Bit of a weird one - my Dad's gone NC with me.

[HoundoftheBaskervilles]

Sooo, I've been mulling this over for a couple of months now but am no closer to an answer and am concerned and confused (and fucking HURT) by it all. I've had a couple of threads in Education and Behaviour and Development about my daughter, DD is seven, I also have a DS. DD has always been 'other', she was recently permanently excluded from school, (last June aged six), we're currently seeking and I believe we'll get a ASD diagnosis, (this is just preamble, I'll get to the point shortly). We relocated because of DD to a) Be nearer family for support, b) Be in a less rural area so we could access better support for DD.

I'm one of five children, I always had a very good relationship with my Father, always (or so I thought), I did, it's not some fantasy of mine that it happened, it was a solid relationship. When my parents divorced I kept neutral - wasn't my business, my Dad left my Mum for his current wife - not my beef, life happens, Dad and I were good, we were always good. We laughed together, he loved my husband (really loved him, I always thought he saw him as another son), I LOVE MY DAD.

But recently, since we have moved back, he's just turned on me, I can think of no better way to describe it. I phoned him up one night when I'd had a particularly tough day, just to have a vent and he told me there was nothing wrong with DD, that I had caused all of her problems, that I was a neglectful Mother and I had broken my child. This was followed up by an email to tell me he had blocked my domestic number on his land-line and to please do not turn up as his door as any 'door-step' scene involving my children would be my fault and that all my phone calls for the last few years had been 'emotionally loaded demands for support'.

This is apropos of FUCK ALL, I have never asked my Dad for anything, he's very much of the 'pull your socks up' school, I have never asked him for anything. I'd call once a week to fill him in on our lives and was was going on in Hound town, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm utterly flummoxed and hurt and worried. He still, although retired, flies to conferences all over the world and can manage a week or two to climb mountains whence he goes, so I presume he's not completely fucking losing it.

The ONLY thing I can think of, and it's fucking tenuous, is that his wife always hated me, when she met my husband she suggested that me and my father had 'an incestuous relationship', I can only think that after 20 years she's finally found a way to take me down, but surely that would be madness? I don't know, I haven't got a fucking clue. I'm just reeling and hurt, and we moved back to be closer to family for support, and the person I thought would always have my back, would always support me, has told me to fuck right off - so fucking painful.

Sorry for all the fucks.

TBH I would just now leave it completely. Whether or not you have "over-vented" this seems a completely OTT way of dealing with it. He could have chosen several different ways of letting you know how he felt, but he chose this. He has blocked your number and told you not to call round, so just leave it for now.

Surely he will begin to wonder how/if he can still see his grandchildren. If he isn't bothered about seeing them, then you are better off NC with him. If he is, then he will have to make overtures towards you, but he can't really have much of a relationship with his grandchildren and ignore their mother, his own daughter.

It might be telling to see what happens at Christmas/birthdays. If there is no family birthday before Christmas, then I would just post a Christmas gift and card for him and your SM (from you and the children) and see what he does. If he ignores and doesn't reciprocate, then fuck him.

Reading between the lines, it looks to me as though your dad could be one of those people who veers from one extreme to the other when it comes to relationships.

Your OP shows that there's been a pattern of this. Happy with your mum and then leaves her for someone else. Happy with your siblings and then little or no relationship with them. Loves your dh like a son and then no relationship with him.

Even your stepmother (though in an unpleasant way) has commented on the intensity of your relationship with your dad. And now suddenly he's cut it off to nothing.

I think this is one of those cases where it's not you, it's him.

I agree with others saying a once a week phone call isn't needy. You are his daughter FGS.

I think it might be something to do with his health. Dementia is a possibility. It can have a catastrophic effect on mood and behaviour even in the early stages.

I would leave all doors open at this point and see what happens.

TPel could have a point about dementia.

Could you speak to your stepmum? She may have observed other changes and be just as worried?

So, if someone has issues with you and chooses to go non contact, they are totally invalidated amidst accusations of dementia? I am reading this right aren't I?

What if, just what if, her father has made a decision to go non contact for similar reasons to the women on here who go non contact with their parents because of issues from their childhood. I'm talking about abuse, emotional or physical abuse from their childhood.

