man-child father - WWYD?

[massivenamechange]

Posted this on AIBU but really only because i wanted it to be seen and would like some kind of funny ironic replies that might make me care a bit less about it all .

In a phone conversation today I said to my mother that her (bitchy, awful) description of a friend didn't do her any favours. My mother immediately went on the defensive; meanwhile my Dad threw a book across the room and stormed out and slammed the door.

The book was one I'd written and given him - really really expensive academic literature - it hit the wall and the spine ripped. It is now in the bin.

He does this kind of thing all the time. His grandkids think it is acceptable behaviour...

yes my Mum's a pain in the arse, but how can I deal with my father behaving like a child?

Any time anything upsets him he does this kind of thing. So if I am at home and take too long to get up in the morning (i.e. am in bed past 6am - at the age of 34) he will noisily unload the dishwasher and slam plates down hard until he breaks them. Or go out into the garden and rip up plants that have been givn to him by someone he now doesn't like.

His life seems to be one long series of pursed lips, glaring, and breaking things - usually because someone else is doing something he doesn't like...

I have felt sorry for him most of my life, always seeing his point of view, always thinking hte other person is the bastard; but only after living away for 10 years am i beginning to see that his behaviour is really unpleasant as well.

It is all really complex and tangled and horrible. Arggh.

He is married to an outspoken, controlling, nasty person with basically no empathy or insight into other people (my mother).

He got into this relationship 44 years ago after a home life with saintly types who didn't speak ill of others - his mother was a rigidly rule-following catholic who went to church every day and did exactly as the bible told her; his father was a country GP who didn't say anything if he didn't have anyhing nice to say - so basically never talked about people, since he knew all the awful private stories of all the local community.

He has had an upbringing that would have worked had he been inclined to follow church rules on how to behave, but my Dad thinks my mother is very clever and insightful about people (not least because she tells him - before embarking on another bitch-fest). So he doesn't follow church rules, because she doesn't like catholics.

So his whole upbringing is negated and replaced with my mother's outlook - which is so hideously negative that they both constantly feel besieged - so he seems to spend most of his life being aggressive towards others, either passively or openly.

Groan.

anyone..?

I read this on AIBU as well, and the only thing that struck me is that you're blaming your mother entirely for this, and you obviously don't like her very much, but he's been with her for 44 years. Who he was 44 years ago is not who he is now, and you're not going to get anywhere thinking wistfully of the person that he might have been, because he is not, and never will be that person. Even if it is totally down to your mum's influence, then he is a fully formed person with his own opinions, and he doesn't honestly sound very nice, or like a victim in all of this.

There are techniques for dealing with his tantrums, calmly challenge each one for example or treat him as the toddler he is behaving like, but I don't think you'll get a handle on it in your mind until you accept that he is the one totally at fault for his own behaviour, not your mother.

you're right...

Though i probably didn't indicate that the tantrums are precipitated by my mother, indirectly. So people he doesn't like - it will be for reasons my mother has cooked up. This extends to his work colleagues, e.g. all the women are careerist bitches etc etc. One work colleague of his said privately to me that she felt he'd changed in the 40 years they had worked together - apparently he used to be by far the most pro-feminist and pleasant person to work with. Now his views make him sound like a bitter, self indulgent woman who has got used to making excuses for not having had a life beyond the home - and not a plasant one at home because everything bad is everyone else's fault - ie my mother.

He will only be aggressive towards me after she has whipped things up a bit first. if I calmly and politely call my mother on inappropriate behaviour, saying "that description doesn't do you any favours either" (like today: demolishing one of their longest-standing friends for having no personality because the guy went a bit uiet while she demolished someone else in front of him), my mother shrieks at me and then my dad overrreacts like this. If my mum decides to demolish me (which she does frequently) my dad does nothing. I asked a few years back after a particularly upsetting session why he did nothing, and if he agreed, and he said yes he did agree.

God they're all so unpleasant.

OMG this is MY Mum and Dad to an absolute T!

The only difference is that his Dad was not a country GP.

I actually thought you might be my sister when I started reading your thread.

No advice I am afraid. I just keep out of my parents way.

Will just add that someone who seemed a pro-feminist 40 years ago would not have to change one iota to seem like the exact opposite in 2010.

Why do you have so much to do with them? If my dad did something like that to me I wouldn't be having a relationship with him.
You don't have to stand there and take it? Why do you?

Esme - goodness, I feel sorry for you. Have often wondered whether anyone else has parents like this... everyone I know in real life seems to have lovely parents.

So much of it seems to relate to them constantly being defensive and making excuses for their own lack of intestinal fortitude/ moral compass...

THis is where I generally recommend the Susan Forward "Toxic Parents" book on Amazon...

BalloonSlayer - good point.

Kittywise - I don't have that much to do with them. I phone them once a week, answer their emails minimally the rest of the week. They have very little idea of anything I do, what i think about life, what I like or don't like, etc - which is really particularly sad since I work in the same academic field as my dad and I have more to do with his colleagues socially than with him.

It is so obvious that they dislike my mother because they think she is a twisted, bitter excuse-maker, and that my father is an underachieving excuse-maker.

i just want to shout HAVE SOME PRIDE IN YOURSELVES AND BEHAVE PROPERLY YOU LOSERS

I would have as little to do with them as possible.

