AIBU to resent my dad expecting constant attention and care now?

[DaddiIssues]

My dad is driving me insane.

Backstory: my mum died suddenly when I was a teen. Within 3 days my dad met someone else, and they stayed together for 30 years until she died. During this time he fully immersed himself with her kids, extended family and then her DGC and sidelined us. For example I didn’t spend 1 Christmas with him for 30 years.

Now he’s single again, and whilst he is still very much ingratiated into his step-family, guess who are the ones expected to do the elderly care? He’s very healthy, but old. He has a massive birth family, mostly local, a massive extended step family, loads of friends and a few women on the go (who don’t know about each other). His misogyny and behaviour is awful. He says things like he doesn’t fancy her, and she looks old, even though that person is at least 15 years younger than him. I’d say he goes out with family or friends 5 out of 7 days. If he’s not got something on that day all hell breaks loose and he gets nasty and bitter.

He’ll say no one has called him, he’s not seen anyone for days and it’s not true. We dread calling him as we don’t know what mood he’s in.

As the only woman in the family he now thinks my sole purpose is to listen to him and him moaning. No one else invites him, so it’s my family who are expected to have him for Christmas. Last year I caught him moaning about me to his step daughter and I was livid. When I go out he calls his step family up for a moan and I’ve heard him telling them about how he’s sent them money for their kid’s birthdays.

Anyway, not sure what my AIBU is TBH. I’m just sick of him. I’m sick of the fact that I have my own issues, as do my siblings, and he’s not sick or lonely (better social life than me) and I just feel like he commands an unnecessary amount of attention. He literally has about 25 people looking out for him, and inviting him to stuff. That’s another thing, he tells anyone who’ll listen that he’s so sad and lonely and he has random people in shops checking up on him as he’s such a sad old man.

I feel ageist saying it all, but I’ve just had enough of the time and energy everyone is spending on him. A few months ago we had a young family tragedy that I helped out with and he complained that I wasn’t paying him any attention. This is what I am dealing with. He literally has his DC (siblings and I) in a tizzy over his behaviour and moaning and bitterness.

YABU - this is just part of elderly care
YANBU - this is not normal for an older person to expect this much attention.

FYI I have posted about him over the years so may sound familiar. However as he gets older his behaviour just gets worse.

Stop doing then. Easier said than done (I have my own lonely elderly father guilt, I get it) but yours is so straightforwardly awful you need to just rip the plaster off and stop letting him get to you. Scale back the contact, assert your boundaries and stick to them.

There is no law that says you have to do his care, or even to keep speaking to him if he just makes you unhappy. Sounds like he was a crap dad anyway.

I think you mute him, commit 15 minutes a week to checking his texts and phoning him. When he has a go, Say I’m sorry you feel that way it really is busy with my family. I don’t want to bore you by going on about it, take care and I’ll check in next week. If he just rants unpleasantly, hang up, and message him ‘ I don’t know what you think gives you the right to talk so unpleasantly to me, but I won’t put up with it.’ Then silence till next week.

Try: I have a life, not that you care, it’s busy and zero time for this bullshit, bye.’

But he practically abandoned you, OP. Why would you be available for elder care at all?

Aside from that, he's horrible to you. No, you are not being unreasonable to want to reduce the support you've been providing.

What steps can you start with?

He sounds like a nasty, selfish bully who hates women. If my dad had behaved like that, I wouldn't have given him so much as the time of day, let alone elderly care.

It doesn’t sound like he cared for you when you were a vulnerable, grieving teen. Who cares if he is, on paper, vulnerable now he’s elderly? You don’t owe him anything. I would treat him with exactly the same care and attention he gave you in your hour of need. If that means you don’t pick up the phone or give him more than an occasional thought then that seems fair and reasonable to me.

You don’t have to do this.

in your position I wouldn’t

What's amazing to me is that such a horrible person has people to go out and do things with 5 days out of 7! YANBU OP. He sounds utterly vile, self-centred and entitled. Do you actually want to have any contact with him? It's not like he's been a father to you, prioritised you and your siblings or supported you through life. When he had other options, he didn't bother with you at all. Selfish fucker!

Maybe have some kind of family meeting and say to the others you are exhausted by the things you’ve talked about above and work out a joint plan around who is prepared to attend to him and when. If you can’t bear the idea of having Christmas with him, say and then it’s over to someone else. But definitely stop feeling obligated to entertain his moaning. I just tell my dad not to moan and I refuse to listen to it.

He chose the step family over you, let them deal with him.

Absolutely this.