If he's accusing his daughter of abuse and going non contact because of this, why is he automatically wrong and she's automatically right? And where's the evidence to tell us who is right and who is in the wrong here?

Well he hasn't given much evidence of any abuse. And the accusations that her dd couldn't possibly be autistic, it's all get fault is something that happens again & again in autism families. Usually the grandparents or dads in denial (it's usually grandparents or dads) get there in the end, but they can cause a lot of hurt in the process.

I think the OP should protect herself. Even if her calls were seeking support they were once a week. Hardly Mrs needy of the century.

Oh dear. This has hit a nerve hadn't it?

He may be of the 'cold mothers' old school (ffs!) but it looks much more likely this has hit a nerve with him personally.

I have a friend with 4 ASD children and all hell broke loose from her husband's family when she sought a dx and educational support for her kids. The family were vicious, a sustained campaign - which broke her health eventually. Turns out the family business had sequestered any number of family members on the spectrum.

As a pp says, one extreme to the other. This is a Very Severe reaction.

I think the ASD issue is possibly a red herring. I agree with the pp who said your father seems to have problems maintaining relationships.

It takes a particular type of person to leave a wife and children for another person. He walked away from your DM, your siblings who were not passive about his failings have had difficult relationships with him. I suspect the problem is him not you and I doubt there is anything you can do about it, other than coming to terms with it (hard I know). It may have been triggered by his wife's dislike of your relationship with your father, but ultimately this is his choice and he's choosing to do this to you.

Good luck with the ASD dx, you sound like you have a lot on your plate and I don't think you should reproach yourself for seeking support from your own father.

It has to boil down to whether this behaviour is out of character for him, or whether he has a track record in dumping family members like this. If you think he is doing something odd and unusual, then investigate further becaase there may be reasons you are unaware of. If this is a repeated behaviour for him, then maybe it is not recoverable. Only OP knows.

Hmm, left your mum for another woman, poor relationships with your other siblings- sounds like he has problems maintaining relationships

Without hearing his point of view, there seems to be a lot unsaid in the OPs post. However it does sound as if you had higher expectations of how much support he was able to give than he had. I suspect moving nearer has been an awful strain on him and he really isn't able to give you the support you wanted. Rather than say this directly he has finally vented his frustration himself.

I am almost NC from my sister, over the years I have been her sounding box to vent at, I began to dread her calls, which were always very one-sided with her talking at me, not interested in my life or little jealous comments about how much better my life was than hers. Not true, having had a period of depression, I have learned to try and think positively and not keep dwelling on the negative. It came to a head when one of her DS's developed anorexia, I just could no longer bear her saying poor me all the time and tried to gently advise her to support her DS more and seek professional help and tried very tactfully to suggest they as a family could do more to help him. She now no longer phones me, as my role was supposed to be just to sympathise with her and I guess I struck a nerve. You can only do this for sometime if you have concerns about the child.

DF is likely to be wrong in his reading of your DD's situation, but you cannot expect him just to be vented at all the time. It sounds like he had reached a breaking point.

Hi, sorry for the disappearing act, I had visitors over for a couple of days. Thanks for all your comments, there's some food for thought there.

A few points (I'll have to keep it brief as I'm off Trick or Treating with the DCs in a bit, will be back later).

On the whole I'm a very upbeat person, so my phone-calls to my Dad would be very much a 'here's what great things we've been up to recently, what we're all doing, what we've been cooking and eating' (we share a love of food), just the general, minutiae of life, chit-chat. The last six months or so have been very stressful for obvious reason, DD was excluded, we relocated, it's been hard, and yes, I have vented. He was VERY hands on during the period that DD was excluded and I went to the governors meeting, he came down and we went through her records, the whole time-line and scoured the Welsh Assembly Circular on exclusion for anything that might help. He was engaged, he was concerned and he was involved with the whole process.

Also a PP picked up on the fact I said I never asked him for support, yet a moved back closer to family for support, good point, it may have looked as though I was contradicting myself, when I said I moved back for support, I just meant general closeness, having family near, the sort of support you get over a Sunday lunch just by being with family, that feeling of togetherness and not being so alone in an incredibly stressful situation. That sort of support, not, 'Oh my God my life's shit please sort it out for me' support.

