My Dad - why can't I let go?

[Sparkler1]

Bit of a long story. I don't have many fond memories of my dad as a child. He used to be violent with my mum, I used to hear them arguing at night. It still upsets me now thinking about it.
Mum and Dad divorced when I was 17.
Dad got engaged to his now wife, on my 18th birthday - of all days, why?
I stayed in touch with dad when my parents divorced but not because we had a close relationship. More of the fact just because he was my dad. Every year when father's day, christmas and his birthday came along, I would spend ages trying to find greetings cards that didn't say things like "to the best dad, thankyou for everything you do for me etc etc etc" because none of it was true.
For the past two years I haven't sent him anything. The first time I did this he phoned me a couple of days after father's day and his birthday and said to me "thankyou for your card and present" in a very sarcastic voice and then proceeded to put the phone down on me.
My children hardly know him.
Whenever he has visited me at my home it's always been a quick visit as he has to get home for dinner. Can never eat his dinner and then come and spend time with me and my family.
I keep thinking to myself that I have to move on but he still has a hold on me for some reason. I have thought about going to see him at his home, my sister has said that she will come with me for support. She still has contact with him, even though she knows what he's like. I'm wondering if it's best if I just let it all out and tell him how I feel.
I had been feeling okay about it all but this morning a postcard has fallen on my doorstep from Tenerife addressed to my sister. She used to live with us. It's addressed to my sister c/o my house. Love Dad and Wife. I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. Why did he have to do that?

Just had a blub to mum on the phone, feeling a bit better. I'm going to arrange to meet up with dad and speak to him.

Awe Sparkler, I can really emphasise with what you say. And some days you wonder why you bother and other days you think but hes my dad... and what ever they have done in the past you cant help but love them because of who they are to you if that makes sense.

I did the whole 'checking cards really carefully' thing to make sure they never said 'best dad' too.

I dont really have any advice, but I do know how you feel and am around to listen xxxx

I can't understand how he can be like he is. My DH is a wonderful man and would do anything for our dds. How can anyone not possibly want to be there for their children?

I'm not sure exactly how old he is - about 58 I think.
He has no other children, as far as I know, apart from my siter and I. Not sure how faithful he was to mum whilst I was a kid.
My dad does have a drink problem, although he will not admit to it.
His new wife is ok. Haven't really got to know her very well to be honest but I know that him and her always bickered whenever I went to visit. In their house they always have pictures up of her daughter and her grandchildren. Don't remember seeing any of his family.
He's always been like this so I don't think she is entirely to blame.

I've just phoned him to ask if I can pop round to see him this evening. He has things he has to do but will phone me when he gets home.
Looks like the s* is going to hit the fan.

Oh, Sparkler. You can't let go because he is your Dad & no matter how much he has hurt you, you still love him.
I am seeing a really horrible side to my Dad atm & am alarmed at how little support I am receiving from him, but I still love him because he is my Dad & his lack of support gets to me all the more for this very reason.
It is the pits & I really feel for you.xx

Sparkler, my situation is slightly different but I can identify with you.

Unlike you I had a great childhood and was very close to my Dad then about 10 years ago (after 40 yrs of marriage) he left. Just left a note and didn;t come home from work one day. And I haven't seen him since. He has spoken to me on the phone a few times and say "We really must meet up" but then doesn't agree a date.

He also kept in touch with my sister and brother and has met them about once a year which I find incredibly hurtful.

I could go on and on about the hurtful things he's done to us in the past ten years but I'd still be here this evening typing!

I deal with it by accepting that he's a different person now to the one who brought me up for some reason. But I only really accept that about 90% of the time the other 10% I'm angry and greiving for the father I lost. You're supposed to be able to rely on and trust your parents and you will never be able to get away from a small part of your brain resenting the fact that you can't.

Don't suppose that helps at all! Let us know how your discussion with your Dad goes.

Sparkler - so sorry this is so hard.

I'm currently having counselling, all to do with my relationship with my mother. I can empathise with the feeling of wanting to not care about that person, and wanting to be able to move on.

It's just not as easy as that is it. What do you want your dad to do? Do you want him to apologise for the way he was then? Do you want him to build a new relationship with you the way things are now? Do you want him to aplogise for the way things are now?

If he apologised for the way things were then, or are now, would it make a difference? If, as you suggest, he has a problem with drink, then you may need to accept that many of his decisions were/are made as a result of that illness/addiction. Which means they were/are, to a certain extent, out of his control.

My mother has suffered from addiction and mental illness problems all my life, and I have finally started to accept that even if she apologised for everything that happened, my life would still be the same. She didn't mean to be ill, she didn't mean my life to be affected by her illness. It just was. Now I have stopped expecting her to be able to put things right, we have started to build an honest relationship built on trust.

It's very hard to do, and it's a very, very slow process but I know it is the right way for us to go.

Hi SJ - fancy seeing you here!

I think littlefish (sj waves at littlefish acrss the thread) asks an excellent qustion - what is it you want from him or want him to do. I know you may not get it but I think you should start with what you expect/want from him.

Hi guys. Am sat here breaking my heart - yet again.
I ended up phoning him as it had gone past 7pm and I didn't want to be sitting around waiting. He told me that he had just got in. He said that it wasn't the best of nights and that he had a lot of urgent paperwork that he had to get done, he's packing his job in apparently as he's had enough of it, this evening and he was going on holiday tomorrow. He asked me if I could go round for a chat on Tuesday.
I told him that it was important to me and that I thought we should talk tonight. He told me to tell him what was wrong on the phone. I told him that I thought it should be done face to face. Anyway, we ended up talking on the phone and didn't get anywhere, as I thought.
He ended up twisting things round that it was my problem not his and that I had chosen to cut him out.
Yet again, I've ended up upset. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong and that I have the problem. He told me I could go round and see him on Tuesday night for a cuppa and a chat if I wanted to. I can't see any point. I think I'm just getting myself more and more upset the more I try to resolve things.
Looks like I need to find the strength to move on. How I do this, I really don't know.