I would go one further though - for your own sanity, get out now.
Stop the "care", stop the support, stop entertaining the whingeing, the moaning, the bitterness and most importantly stop engaging with expectation.

This part is the kicker - "As the only woman in the family he now thinks my sole purpose is to listen to him and him moaning"

As he ages further because youre the "only woman" in the family all care and responsibility for this manbaby will default to you because woman.

You need to stop all of this in its tracks before ultimately it will take the middle years of your life, if you let it. By giving an inch and not setting firm as hell boundaries bordering on no contact you're setting yourself up to be his skivvy in old age.

Looking at his behaviour, you owe him nothing, so give that.
Let the family that he abandoned you for take care of him in his dotage.

Harsh advice but one day youll look back on it, either with relief or regret depending on whether you take it or not.

Stop. Just stop and walk away. He is not your responsibility. You do not owe him your time and energy. Block him and the step family.

He’s a user. Used his second wife, used her family and now back to using you.

”sorry dad, we’re busy”.

If he ditched you, you can do the same to him. He sounds foul.

I have my own issues to deal with. I’m now sadder than I’ve ever been about losing my mum. I feel I’ve missed out on loads of things and a major relationship in my life. Up until middle age I was determined to be strong, but I just feel upset now. I also see how utterly disrespectful he has been to my poor mum. He was quite horrible to her when she was alive, and how utterly shite is it to be disrespected when dead!

He often says things like he preferred his 2nd partner to my mum. Yes well, you both got to do fancy meals and holidays and have no stress of kids with her, and my mum did all the hard yards.

TBH I think I can put him at arms length. However he really upsets my siblings, and then they offload to me. It’s like a beautiful day with a rain cloud following us around pissing on just us.

OP you're not obligated to care for this man. Just stop. Yes you'll get earache but tell everyone that you're done and you don't want to hear any more about him.

I haven't spoken to my parent for years. It's freeing.

Tell him to get lost and why

You need boundaries and to be more blunt with him. 'I'm lonely' 'You will be because you don't care about people'. 'My kids should do more' 'my Dad should have done more'. Enjoy your time with the people that you love, life is too short.

Your mum died when you were a teen and he moved on in THREE DAYS? 3?!!!
darling that must have been absolutely horrendous for you 😢 I’m so sorry.
You owe this awful selfish man nothing. 💐

Had this with my FIL. Lived a 10 minute walk away but didn't babysit for us once in 25 years, totally immersed in the family that he left his first wife (my MIL) for. The amount of emotional blackmail when second wife died and he got sick ...

Oh my God, just cut him off. You don’t need to do any of this. Screw the rest of them.

I binned off my sexually and physically abusive father when I was 18 and I’ve never looked back. If he turned up looking for support, I would probably die laughing. You don’t owe him anything.

Then they all need to be doing the same.
Arrange a family meeting and discuss calmly what you are all prepared to do/ put up with / compromise etc
Hopefully if you all behave in the same way towards him he may soon discover that he can no longer treat you so appallingly.
I think that if he were my father i would have given him a pretty clear idea of how i feel about his unforgivable behaviour .
You owe him nothing and i certainly would not be having him for Christmas this year , sod that.
I hope that you can sort things out , you deserve better than this and don't for one minute feel any guilt , it appears he doesn't !

Say “no that doesn’t work for me” every time something doesn’t suit. In fact if you are not sure still say it. Then end the conversation and do not hang on for the criticism that is guaranteed to follow. Say the same to the female members of the family he will absolutely inevitably rope in to try to persuade you to fulfil the role he is assigning to you.

It is so utterly freeing when we don’t take on the roles other people assign us and instead pick and choose the roles we want to do.

He’s also quite deluded and vain.

He’s late 80’s and every time I speak to him he tells me that the nurse/ doctor/ shop assistant/ anyone who’ll listen, say to him “you are 87? There’s no way you are that age. I thought you were about 60. You look so young”.

He chases women half his age. He has been telling me about this 50 year old shop assistant who is really worried about him, took his no., calls to see if he’s ok, and took him for a drink. Then I heard that she has a really sick child. WTF is he going distracting her attention away from her own issues. I can’t even imagine the lines he’s fed her. I bet he tho is he’s hot a chance.

I don’t know why I’m still there. Someone once told me it’s better to have a crap parent than a dead one. Maybe that’s why.

I feel the obligation in FOG, but not the fear or guilt. I think morally I’ll help out a bit. I just wish he was nice to be around. A few months ago my friend brought her dad for Sunday lunch. He walked in, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then spent the whole afternoon having a nice time, smiling and laughing. Upon leaving said he’d had a lovely time. Why can’t I have that?