I've always been fiercely independent, I left home when I was 16 (no family problems or bile, just the fact I wanted to leave home - some teenage nonsense going on but nothing catastrophic, I did my A levels, got excellent results, got a place at Imperial College - didn't go - I went to Manchester, just saying this to give you a bit of background I guess, I went to University as an independent student, not because my parents wouldn't have offered support, they bought my sister a house when she went, and helped both of my brothers through, I've just always been VERY single minded and have never wanted to be beholden to anyone).

I'll read all the responses more closely later, but really thank you for your input, there are some very salient points there.

One last thing which may be enlightening is that I've always been a repository for my family's problems, whenever anyone's really fucked up, they phone me and tell me, I think it's because they know I'll be a completely non-judgemental listener, I don't ever take sides really, I know life is complicated and people do stupid things, so I think I may have become a repository for family bollocks, however, after a particularly incendiary outpouring was dropped on me last year I did loose it a bit and tell everyone I was sick of them doing this to me and not to do it any more, I don't want to know, do NOT make me the keeper of your secrets. Just because I had so much stress in my life and couldn't be that person any more.

I don't know.

PS - I haven't neglected my daughter, that little person has had more from me than I thought it was ever possible to give anyone, and it kills me that it's never enough, it also kills me that DS gets lost in this whole maelstrom (I do make special time for him), and that I can't spread myself enough to give everyone what they need, there's not enough of me. I wish there was.

Is he angry with you because your child has been excluded from school? Some grandparents would see that has a terrible slur on the family and blame the parents for not exerting sufficient control or offering enough support to the child concerned.
Is this perhaps at the heart of the problem?

I don't think so, I don't think the exclusion was the defining point, bizarrely enough, I think the thing that tipped him over the edge was DS having nits. The school they were at before was very small and nits were endemic, you'd get rid of them, they'd come back, it was a never ending bloody cycle, when things got very stressful with DD, I admit, I got a bit lax with the nit-control, it was just one more thing to deal with, so it may have taken a back-seat for a few weeks.

My Dad had always had a bit of a bee in his bonnet about DS's hair, always thought it was too long, was always telling me to 'get that boy a hair-cut', DS liked it long though. DS stayed with my mum for two weeks over Summer when we were moving and my Dad had him for a day, and decided on that day to take him for a hair cut, because he thought he was being clever presumably. So I was then subject to a ranting phone-call telling me my son was riddled with nits and he had been HUMILIATED at the barber's as they wouldn't cut his hair. Not only that, but I must destroy his coat and my Father's car was now infested with nits too, apparently.

Had he asked and not taken it upon himself to have DS's hair cut I would have told him that I know DS has nits, my mother is dealing with it and he has a barber's appointment later in the week.

op you blew up with your siblings as your df did with you! It seems this is not uncommon. My dd has a friend who relied on her for listening to emo outpourings. My dd never wanted to be the recipient but was able to pretend until she cdn't . This led to a great outpouring to me her m and i had to 'explain' to the friend . So it seems that maybe your df has been trying hard to be the recipient and has had enuf. Also may be connected to your moving closer for support. This might have precipitated the break. I am bothered by what you attributed to the sm- rather a weird statement ? Hope that you dd will get an edu plan and be back in a school with the proper support soon and that you and your father sort this out. Are you in touch with your mother?

I've noticed that when you are the supportive person in a family, often you find to your disappointment that people don't return the favour when you need it, because that's not your role. They expect you to give, not take.

Amamai - not my statement, it was said in front of us all at dinner, don't think I'm a SM hater, I'm NOT, I have always been utterly accepting. Although, now you mention it I see a huge hypocrisy at play, I was married before when I was young, I left my first husband, we had no children and he was much older than me - it was a clean break - no fucking about on my part, I left the man, we lived in Ireland I moved back to the UK, met my DH and turned up at my Dad's to take my younger brother out one day as planned (I've always had a good relationship with my younger bro's and have always taken them out, when my parents split up I was living away from home and J, one of my bros would come and stay with me a couple of nights a week, because life was confusing for him, it was an acrimonious split with my parents, he'd come to my flat every Thursday and have pizza and video games).

