Abusive father is terminally ill Wwyd?

[Blessedtobehereinthisworld]

My father was physically and mentally abusive in my childhood, and resented my sibling and I as he did not want children, and detested being a parent and would take his frustration out on us, but mainly me.

He has always made it clear he doesn’t even like me or love me, very openly so, and he barely tolerates any of us. He lives a very small life with little interaction with the outside world, and seemed to enjoy some of the harm he caused - he used to find it amusing and entertaining to see others cry or unsettled etc.

I attempted to have a relationship with my parents when my children were very young, but he became verbally abusive and critical towards my dc. To the point of reducing them to tears so we were forced to stop seeing him. I had to protect my children from him.

It caused me great anguish to effectively end up losing my entire side of the family. As my mother stayed with him and told me to ‘put up with it’ and my sibling stopped speaking to me altogether, because they wanted me to pretend things were okay and I couldn’t.

Fast forward 8/9 years and my father has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

I sent a gift to him, but he completely ignored it and he hasn’t even thanked me or acknowledge it. I suspect he is angry with me for not allowing him access to the children - but I never got the feeling he cared much about them anyway, he has never made an attempt to contact them in any way or apologise to anyone.

I am not sure where to go from here. Has anyone else been in this position? I want to reach out and comfort him, as anyone would, a natural reaction to this kind of news but I am very wary and afraid of him.

I could do with your advice, thoughts and experience. How this is likely pan out, and how I can take care of myself in this process, as I have never been able to fully protect myself in the past, always choosing to put others before my own well being.

Thank you

How so you get over it? Therapy. By growing up and knowing that you would never do that to a 16 year old, and neither would any person who wasn’t abusive.

It may help talking to other childhood emotional abuse survivors? You are not the only one in this situation.

But you cannot be the kind of daughter you want to be, because you can’t change the type of father he is. I think the important part here is to know that’s the kind of person you WANT to be, and you will be there for your own family (spouse, children) or friends, if they’re ever in this situation.

And specifically, it kind of sounds like a dream scenario - abusive father is dying and suddenly realizes how awful he’s been, accepts you and your help completely, and you hold his hand through the tough bits while he thanks for you taking him to appointments. Life, sadly, doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t sound like you have the kind of father who would want to hold your hand, and he would berate you on the way to every appointment.

I don’t have contact with my brother either because of this. I lost all of nieces and my sister in law and much of the extended family.

I'd like to turn up to one of these abusive arseholes and tell him I've come to wave him off to Hell, but he's not worth the bother.

I am sorry that seems like a very difficult situation for you .
I think you have tried your best and you now have to continue to protect yourself and your children .
I wonder if it would be helpful to send an email to your mum and sibling , just briefly setting out the steps you have taken and that for your own mental health you will go ( back ? ) to no contact with your father .
I suspect there will be lots of rewriting of history by your family. Equally when you have written it you may decide not to send it , but would keep a copy and refer back to it .
I am not sure how much time your dad has left , but I would also say that when the time comes - you absolutely do not need to go to the funeral . He has not treated you well at all throughout your life , so you do not need to “ celebrate “ his life and may find it very hard to do so . It may be that the version that is portrayed of him is not what you knew .

I not sure if you have had any therapy , but if you can try and access it . I think it is important that you grieve the father that you never had rather than the father you did .

People are very complex and can totally show different versions of themselves to different people . What is important for you , is the relationship you had with him , which obviously wasn’t/ isn’t great . He was the parent and that is totally on him .
take care x

Remember why you went no contact in the first place. And also remember how unsupportive the rest of your family have been and how dismissive of his abusive behaviour they have been.

id feel really let down and resentful if my mum had allowed this all to happen.

carry on with your life without a second thought. He doesn’t deserve you in his life.

I'm in a very similar situation @Blessedtobehereinthisworld . I've had a lot of counselling and I have come to realise that we are mourning the parents we wanted, not the ones we got. When terminal illness is thrown into the mix, we have to come to terms with the fact that there's no hope of change and that's very hard. I think if you pursue contact, you are going to get hurt even more, but I understand that need for closure. Accept that the father you wanted doesn't exist, and facing death will not turn him into that father. Look after yourself and - as my wise therapist has told me - parent yourself in the way you wanted to be parented.

I had been NC with my Father for around 5 years when I heard he was dying
I didn't go to see him and didn't go to the funeral, my Dbro said I might regret it but I don't.
He was an arsehole, that didn't change whn he was dying or dead.

You need to do whatever you think best to protect yourself and your DC and not what anyone else expects of you OP

Yes! Exactly. He would tell me my car wasn’t clean enough, I am not a good driver. Assuming I could pluck up the courage to even sit in a car with him, because I feel sick at the thought. Physically sick. It is just a hope and nothing more that things could be better, and they are not.

What is it you are worried that you will regret? Are you wanting to make peace with an awful man? Why?

Or are you wanting to have a final chance to tell he was an arsehole.

Say what you need to say but of course be prepared for the worst. It may have a more positive outcome than expected but it doesn’t sound likely. I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.

Why do you want to reach out and comfort him? Is it just a sense of obligation? I don’t (and never have) got on with one of my parents for very similar reasons. When their time comes, I’ll ignore them, as I have for the past two decades.

Rightly or wrongly, I live by the motto ‘treat others as they treat you” - you have to protect yourself and your children, you owe him nothing.

