AIBU to feel hurt after my dad complained about Father’s Day?

[Petuniapet]

I will try to give a bit of context without rambling. I am in my early 30s and my Dad is in his late 50s. He lives alone and has done since he separated from my mum when I was 9. I am his only child. I have two young children of my own age 4 and 7 months.
To my knowledge, he has never tried to date. He lives a solitary lifestyle, seemingly by choice. He doesn't really have any friends: his closest friend and neighbour died about 5 years ago. He works full time and says he doesn't even really interact with his colleagues.

Now onto the problem where I'm wondering if IBU. For Father's day this year, I offered to make him dinner, as I do every year, and take him out. He usually accepts the dinner but not the day out as they're 'not his thing', same happened this year. Unfortunately, on the day, both DD and DH were ill with a stomach bug so I apologised and suggested we reschedule to the following weekend. He was non-comittal about this but agreed, then weekend comes and he says he is busy! I ask him when he is free he says he doesn't know and is being very shady about things. During a phone call that afternoon, he said that I don't really make an effort with him, he didn't even get a card on Father's day and he had to tell his brother (my uncle who I have nothing to do with) he'd had nothing and seen nobody. I repeated my apology about the illness but he continued to rant how he only lives 5 mins away but he never sees me. In hindsight I could have potentially popped his card around but I thought it'd be nicer to give it to him when I saw him the following weekend. I am usually the first to message him, I try to arrange things to do together but it is difficult as he can't eat many foods with gut issues he has, he doesn't really have any hobbies and he doesn't like going out with me and my DC as anywhere fun for them he says isn't his thing and he just seems bored.
AIBU? Am I missing something?

OP, sorry to see you are getting a typical unreasonable MN kicking.

You have young children, illness in the house, and a difficult father.

I think you need to drop the rope with your father.

You are not responsible for his happiness.
Be very careful of being seriously imposed upon by a him as you age.

It is not your job to fix his life.
Some men expect far too much from wives and daughters.

Oh dear, Dad has lived on his own a long time and has no one to rationalise things with. Just tell him you were too ill and had saved his card for when you’d see him in person and rearrange. Hopefully he won’t keep the hump going, if he does it is his loss not yours, which I’m sure he will realise.

Yes that is all a possibility

But it’s also not the OP’s role to make up for the fact he isn’t good at relationship and his only social life is through his dc and her own dcs.

@Petuniapet by any chance, could he be on the spectrum?
Your description of your dad reminds me both of my dh and my late FIL.

It doesn’t excuse the way he reacted.
But it makes me wonder if rigidity (he was expecting you to be there on xyz day, not the weekend after) can explain his reaction.

Fwiw you had a good reason to not be tyere on the day. You to,d him, planned a replacement day etc… As a parent of a similar age than him, that would have been plenty. I wouldn’t have expected my adult dc to still post a card and all the singing and dancing some posyers exiect you to do. He is your dad. You should be able to say ‘sorry, dh and dd are ill. I can’t make it. Shall we postpone until next week?’ Wo starting conflict.

Maybe because people are still having a go? The bottom line is this is a man who puts very little into his family and expects much more back as long as it is exactly what he wants which isn’t necessarily what he asks for and preferably without his gc which at those ages is a near impossibility. And the op is frustrated and also hurt, because all this trying to find a way to make him happy is her expressing her love, and his rejection of it all and lack of care is telling her none of that counts. What would you say if a friend had young children and the house had noro? I’ve been more sympathetic today via text while working to two random friends than he’s been to his dd, full stop.

OP, do you think your dad was actually upset he didn't get a card on father's day, or was he just moaning to his brother as a way of having something to talk about? My mum does that all the time... moans to friends about minor things I've done (often unfairly, like in your circumstance here), and when I pull her up on it she just says cheerily "oh, it's not serious, I was only joking!", not seeming to realise that the people she was moaning to don't realise it "wasn't serious", and are all building up a picture of me as a thoroughly awful, thoughtless, inconsiderate, selfish human being, often completely unfairly. But it's what keeps her amused and feeling like she has something to talk to her friends about

If he only lives five minutes away I would have quickly popped round with the card but told him I couldn't stay as family were ill.

Also would be nice to have given him a gift, that's what I'd do anyway.

Sounds very like my dad who expects all the effort to be put in but limits his to sending a card and money. There are no excuses, he's just being an arse.

I'm not going to tell you how your relationship with your father SHOULD look. Or what you SHOULD do. All I'm going to say is that your father sounds very like my own. Nothing I do ever feels "enough" for him. BUT I lost my mum a while ago, and I have so many regrets about what "I" should/ could have done, that i won't do that again. I do what I CAN, and if that isn't enough for HIM, in the future I know I will be able to look back and know that I did ALL that I could have done for him. If YOU are comfortable knowing that you do the best you can, then you don't need anyone else validation for it. If you know, in your heart of hearts, that you COULD/ SHOULD have done/ be doing more, then don't let random strangers online convince you that its not your problem. YOU are the one, who at some point will be looking back at your relationship, not them.

