My dad has died. I’m conflicted.

[365RubyRed]

He was mostly an absent father and when he was there, he was angry and aggressive towards me and my little brother. Now he’s gone, I feel weirdly bereft. My brother says he feels tearful. We had him laid to rest next to his parents. Mum died years ago and was cremated. How do we cope with this loss?

I’m so sorry.

Losing a parent is incredibly hard. I sometimes think it’s the luck of the draw exactly how it hits you. I do wonder if the second parent hurts more whatever the circumstances because of the loss of your history.

My dad died 7 years ago and I really felt only relief plus a few very light moments of sadness. He was not an easy person and lived in financial chaos, though he loved us and was in no way abusive. Losing my mum this year though has hit me pretty hard, and I have gone back into therapy. Could be worth trying?

Thank you. I think talking therapy will help. My emotions are all so muddled.

Sorry for your loss. It's possible to be attached to people even though they are a negative influence in your life.
It's also possible you're grieving for the dad you wanted (and now will never have) rather than the dad you actually had.
Whatever the source of your grief, it's real and complex. Talking therapy might help - perhaps try Cruse bereavement counselling if there's one in your area.

I think it can be harder to mourn the loss of a parent you didn't have a good relationship with. You're not only mourning the actual loss of the person, but also saying goodbye to all the things that might have been, but weren't.

Thank you for your support. It’s something I can’t articulate in the real world.

My friends had this when their Dad died, he had practically abandoned them as teenagers for his wife and later his new kids but they were expected to drop everything and help when he got ill and the wife left him, which to an extent they did. It meant their children and they got some positive memories of him which I think went some way to healing what happened but they both grieved for the relationship/father they should have had and still do years later. I've suggested therapy a few times but they are from the sort of background that sees that as a waste of time.

My sympathies - I know what it's like and it can be very hard. My dad was a very difficult man and when he died I felt a weird combination of sadness and numbness. I think I mourned the loss of the father he could have and should have been, rather than the one he was.

Hi OP, I'm sorry. That is hard.

My dad is still alive but I know this day will come. He is a good man but on the autistic spectrum and did not have a diagnosis when I was a child. He had meltdowns in front of me which was scary and said things which were very hurtful (in his mind, true things, but still).

Our relationship now is cordial but not close. As he gets older, I realise there is no "making up with each other" because he literally can't. He can't understand his children's POV.

I think as others have said, that's what you grieve. That there isn't any chance to change it, and that's it now, forever.

I'm sorry

When my DF died I felt nothing for him, but I felt the loss of my childhood and the family I knew then. I believe grief has no shape and is fluid, mine stayed with me for months but not very often did I think of my DF.

He had an affair with my mum’s BF’s & my parents divorced when I was 9. He died when I was 42, by then I had 2 toddlers and couldn’t imagine how he could have left my brother & I. At his funeral there was a ‘Dad’ reef from his 4 step children. I’m sure they were heartbroken but I know he was a spineless man.

I will preface this by saying that I had a happy childhood with good parents but losing that second parent hits hard. It is a lose of your history or something: a very defining moment that is enormous to deal with.

Having seen friends loose parents who were not good parents, it seems to me that this even more difficult as it throws up memories and really complicated feelings. Mainly because many people still have love for that parent even if they were terrible. You can’t just grieve as simply as someone with a regular parent/child relationship.

Thank you all for your support, I really do appreciate it. It’s such a complicated process and made worse by condolences.