I am going to assume you have never had any therapy or counselling to process this. Because you seem very drawn into trying to repair a relationship that was never there in first place. Stay away from it all. Your Mum and Brother made their choices, you have made yours, which is the correct one to protect yourself and your DC.

You are mourning the family life you wish you had, and deserved. Please stay away and seek therapy.

Inner child healing focuses on addressing unmet childhood needs & emotional wounds to foster adult wellbeing.

Techniques like visualization & journaling allow individuals to reconnect with their inner child & promote healing through self-compassion.

THIS!

Write a letter. By hand, openly saying what you have to say. Burn the letter.

The day after, decide whether you will feel better having the last contact or not having it.
Don't do it if you still hopes for that "I love you" (after burning the letter), do it if you can go there without any expectation from him.

More interesting question for you is: Do you want some contact with the remaining family? Those who weren't actively bad, but were happier without you than finding a way around him?
There is a chance someone will try to reestablish the contact, if only to fill the empty space.
The choice is yours, keep NC, reestablish basic adult contact (meeting for a coffee twice a year), or something more.

OP you sound a lovely, decent human being but unfortunately your father is not and is never going to be someone worth having in your life.

A man who bullies his daughter and then tries to do the same to her children as far as I am concerned does not deserve to be in their life.

Focus on your own family and let him go.

He is never and was never going to be the father you deserve, no matter what you do or say.

Ted talk on inner child work. I've not watched all of it but it might help

i have lots of sympathy for you but does of reality here OP
you are hoping that he is suddenly going to be the father that you as a little girl wanted and needed and tell you he loves you and he’s sorry.
the reality is he won’t do that. He make even take the opportunity to be cruel again.
hes not a father and he’s not the person you want him to be. Accept the reality and protect yourself.
get some therapy.
xx

I wouldn’t be able to go to his funeral anyway, as I have not a single word to say to celebrate him. Not a single memory to share. I couldn’t stand there and lie.

Things are very strained with my mother, she was so upset for a long time that I wouldn’t just put up with it all for her.

OP I don't think seeing your dad is going to bring you the peace you long for. He isn't going to change and may even be more angry and poisonous than before. Please don't put yourself through it.

Have you considered counselling for yourself? You've had a lot of trauma in your childhood and while it's painful to confront that, it can really help you to air those feelings and talk it through in a non-judgemental space.

You sound so lovely and so forgiving OP. I haven’t read all of your replies yet but from your OP I wanted to share my experiences.

My dad was abusive physically and verbally and emotionally though (physically to my brother and mother, not me) He was a selfish nasty man and no one liked him as he was an aggressive angry know it all. I tried to have a relationship with him but I stepped back as he was manipulating emotionally abusive and I thought fuck you, you’ve been the shittest dad and you don’t deserve my time so I went NC and it was the best thing I’ve done. I’m angry at him as my mam died when I was young and he still couldn’t do the righy think and step up.

He’s now in poor health and not coping from what I’ve heard and I don’t care quite simply. You reap what you sow and all. No interest in his grandchildren unless it was to show off to a new girlfriend how much of a family man he was….. honestly it makes me angry even writing this because he’s such a hypocrite.

When he does die he’ll be getting a pure cremation as I couldn’t go through a funeral because there is nothing good to say and no one would go anyway. my sibling feel exactly the same but then he got battered by him when he was a child so I won’t forgive him for treating his children like that.

A shit parent who doesn’t care reaps what the sow. No one would go NC with a good parent. If I was you I wouldn’t have anything to do with him as you owe him nothing. I do think some will reply on here with the best intentions but haven’t experienced the trauma of a parent like this
and their advice will be different to mine. You do what feels righy and I do think you sound more forgiving than me!

Thank you for your posts. It’s helping me see that the best thing I can do is keep myself safe. He isn’t a good man, and that’s not my fault. I can redirect my love and energy to those that love me. Luckily I have a peaceful life now.

Oh love.

Your mum (and in adulthood, now your brother) were complicit in his abuse and by not acknowledging the damage he did to you they are continuing it.

There is unlikely to be a deathbed repentance, nor should there be forgiveness from you to any of them.

Have a think about what you are hoping for with renewed contact, and the likelihood of any of it happening. The relationship with your mum and brother after his death can be dealt with then.

Terminal doesn't necessarily mean soon - he could have years left still, during which you will be tormented with this anguish. Get yourself some fantastic counselling to help you with what happened in childhood, and more recently with your DC, and then when the time comes, to deal with the 'afterwards'

Be kind to YOU op, he deserves none of your sympathy.

I think you would gain no peace in this . He is a horrible man , who said & did horrible things to you , so where is the peace you crave ?
Personally I think there is none . Your peace is inspite of a bad childhood , you went on to have children and showed them what a loving parent is . You made your own peace . He never has .

Look it’s different in a sense because my stepfather (with my mum from me being 2) was abusive in the same way towards me. When he died, I felt relieved and kind of happy. He died suddenly and painfully quite young and I felt it was a good thing for the planet to have one less abusive arsehole walking on it.

I know this is your biological father so it may feel different but he hasn’t changed, clearly hence why he was trying to abuse your own DC. You have also tried to reach out since finding out he was sick and he’s rejected you all over again. I don’t think you will gain anything from bothering with him before he dies. I hope you find solace in his passing, as I did when my former stepfather died.