Sorry you are getting a hard time on here OP. Your DF is old before his time and it's his choosing but you are getting the blame for it. No partner or dating interest, no friends, no hobbies, distant from his work colleagues. Not particularly close to his DD. He is in his late 50s not late 70s, he could be working for another 10 years before he retires.

You haven't done anything wrong. You invited him out on Father's Day and he declined. He seems self centred. How many parents/grandparents have endured stench of the petting zoo just to see the children/grandchildren squeal over goats, donkeys and ducks. Or the fresh hell that is soft play. You get joy from seeing them happy. Your DF only thinks about himself and what he likes.

Your DF is not going to change. He will get worse as he gets older and his world gets smaller and you become the only 'outsider'. You will be the dart board for all his grumpiness, loneliness and gripes. You need to work on your tougher skin now and not let the silent treatment get to you because there will be more of it.

Invite him out or around if he says no. Say, well I have asked. Don't let him guilt you or punish you because you were looking after your sick family. When he says 'I told my relative I didn't get a card or a present for Father's day' say 'That's not very nice or loyal, did you tell him you were invited out on the day and you declined'.

Good luck

I think that's partly it but then I think he overthinks things and then gets annoyed about things he maybe wasn't initially annoyed about.

I understand that ND people need careful handling and are often quite blunt in their assessments. I recently asked ds (ASD) for his advice on something for the garden. He got back hours later with a 'I don't know'!
My late db sounds similar to your df and I hope people are kind to ds when he gets older. Luckily he has 3 sisters and 4 niblings who adore him despite his contrariness.

there is no magic sequence of words that op can use to change the way her dad has tied himself up in his own personal hell. He wants op to watch him suffer and for her to suffer too. Op you’re in a familiar double bind that these parents create. At some point he made you question your core goodness which leaves you unable to take care of yourself in this dynamic. Interestingly you will never get to examine his goodness, his goodness isnt tied to anything he does it’s because he housed you when you were a child. As for the ND angle. Nope. And being warned about regretting not pandying to a man who has nothing to offer you and only wishes to be a problem? Nope. I’m sure you’ve spent a long time wishing he wasn’t who he is. And IF ONLY wanting our parents to be loving was enough they’d be no child abuse.

He's a man in his 50s who is still working. He isn't elderly and bedridden and he obviously has much more time on his hands than OP does. Why on earth does she need to pander to him? When OP suggests doing things with him, he say no. He obviously wants to be a martyr to make OP feel guilty. He could pop round to her house but he doesn't.

Adults who were 'hands-off' parents can't really expect their adult children to go out of their way to build loving and caring relationships with them when they couldn't be bothered to do this when their children were small and needed their dad. OP obviously makes a lot of effort which isn't reciprocated.

There's so much misplaced sentimental bollocks on here, painting a picture of her poor lonely dad weeping because he didn't have a Father's Day card to open, even though he turned down OP's offer to bring it round before Father's Day. He could have gone on the day out with them on Father's Day but he refused. Him going round for a meal was only postponed due to illness and OP then contacted him to re-arrange. He then came out with the passive-aggressive shit about not having a card to open. He's ridiculous.

What's caring about him? The effort all seems one way.

Sounds similar to my dad, OP. I don’t think it is normal and it’s hard. All the best 💐

It sounds like you don't really know each other and neither of you want to make the father/daughter commitment. Therefore, neither of you are going to make a decision that you're both happy with.

It sounds like just the opposite to me. OP knows him very well but he refuses all gestures and compromises that she offers to foster the relationship.

I’m estranged from my family. Not seen a parent in three years
so seems caring to me.

Whatever his position, on Father’s Day you celebrate Fathers (same as celebrating Mothers on Mother’s Day). So rather than expecting someone to fit into your existing plans, on the day you celebrate them, you simply ask “What would you like to do on Father’s Day?” and if it’s doable, you do it! It’s really not that hard to make someone feel seen and valued.

OP is not making her Father feel like he matters, he’s being told ‘fit into step with us because what we do matters’. Even if the words aren’t used, that’s what OP’s behaviour tells him and that’s why he’s expressing that he feels like this.

If she knew him well then she wouldn't keep suggesting things that she knows he doesn't want to do? Stop pushing someone out of their comfort zone if you know it makes them feel this way. And the father's day delay when she lives 5 minutes away? No excuse. Poor.

He seems hard work. He doesn’t want to accompany you on days out, he doesn’t want to come to yours for dinner, he doesn’t want the kids at his.

It sounds like he’s just one of those grumpy people who could be handed the answer to everything on a plate and they’d still find something to moan about.

He can’t say he’s being neglected by you but then refuse every offer you give him.

He could be a huge very important part of yours and your children lives if he really wanted to but the fact is he doesn’t.

He just wants to live how he does and be able to moan about it.

“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”

@PetuniapetHow would you feel if on your birthday your Dad suggested that you join him for the day fixing his car and afterwards he’d make you a bland meal that didn’t upset his gut? Would that make you feel special and cared about?

Thanks everyone who gave some valuable perspective ❤. I'm not going to respond any more as I've resolved the situation with my DF and I think some of the comments are now just going round in circles with things I've already answered or explained, with posters not really reading the whole thread or perhaps purposefully not considering my points. Some people need to remember it doesn't cost anything to be kind