I will not let him drag me down again. In answer to your questions "what is it I want/expect from him?". I really don't know. An apology from him to say how sorry he is for how upset I have become. Maybe for him to say that he didn't realise how strongly I felt about the past. Maybe him to say how he can't change the past but let's build a better future. None of this is going to happen though and I need to find a way to accept this.

Sparkler, I feel so sad that you are hurting so much.

I've left a message for Suejonez on another thread asking her to come onto this thread. She's so wise and thoughtful and I know she'll know what to say.

The only thing I can do is cut and paste a sentence from my earlier post which is the way that I have begun to deal with my own issues with my mother.

"Now I have stopped expecting her to be able to put things right, we have started to build an honest relationship built on trust".

I would suggest that you don't do anything for a few days. Just take some time to look after yourself. You are feeling very raw and hurt. Can you plan to do something lovely with your own family at the weekend?

Thank you so much LittleFish. You are so sweet. I don't think I'd ever build a relationship of trust with him now - even more so after tonight.
Funny you should say that, I was just talking to dh and telling him I want to out and have a lovely, fun family day out tomorrow. Dh has the day off work.
I just need to find the strength to move on.
DH tells me I always say this and then a few months down the line I end up wanted to contact d again to try and make amends.

It's a bit like a bereavement (sp?) Sparkler. Trying to imagine your life without a person in it, even if that person caused you pain rather than joy. Give yourself time to grieve over this incident and your lost relationship, and then make a decision about what you want to do.

Have you ever had any counselling? I've had several courses over the last 10 years and found it incredibly helpful. The same issues resolve to a reasonable level, and then re-appear several years later. Each time I look into them with a counsellor, we dig a little deeper. I know that this is the way I need to deal with things - a little at a time.

Have a lovely day tomorrow.

I am going through the same thing right now. I just wanted t let you know that you are not alone. I had a meeting last week to discuss our issues. It ended with us agreeing to start afresh. Thats all well and good in theory but doesnt seem to work in real life. Its all so complicated and I am tired of it.

Sparkler1, it was so easy for me to ask the question "what is it you want from him or want him to do" but hard to answer it for myself. I'm not sure I ever did work out what I wanted. Or at least I did, but its not really practical - I want him to be the Dad I want and not the Dad I've got.

I wanted my father to make an effort, to try really hard, to ring me more than once a year, to sound pleased when he speaks to me, to be excited about my decision to adopt not send me a polite note 2 months after I told him, oh and so many other things.

I don't think my father has any conception of how his treatment of me made me feel, which I have to say sounds just like yours - that's why he thinks its all your problem/fault because he doesn't understand how good fathers behave, he doesn't understand the cause and effect of his behaviour on yours when you were really little more than a child.

But YOU understand it and the more you understand it the easier you will find it to deal with the situation. You need to understand that just because he treats you like you are unimportant, doesn't mean that you ARE unimportant. You are not going to a better or more valuable person if your father approves of you and gives you support. He on the other hand will be a MUCH better person if he gives you that support but you are both adults now and you can't make him into a different person at this stage of his life.

Learning to live with the fact that your father is a shit isn't fun and is like grieving for the father you should have had (or in my case did have), but it isn't any reflection on you. It's entirely about him and don't let your talk with him this evening persuade you otherwise.

Don't let him make you bitter, there are many people in your life I'm sure that care deeply for you and they are far more worthy of your time and emotional energy than he is, and they will repay that effort ten-fold. Take from him what you can/want to and make what you can of it but try not to waste too much energy on him and spend some more on others around you.

I hope with a good nights sleep you will feel better in the morning.

Just to add "DH tells me I always say this and then a few months down the line I end up wanted to contact d again to try and make amends" - isn't this a sign that you have a perfectly normal expectation of what your relationship with a father should be like? Surely thats nothing to beat yourself up about? My sister and I have the same whinge (about once a year each at different times) and we now listen to each other, nod sagely, make soothing noises and after about 20 minutes start laughing becasue we've just remembered that we said the same thing 6 months ago. And we'll probably still be saying it in 40 years time after he's long dead if only through habit alone.

Don't be so hard on yourself - its perfectly natural to want a good relationship with your father, it's not like a light bulb that you can turn off. It's not a fault on your part. If your DP is finding it irritating, share it with someone else when you feel that way again - I find men tend to want to FIX thigns IYKWIM, and get a bit freaked when you keep bringing up a situation that obviously doesn't have a fix. Thank heavens for sisters in my case .

Say to your DP - "yes I probably will feel differently at some point in the future but just humour me when that happens because its most likely the sod will sabotage any attempt of mine to turn into Grandpa Walton"

See SJ - I knew you'd know what to say. Thank you.

Lol - sparkler may not think that, she may think I'm a mad woman!

Thank you so much. I don't think you are mad at all.
Lots of what you have said makes a lot of sense and I can relate to some of your feelings towards your own d.
I slept on it last night and I felt a bit better about the situation this morning, although still terribly sad and a little numb that things hadn't gone quite as I'd hoped.
Had a lovely day out today with dh and dds and that helped loads.
I just need time to heal now.
Thank you so much for listening and your kind words of advice. xxxxx