My mum got married to my stepdad about 5 years after the split and had 3 more children. I’m now 24 and had my first baby in July, I live with my parents and siblings as I fled my own home whilst pregnant due to DA. In August my grandad died with Alzheimer’s, unfortunately the day before he, my dad and my nana were meant to travel to meet baby. My dad was his carer for around 2 years whilst holding a full time job with long hours and a lot of responsibility. Grandad was diagnosed 6 years before he died, Dad always said he was prepared for it and would be fine when it eventually happened but it obviously had a massive effect on him.
In September, my dad and nana traveled to see baby, me and my younger sister, we were going to meet for lunch. I had seen them since, once for lunch with baby after grandad passed and once for the funeral without baby. The funeral was so depressing, it was a crem. My dad organised the whole thing, there were no flowers, hardly any guests, no programme or photo of him, basic bare coffin, no meal or drinks afterwards. My grandad was a wonderful, generous, gentle and caring man and it seemed such a disrespectful way to pay tribute to him, but I didn’t say so to avoid upsetting dad.
The morning of the meetup for the lunch, my mum asked me if she could come with us and I agreed. Now I really should have let my dad know she was coming, but as they have always maintained a friendly relationship I didn’t think it’d be a problem. When we get to town to meet up, my dad walks towards us with a face like thunder. When he realises mum wants to come with us, he gets really angry and says ‘she’s not coming with us is she? I didn’t invite her, I came all this way to have lunch with you, not her’. I’m a little taken aback by this, I apologise for not telling him that mum wanted to come and explain I didn’t think it’d be an issue as we’ve had lunch and done things together before. My dad is generally unpleasant towards my mum until she leaves politely, but visibly upset. My nana doesn’t say anything, she seems timid and as we walk through town towards the restaurant, she and my sister hang back behind me pushing the baby in the pram and my dad next to me. On the way, my dad raises his voice at me repeatedly, telling me I’d ruined the day and wasted his time, been incredibly selfish and he couldn’t believe I’d not asked his permission to bring mum along. I apologise over and over, getting more upset as he gets more angry. Bare in mind we are in public and he is now shouting at me as I’m crying and pushing the pram. Baby gets upset, so I have to stop in the street to comfort her. I’m sat on a bench feeding her and it was pretty cold! He’s still shouting at me and saying hurtful things with the baby in my arms and when his rants start to get a bit strange, I stop being upset and start sticking up for myself. Meanwhile my nana and sister are still keeping their distance, my sister is younger than me and autistic and was really confused and distressed by how dad was acting. We do eventually make it to the restaurant where I excuse myself to go to the loo where I call my mum and explain what’s happening. We decide as he’s still not stopped being angry and apologising wasn’t helping, it was best for my stepdad to come and pick us up to bring us home. I apologise to him again and to my nana, as I say goodbye to her I get upset and cry as I don’t know when I’ll see her again. My dad passes another hurtful comment as we leave.
I haven’t heard from him since. I did reach out to my Nana but she told me she didn’t want to talk to me, possibly convinced by my dad to cut me off.
I don’t know what to do for the best. The situation has caused me and my sister a lot of pain, I cry about it often. I worry about my nana so much now she’s on her own and I worry about my dad as his behaviour was so strange. He has only acted like that towards us a handful of times throughout my life, usually after the breakup of a relationship. He has had gambling issues in the past and does get drunk several times a week, I worry it’s now worse and he isn’t looking after himself and is depressed after grandads death. I’ve found it quite difficult to deal with myself as I was close to my grandad and I’ve had another family bereavement since.
YABU - he’s your dad, reach out to him
YANBU - he’s your dad, he should reach out to you