I’m sorry this is really long, I’m autistic and have used AI to help me write this. Sorry.
My relationship with my dad has been complicated for much of my life. He was married to my mum for around 20 years. During their marriage, he repeatedly cheated on her, drank heavily and was physically abusive towards her. My parents separated when I was 17. Because of everything that had happened, it took me a long time to forgive my dad and rebuild a relationship with him. Eventually, I did manage to forgive him and we became close again.
Around ten years ago, my dad met his current partner. Initially, I thought she was nice and had no particular problem with her. The first incident that made me question her attitude towards me happened around Father’s Day. I was supposed to cook a Father’s Day meal for my dad and his partner, but I became unwell and had to cancel. That evening, my dad phoned me and told me that his partner had spent the day bad-mouthing me and saying that I was a bad daughter. I was very hurt by this, particularly because I had cancelled because I was genuinely unwell.
Over the following years, there was a great deal of conflict between my dad and his partner. They both drank heavily and would frequently argue. She would sometimes kick my dad out of her house, and I would then become involved in dealing with the aftermath. This happened repeatedly and began to affect my own life. Eventually, I reached a point where I told my dad that I could not keep dealing with the situation and that he should come and live with us. He ultimately went back to his partner that same night, and after that they both stopped drinking.
For a period, I did not really want to have much to do with his partner because I was hurt by what my dad had told me she had been saying about me. However, my dad repeatedly asked me to be civil towards her, and eventually I made the effort to do so because I wanted to maintain my relationship with him.
There were also incidents involving wider family members. When my nan, my dad’s mum, died, his partner caused conflict at the funeral because she felt she was not receiving enough attention from my dad. She was also very angry that my mum attended the funeral. This was particularly upsetting given that it was a funeral for my dad’s mother.
A few years later, my uncle died tragically. He had struggled with alcoholism and died after falling out of bed and hitting his head. My dad’s other brother asked my dad to contribute towards the funeral costs. I believe my dad’s partner influenced him not to contribute. I remember her saying that my uncle should have had a “pauper’s funeral” because he should have saved money for his own funeral.
Following this disagreement, my dad stopped speaking to his brother. His brother had told my dad’s partner to “fuck off” and stay out of the situation. I recognised that this was an inappropriate thing to say, but I also felt that everyone was grieving and emotions were extremely high. I tried to persuade my dad not to permanently cut his brother off because I felt things had been said in the heat of the moment and that he should think carefully before making such a significant decision. My dad was adamant, however, that he would not allow anyone to speak to his partner that way.
Not long after this, my dad and his partner came to my house. I tried to speak to my dad about what was happening and told him that he should not allow anyone else to influence him, that the decisions he was making about his family were ultimately his own, and that he should think carefully about how he was proceeding.
His partner became extremely angry and said I was attacking her. She then brought up what had happened years earlier and said that she still meant what she had said about me — that I was a “shit daughter.” At that point, I asked her to leave my house. My dad left with her.
After that incident, my relationship with my dad changed noticeably. He became distant and stopped contacting me in the way he previously had. I increasingly had to approach him rather than him contacting me. It felt fundamentally different from the relationship we had previously rebuilt.
A few months later, I asked my dad if I could take just him out for a birthday meal. He refused. He told me that he would not have his partner deliberately left out and that he did not want to see me for a while because he felt she had been treated badly and that I had put him in a bad situation.
He subsequently blocked both me and my husband.
More than 12 months have now passed without contact from my dad. During this time, all of my children have had birthdays, and my dad has made no contact with them either. There has been no attempt to contact me, my husband or his grandchildren.
My concerns about my dad’s relationship
Looking back over everything that has happened, I have increasingly found myself questioning whether my dad’s partner could herself be displaying emotionally abusive, controlling or isolating behaviour towards him.
I am conscious that I cannot know what happens privately between them, and I do not want to make a definite allegation without evidence. My concern comes from the pattern of behaviour I have personally witnessed.
Their relationship has involved frequent arguments and, historically, heavy drinking. She would repeatedly kick my dad out of her home, leaving me to deal with the consequences. There have also been several serious breakdowns in my dad’s relationships with members of his family following disagreements in which his partner was involved. He stopped speaking to his brother after the dispute surrounding my uncle’s funeral, and eventually a similar pattern occurred with me.
I also find it significant that my dad has increasingly appeared to defend his partner in disputes with his family, even where doing so has resulted in him losing contact with people who were previously important to him. In my case, his partner had previously called me a bad daughter, later repeated that she considered me a “shit daughter,” and became angry when I challenged the situation. My dad then became distant from me, refused to spend time with me without her, and ultimately blocked me and my husband.
I therefore question whether my dad may be experiencing emotional control, manipulation or isolation from his family, and whether this could be affecting the decisions he is making about his relationships with us. I also wonder whether his strong determination to defend her makes it difficult for him to recognise behaviour that concerns other people.
At the same time, I recognise that my dad is an adult and ultimately makes his own decisions. I cannot say that his partner has “made” him cut people off, and I cannot know what happens within their relationship behind closed doors. It is possible that he genuinely agrees with the decisions he has made.
What concerns me is the pattern: conflict involving his partner, my dad defending her, family members being pushed further away, and ultimately the complete breakdown of his relationship with me and his grandchildren.
This makes the situation especially painful because I had already spent years overcoming the damage caused by my dad’s behaviour during my childhood and rebuilding a relationship with him. I believed we had reached a point where we had a genuine relationship again. I now not only have to deal with losing my dad, but also with the possibility that there may be things happening within his relationship that I cannot see or help him with.
For me, this is therefore about much more than one argument. It is the loss of a relationship that took years to rebuild, the loss of my children’s relationship with their grandfather, and the unanswered question of why my dad has ultimately chosen to remain completely estranged from his family rather than attempting to resolve what happened