I'm exhausted by my Dad

[TeeNoG]

My Dad will be 80 soon, and is a widower of 7 years. For the past 7 years I have been his main contact and sounding board.

The problem with this arrangement is my Dad's almost permanent anger. He's angry about the news, the world, and spends 80% of his time watching the news or people on YouTube. This culminates in massive rants whenever I make my daily phone call. Today he veered from the Jag ad to train drivers to iHT to GP's, wall in about 5 minutes. This is exhausting in itself but then it moves onto me. I don't know about anything in the world (I do), I'm an ignorant lefty (I'm not), i dont stand for anything (I do).

I'm quite politically aware, but my views are my own and i don't want to debate them daily over the phone with an angry man. i don't want to be insulted. I don't want to live my life thinking everything is awful.

Today I've hung up on him after the biggest attack in a while. I just don't need it. I don't know what I'm asking for here or what should happen next but it has to change. Anyone in or been in a similar boat?

Well some parents are bloody awful if they're allowed to get away with it.

I say this as an older woman with five grandchildren, three adult offspring.

Respect is earned.

What are you talking about? I am reading the posts on this thread and I don't see anything about abuse??

OP your dad is verbally abusing you. You don't have to phone up each day or take his calls, just so he can do it. Hanging up on him when he starts is a perfectly acceptable and healthy response. As is telling him to get a therapist to sort out his anger issues. You don't need to listen to him rant, you're not his emotional dumping ground or verbal punch bag. You're allowed to protect yourself. Him being family doesn't give him special dispensation to behave in this manner. You wouldn't accept this behaviour from a friend or partner (I hope!) so don't accept it from your dad.

Then you need a reality check because he is being abusive towards her. If you can't see that, it's a "you" problem.

Wow. I am talking generally about this thread. It is a general view not a personal attack. It seems to me that there is not much patience or compassion for their elderly parents. I don't know individual stories and history. I have no idea if they have Alzheimers, are forgetful, are frail, if perhaps being angry is because they sense they have no control over anything anymore or perhaps it is cognitive decline. Perhaps they have been awful to their children all their life? I don't know. I am commenting on my general feeling about the thread, which I will do if I wish.

”If you keep insulting me I’ll hang up.”

No three strikes, just one warning. Hang up if he doesn’t stop, every time.

And there’s absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, since you’ve done nothing wrong.

Eventually (with hope) he’ll learn that verbal abuse gets him nowhere.

I once changed my phone number because my dad was calling me and yelling at me about my car breaking down.
Enough is enough.

Hopefully the OP won't spend her days consuming war and disaster media and show how little regard she has for the relationship she has with her children by using them as emotional garbage dumps.

You must have missed the entire OP then.

In all honesty I thought it meant physical abuse so my mistake.

The reason for the behaviour doesn't matter, that's why. Nobody has to be spoken to like a piece of shit, for any reason. If someone is a care worker they're going to experience the effects of various health conditions, it comes with the job. Family don't have to put up with it though. Being old, ill, in pain, having MH issues or whatever doesn't give someone a free pass to be nasty to their relatives. It's that simple. By "have compassion" you mean "put up with it", that's obvious from your posts.

Nobody who isn't a medical personnel doesn't have to put up with it and I'd advise everyone not to, whoever they are and whatever their/their parents circumstances. People can care about their parents but still have solid boundaries and refuse to put up with any bad behaviour.

If someone is persistent in their bad behaviour it becomes difficult to find something to like about them. People change, we're not always friends-for-life with people, including relatives. There's no obligation to speak to someone you don't like and who treats you badly just because that person decided to have a baby one day (the now-adult child).

Lots of these awful elderly people were also not that great as parents. I don't believe the majority of them were all sweetness and light all their lives then suddenly turned into a monster one day. More likely they've been a bit of a knob all their lives and now it's escalating.

The notion that people should be grateful to have been born and to have been (sometimes badly) parented is unreasonable IMO. The notion that this gratefulness should extend to tolerating verbal, emotional or physical abuse is even more unreasonable. It isn't healthy for the person on the receiving end of it and we all have the right to protect our own health.

"Wow" is exactly what I thought upon reading your post basically going "what abuse, where?!" [Paraphrased]. It's literally there in the OPs first post. I found it shocking that you couldn't see it. Your comment was minimising the effects of that abuse on the OP, and to call for compassion, tolerance etc of the abuse because the relative is old, whilst ignoring any need for compassion the OP has, is dismissive towards her (any anyone else in the same situation, since it was a general comment).

I'd really like to thank you for articulating so well what is happening here. I've been lost in my feelings, but feel I can see the situation much more clearly now.

The idea that it's ok to do this daily is awful, and I've just been trying to deal with it. He doesn't do it to other people as far as I am aware, and I will not put up with it being done to me.

I do not wish to go not contact and have never suggested that. I do not expect him to be perfect and will continue to show compassion because that's who I am. But I will also put some boundaries in place and leave the conversation when it gets angry or unkind.

I don't know if you've actually experienced this @DBSFstupid but I think if you had you would know how absolutely draining, exhausting and all consuming this can be.

OP has been the main contact, daily, for her father for seven years. Seven years of listening to an angry man rant and insult her. Seven years of this would test the patience and compassion of a saint.

After my mother died I had often hourly calls from my perfectly capable and well father - years of, 'Remind me how I wash a dressing gown again', 'Do you know what time the football starts tonight?' and 'That young woman next door has filled her recycling box with cider cans what an alcoholic!"

I was working full time in a demanding career, running my own home, organising dad's house maintenance and finances, caring for another relation who is disabled and trying to squeeze in my own life too. I was menopausal and permanently run ragged. If I ever said I was in a meeting or busy and would call back I'd be subjected to a tirade of 'Women shouldn't be working anyway, their job is to be here to please men, what's wrong with your husband that you've got to work and not look after him and me?'

The racism, anger, sexism, judgement, constant criticism and undermining is intense. I don't think people realise the toll of older parents who are not ill, not suffering from dementia but just bloody minded, with too much time on their hands to wallow in bad news and get bitter.

He wouldn't get help in the house (he wanted me to do it), he wouldn't join clubs or go to church/volunteer despite saying he was lonely (he wanted me there) and his neighbours (and some more distant family members) all treated me like dirt because he was constantly telling them what a bad daughter I was.

People don't complain about elderly troublesome parents because they lack compassion or patience....the desperation bursts out of them because they are worn to the bone with it. It's an ongoing, hopeless situation and, whilst the parent might die, they might well live another 15 or more years and the ordeal will continue. No amount of love or compassion or practical advice/help can remedy the situation of a person who will not be helped.

t can eat your own life, possibly until you're in your 70s yourself.

Thank you for this and for explaning it in a way that is respectful, enlightning, that I can understand and that is not being ranted at or told off - which does fuck all.
I responded to the posts on this thread in the way that it came across to me but due to the 'replies' I received I realised there must be a lot more to it so I have looked at previous threads on "Elderly parents' and realise that it can be absolutely horrendous. An eye opener.

I wish you all well.

@DBSFstupid What a wonderfully gracious response. Thank you.