Scowling and gritting teeth?

[superstarheartbreaker]

For as long as I can remember my dad has been a scowler. You know...ok most of the time but then starts scowling and grimacing if annoyed(although I'm never sure quite what I've done wrong) . I normally respond with 'what the hell is wrong with you?' Or 'are you ok?' To which the reply 'nothing's wrong' comes through gritted teeth.

Anyway recently his gf won 1st prize in an important competition. He was great in public. Then we all went to the pub to celebrate and he started his scowling thing... I don't know if I'm right but I suspect he may be jealous that she did so well. Anyway, I hate this scowling thing as everyone gets on edge and it spoils the atmosphere. Can anyone shed any light?

I think it's passive aggressive and tonight I pretty much told him to stop looking so miserable and tell us what's up... Cue more scowling.

I also suspect he may be jealous. there is something quite sad about someone who scowls at his girlfriends success :(.

Personally, I wouldn't spend my precious time with someone who scowled and spoilt my night out.

Oh dear, this reminds me so much of my own father (long since passed away).
My belief is that it was much more complex than a jealousy/happy/sad thing. It was much more of a control thing. He wanted to, and did, control the mood of the entire family with his behaviour. in short we were only allowed to be happy on his terms, with his 'permission'. this could and often would be withdrawn at any time for no apparent reason!
One effect of this was was that he had me and the rest of the family running around like idiots to please him and keep him sweet. It also led me to be a 'pleaser' and enabler for the rest of my life until a long period of counselling largely cured me of this, although it still raises its head occasionally.
Sadly i can't give you any advice on how to deal with it, i chose not to have anything more to do with my dad from the age of 17, i didn't see him again before his death some 20 years later. That makes me sad but i wasn't prepared to have a relationship on the terms he demanded. All in all i have no regrets about my decision.

Notsuch - whilst i agree and you can see from my post above thats what i did, cutting yourself of from your father is not easy and can have a deep psychological impact. Its much different to taking the same course of action with an unpleasant friend for example.

I agree with the poster above. I have in the past, named this sort of behaviour and then taken myself off somewhere else to continue having a nice time.

You can't expect a controller to change. You can get yourself away from them when they are in one.

Passive aggressive or plain old attention-seeking behaviour. If the 'face like a wet weekend' act results in others gathering around to say 'what's wrong?' or mutter amongst themselves how on edge they all are, he'll be the centre of attention.

I have an aunt like that. During her granddaughter's wedding reception she was sitting there with a face like a smacked arse so I asked if she'd enjoyed the day. Old sourpuss then launched into a big long list of complaints that basically boiled down to .... 'No-one's looking at meeeeee!!!!' To which I replied 'still it's being so cheerful that keeps you going!' (No love lost either way there....)

Ignore or make fun of.