How can I be 35 and my father still has the power to wind me up and control my emotions?

[dottytablecloth]

I see him about once every two or three months.

Have a very strained relationship with him, we've nothing to chat about really.

He was a controlling, vile bully when I was a child. Db and I weren't allowed any interests or hobbies but he was. That's a very minor example but everything about him was selfish. He would send db and I out to pick up litter after school rather than let us socialise or see friends. Everything was about control and demeaning us. Have a million other examples but don't want to drag them up.

Even recently he told me I was nothing and had achieved nothing. I've my win house, car, professional job, am nothing amazing but wouldn't exactly say I was nothing either.

Every single time I see him, he winds me up.

Even as an adult I can't shake him off or let it roll off me.

I always react.

How do I reconcile myself that he won't change and not allow him to control me?

Where is your mother in all this? What does she do, or not do and how do you feel about that? She does sound complicit, at best.

It's absolutely not your fault. Your father has not changed and so your relationship and your reactions to him also have not changed.

I was in a similar situation and found it helped to quietly withdraw and get some headspace. Counselling also helped a great deal. You can't deal with your grief at not having decent parents while you're still trying to do the dance with the ones you have.

Essentially you were emotionally abused as a child by him, this will take a lot of healing. He probably thinks it was for your own good and that's why he continues. Hopefully you don't lose your brother over this, your father might well try and set up a conflict between you, it's what these people do.

I have a similar parent and now see him only on my own terms.

I fly down to see him once a year, possiby twice at most. If he is rude, hectoring or attempts to bully me, I just don't go. I don't stay in his house and leave at a pre-arranged time. We get on much better with this in place!

I will go against the grain here and say do accept money if you want. I was surprised to find that I felt a bit better about a few things with a substantial cheque in my hands.

I understand what Attila is saying about your mother being complicit but also your need to see her. Could you meet her elsewhere? How old is she? It's never too late to leave an abusive partner and set up on your own.

I did wonder about this but I would be very surprised if she was actually let out on her own. Fear of him as well keeps her within this but she still has a choice re him even now.

I also wonder if your mother has accepted responsibility for the fact that staying with this man caused you and your brother a great deal of emotional pain that continues to this day.

I would still not accept money from them because toxic people use this as a further means of keeping their offspring further obligated to them. It is never given without conditions attached.

Missed the bit about your mother.

Nowadays she would have had her children removed for not protecting them. On the other hand she might have had more support to leave him safely.

But abuse is abuse, and if he is still abusing her your own problems might not go away so easily either.

MY father was the same , my sister was in her 30s before she got her first job as my father had told her she wouldn't be able to do anything or cope,

I haven't spoke to him in over 5 years and he was diagnosed with terminal cancer a mth ago and my sister who had also been non contact reached out to him and he was still the same vile man he had always been and she came off the phone to him in tears.

He died last week and his funeral is next Friday and although my sister is going, i'm not and I don't feel regret or sadness about it and as soon as the funeral is finished she is deleting and blocking my brother from facebook and changing her phone number because he is a carbon copy of my dad, who told me to fuck off when I said that I do not want my childrens names included in the service because as far as i'm concerned he was a stranger and not a granpa to my children.

Sorry to derail thread, what i'm trying to say is only you can know whether it would hurt more to not have him in your life or to have him in it , but I have not once looked back and thought I wish I could have him around me x

I woudn't delete and block a brother, he has been through something similar and just can't see it. He may never see it, but I would always keep doors open for the childrens sake.

DaughterDilemma

He has been deleted and blocked from my account doesn't have my address or phone number and will never be allowed near my children, because like I said he is a carbon copy of my dad right down to telling me if I don't do things his way or think his way he will give me a sore face and truthfully I believe he wouldn't think twice about hitting me whether my children where there or not.

My dad told my sister with my brother backing him up that he was going to get custody of my nephew as she as far as he was concerned an unfit mother.My nephew is now 18 and about to start uni and that has only been possible because my gran gave my sister the strength to get as far from my dad as she could

Why shouldn't they take the money or the favours, sounds like a fishermans dream to tell you the truth

rollicking

OP i didn't realise brother was violent. But it does sound as though he has been terrorised into this behaviour and just doesn't see it. Anyone who has grown up in a household where their mother was abused by their father will have been affected very deeply.

Well done to your Gran for protecting your sister, but bear in mind that your brother will have been bullied into this by your father.

Tell your mum to get a friend to go on holiday with her.

Go and get your mother and take her out for lunch so you can see her and not him,

Have it out with him

Ignore him.

Don't allow him the joy of a grandchild when he was a shit father.

All options.

I know it is horrible to not have parents - mine abandoned me as a baby and I never had substitutes - but you don't have to put up with this crap nor should your father have the reward of grandchildren in his life when he hasn't ever acknowledged or apologised for the abuse he meted out.

re: the money. I would NOT accept any more money if I were you. There are so many strings attached to that money, scissors can't cut them.

I once tore up a check my dad sent me and mailed it back to him. It sends a powerful message to reject money.

I've had a very poor relationship with my dad since my teens, when I stopped letting him control me. He just tried harder and harder and became impossible. When I had my first child I made attempts to allow him have some sort of relationship with her but it always ended in him being bitter and inventing his own history or how things had gone when I was a child. How he did his best and beating me to a pulp was in my best interests. Anyway, the youngest is now 13 and I've just cut him completely out of our lives in the past few weeks. It has been so calm and really, knowing that I will never have to deal with his crap anymore is kind of like a weight off.
Walk away. You don't need toxic people in your life. You will benefit your children in the long run.