TBH, if your father was brought up not speaking ill of people I´m surprised he accepts it in your Mum.

I also find it hard to think that a grown man really believes that bitchiness is insightful!

Perhaps he´s angry with himself for standing by & saying nothing?

"techniques for dealing with his tantrums, calmly challenge each one for example"

But what's the point? They are not going to change--if you object to their behaviour, then you are the problem as far as they are concerned, not them.

All you can change is your response to their antics. Distance yourself, physically or emotionally.

"I would have as little to do with them as possible."
Yes

i doubt you will ever be able to change them. you can't change anyone. only what you tolerate. so i think you need to stop letting it affect you (i know, easier said than done). you need to realise that they will always be like this and it has no bearing on anything you have done. they are adults and are responsible for their own behaviour.

Are you interested in psychology? My current favourite author is Eric Berne - "Games People Play" and "What Do You Say After You Say Hello?" You mother seems to be wearing a "You Can't Trust Anybody" sweatshirt and your Dad's says "If It Weren't For Her."
Please do have a gander if you find this interesting - then give a thought to how your game/script plays out.

quiddity - yep I'm the problem. At one point when I was really down about my career, for some reason I tild them about it and they told me that if I were less negative and unpleasant about everything then I might have a more successful career.....

at which point I realised they'd picked up on everything negative I'd said over the years and nothing positive... so I stopped communicating with them.

diddl, booyhoo - changing my reaction to them was the initial impulse for posting this in AIBU first, hoping for some ironic snort-worthy funny replies

i think we need BOF or MrsR for the snortworthy stuff.

btw, my dad is a very negative person.

i remember getting an A grade in my 11+. i was predicted a B and expecting a C. my mum hugged me and said congratulations my dad asked me how i was going to get a bus to my chosen school as we lived so far in the countryside. i was 10

i have learned to just roll my eyes when i hear him start his wee rants. i have told him a few times to lighten up bt it is always in a jokey sort of way. it is his personality, it's teh way he is. but i don't have to let it affect me.

Grace - I tend to try very much to focus on doing other things, finding other things interesting, filling as much of my life with good fun positive interesting stuff as possible. It usually works.

Sometimes like today I get down about it and come and whinge on MN. I have tried an NHS psych in the past, but it wasn't massively helpful. i might have a bit of a gander while trying to work out if I'm playing a role here, and/or jsut trying to have a moral compass and strategies for dealing with behaviour that is unacceptable (pointless)

booyhoo - that's how to deal with it

But do you necessarily have to take them that seriously? It sounds like you shouldn't, even if they are your parents. Could you sort of reverse the roles and envisage them as stroppy teenagers?

My father used to be quite toxic sometimes but I find that now I just don't take him very seriously. If he makes lots of negative comments about other people, I just ignore him, or make it clear that I am not in the slightest bit interested and can't imagine why he is wasting his energy in this way.

The other thing I have found helpful is to learn how to become one's own parent. If one or other of your parents isn't really doing the job, then try to parent yourself. Give yourself the praise or kind words or affirmation that you should have got from them.

i probably shouldn't take them so seriously.

I decided at the point i stopped communicating with them, that I would try to parent them in a way, by rewarding good behaviour with nice conversation, and calling them on bad behaviour and getting off the phone when they're rude/awful.

It hasn't done that much except limit my exposure to their vileness...

Oh bring on the pizza and wine and DVDs of Yes Minister I say (wine probably a bad idea with a migraine I spose)

I think one reason i take them quite seriously is that I absolutely dread having to look after them in their dotage. Dread to the point of phobia.

Not only having to go round and see them every day but also listen to all the vile crap, and see my father getting more and more frustrated as he gets less and less able to deal with frustration... arggh.

You're right - it's pointless!
Bugger the dotage. I've already told my sibs I shan't be playing my allotted role in Spinster Eldest Daughter Cares For Elderly Mother. I doubt they'll be stepping in, somehow

but who does step in?

it's really scary when people are so feckin' stupid and so opinionated that you know they couldn't look after themselves sensibly. They don't cope at all with normal life... what's it going to be like when it's not just all about golf and cappucinos and moaning about everyone and everything?

I've already got my head totally in the sand about their finances (they're ok as long as they don't suddenly need lots of money for extra care or something - dad's pension covers normal life). They probably expect I would step in with money as well as care. I have bugger all money and would really struggle with caring for people I can't stand

Tough, imo. Had she cared more about my welfare than her own, I might feel inclined to make sacrifices for her. The caring/protective relationship between parent -> child is supposed to be one way. Even if my parent hadn't reneged on Nature's deal, I wouldn't actually owe her anything. As it happened, she required me to 'parent' her while I was still a child.

She's fond of saying "You make your own bed, now you must lie in it" - qed.

massive this is one of my fears aswell.

i only have a younger sister, she hasn't a caring bone in her body. in fact she has a vey selfish attitude towards life. i know it will be me who has to deal with my parents. i am not to worried about my mum but my dad is already a crabbid old man. i dread to think how he will be in 20 years to come.

i think everyone has to come up with their own solution to that one. DP has been trying to get me to say "tough" for years about the whole care thing - not out of callousness but because worrying about it wakes me up at night.

It sounds like for you it works well to be able to say tough - good on you for getting through what sounds like a very traumatic childhood - but for me it doesn't work to say tough... well not yet anyway