But when I turned up to take my other bro out for the day, when I'd left my first husband and had met DH (there was a huge overlap, my first husband fought our divorce, it took five years), i was told I couldn't take my bro out as I was still married. I got the same scene at my mother's at Christmas and she wouldn't let him in the house as I was still married. She rather ridiculously passed him champagne through the window.

For the record, we are Catholics, ostensibly, (hence all the siblings), but none of us practice, I'm Agnostic, and I thought my parents abandoned the faith when they started shagging other people.

decided on that day to take him for a hair cut

Erm that is legally recognised controlling behaviour. Ie to cut a child's hair without the consent of the parent/s. It's a biggie. HUGE.

I don't know, op, it all sounds a bit nuts to me tbf. OK I get it that, to all intents and purposes, you're talking about a different culture - or at least a culture. It sounds very volatile, boundariless (eg haircut), but at the same time ridiculously boundaried eg champagne through the window. A bit nuts, basically, and extremely volatile?

I know Springy,there's all this judgement and propriety, and hypocrisy at the same time.

I'd like to tell you about one of my sisters, and my brother's and my parent's behaviour, but I've been sworn to secrecy and I think my MN username is rather identifiable.

DH tells me to just fuck them all off, he's from a very large but very different family, my family is 'very fucking respectable', very well regarded, my parents and siblings have high-profile jobs, and it is NUTS, I feel like the family whipping-boy sometimes.

Sorry, am a little bit 'relaxed' at the moment, and a little bit sad, I'm just sad about this whole situation.

I feel like the person I could always rely on has just fucked me right off, and I'm not sure why. And it just hurts.

I really do thank you for all your comments and thoughts, it's appreciated.

I am wading through a pile of shit at the moment, it feels like 42 years of easy-living has come home to roost. I don't mean that in a flippant way, I have had three lots of friends come to stay this week and they've all said, 'Bloody hell Hound, look after yourself and get some help for you and DD' and they said it because they can see I'm falling a-fucking-part at the moment and what DD's doing to us, as a family.

I've kept it together for so long, and I've actually fought a diagnosis for DD, because really, who wants their child to be other? To be different? I don't, I don't want to ask for help, ever, and now I find myself having to and it being rejected for doing so. I always thought I could sort anything out myself. And it turns out I can't.

So sorry OP.

I'm sure it doesn't really help, but for what it's worth it doesn't sounds to me like you've done anything wrong at all.

Frankly he sounds batshit.

OP, I'm on the spectrum. I see things clearly and this is my conclusion.

Your dad is behaving like a dick-led prat. Its not uncommon in men, particularly men in relationships following a first marriage.

I strongly urge you to get counselling. You can't change your dad or the family who dump on you, but you can change how you experience them. Counselling will help.

Thank you for being a wonderful mother to your DD.

Thanks Cheerful, he may be, I suspect they may ALL be. I didn't want to play that game though. I can't even phone him to talk though. BECAUSE HE'S BLOCKED MY NUMBER.

timelytess THANK YOU.

How can I best help DD? I just try to keep life calm for her, I try to be the fulcrum, the post through the middle of the Earth for her. The constant and steady.

She abuses me, I am hurt by her, but I keep steady, I don't waver because I know she only hurts me because I know she finds life hard, she can't cope and I am a person she can take it out on.

But it's hard.

Hound, I'm so sorry, I'm not an expert. They hadn't even identified/named my Aspie end of the spectrum when I was growing up with it, or even when my dd was. We just muddled through and still do. It sounds to me like you are taking a loving, sensible and positive approach, and doing as much as you can.

I've found counselling really helpful. Not a miracle cure, but if you take one issue at a time and talk it through over an extended period, it kind of shifts in your mind from wherever it was causing harm to somewhere that it isn't. Dd (well into adulthood) is in counselling now and from the first session she was a changed person! Much happier.

I wish you well and I wish I had a strategy that I could guarantee would help you.