I don’t know how to cope with my dad

[Aminuts23]

My dad had the worst childhood anyone could possibly imagine. I have huge enormous sympathy and I can’t put myself in his head at all. I love him with all my heart. I really do.
But!!!!! I can’t cope with him. Over the years his moods have understandably been up and down. He has rages that build up over time. I’m in my 40s now so I know the signs. One is building up with me right now. There’s nothing I can do/say to prevent this. It’s coming. It’s life for me, I’ll deal with it when it arrives.
He and my DM are separating now. It’s sad but inevitable after such a long time of them both being unhappy. But he blames everyone else. He says he’s done nothing wrong. But all I can think about are times when he’s been raging and DM was crying. Mornings when he’s come into my room to apologise for the rage he had the night before. He’s called me a c**t in my own home and told me to F off. He has a group of friends who encourage him that me, my DM and my siblings are bastards and it’s all our fault. We don’t know them so they only have opinions of us that he tells them about. They’re absolutely toxic awful people and they’ve made him worse.
We’ve had periods of years when he’s been calm and happy and a lovely dad.
He’s not coping with the separation and he keeps making snide comments to me about how hard done to he is. I want to confront him with the truth but he is a manipulator and he twists things into his version of the truth. It’s all very complicated.
He needs his DC right now that he’s going to be on his own but he’s isolating us by being moody, denying responsibility and avoiding us. Plus I know he’s brewing towards another crisis. He won’t acknowledge his behaviour. He blames us all and his friends make it worse. I don’t know what to do.
He has been kind, generous and supportive over the years but that doesn’t make up in my head for the other stuff, especially because I can see he’s in complete crisis and denial mode. When he’s remorseful he loves us all, proud of us etc. The rest of the time we all allegedly victimise him and were the worst people ever. I don’t even know what I’m asking really. He won’t acknowledge there’s a problem until immediately after a blow up, then later he denies what he said. How do I cope with this? I’m sick of it. I love him so much but I could shake him. He’s throwing his family away who’ve always done our best to support him 😢

Can you cut all contact? You dont need to put up with this. It doesn't matter what his friendship group think of you.

I would go NC.
He sounds very toxic.
You can't help him.

Try the Stately homes thread.
He sounds incredibly abusive.

Leave him to his group of friends. It’s hard but he’s never going to change now.

He's abusive. A shit childhood doesn't absolve him of abusing his family. My father had a physically and mentally abusive father and that just made him more resolute to be the best father and husband he could be.

Keep away from him. He is an adult and you are not responsible for his happiness.

I’m so sorry. Everyone has the right to supportive loving parents, and it is a very hard thing to realise that yours aren’t that.

Many people with terrible upbringings manage to make sure their own children are secure and happy. Your dad has chosen not to. He has no right to make anyone else miserable.

Can you disconnect?

I'd avoid him when he behaves badly. You aren't a punching bag.

He sounds like an addict - ie classic behaviour for an addict in active addiction.

Booze, food, money/shopping, gambling, sex, drugs (legal or illegal)?

Do go to Al-anon - which is not just for those close to an alcoholic but anyone close to someone in active addiction. That said, my parents were children of alcoholics and had no discernible addictions presenting in particular, but had all the signs and symptoms of people in active addiction.

You are being abused and it’s not ok. You don’t have to put up with his rages. You’re an adult now. Time to adult this. You message him and say “you need help. Your anger and toxic behaviour is out of control. Please dont contact me or speak to me again until you’ve received treatment” boundaries.

Has he been diagnosed with anything OP? Sounds like there's a lot going on there mental health wise. He sounds personality disordered and 'splitting' (black/white thinking) is part of that.

Anyway, another explanation is the abuse cycle. You say that he's building up to something. This is the 'tension' phase before the abuse. Like all abusers, he's got you all dancing around him, pandering to him, trying to calm him down, anticipating his moods etc etc

I'm also wondering if these group of friends are addicts. Is he a drug user or self medicating with alcohol?

How do you cope with it?

Start getting help with co dependence OP, you're textbook. Read Co dependence no more by Melody Beattie. See if there is a CoDA support group near you. If he has addiction problems than you may find Al Anon helpful.

You need to take a giant step back from all this. Focus on your own life. Get some counselling, specialised group therapy would be helpful as you'll recognise yourself in others and can learn strategies from them.

Yeh you need to take a massive step back and look at the impact on yourself of living with someone who has behaved abusively towards you. Let him spiral in whichever way he will, you can't save him. Let him isolate and understand the impact of cutting everyone off, perhaps that will be the only way he will begin to look at his own disorder. You're not a punch bag for him. I would also recommend reading anything you can about codependency. If my husband called any of my children a c* I would probably ask him to leave.

Also, I agree that you can have the shittest childhood and resolve to never take that forward and displace it out on to your own children. He has damaged you greatly and then taken no responsibility whatsoever.

Leave him to his friends. No contact. Stop thinking of him and start thinking of yourself and your family.

He isn’t an addict of any sort. He’s quite careful about that sort of thing. Thank you all for your advice. I will have a look into what you suggest.
I don’t want to go NC although I have stepped back from spending time with him on my own. He was using that time to just talk about how awful everything is for him and how horrible everyone else is.
I do love him and I don’t consider him to be abusive of me unless and until the rage comes (he hasn’t done that to me for years but I can see he’s brooding and I know he’s made comments about me to others).
The friendship group he has at the moment could not be worse. They wind him up about all of us. They only know one side of things and he’s never very nice when he talks about us. It’s just so sad. I think if he’d stepped away from them the present situation may not have come about (I’m speculating there). They don’t understand his mental health issues. He hangs on whatever they say to him.
I just want him to be happy. He’s my dad and I love him

Well, if you're an addict it doesn't matter how 'careful' you are, it still rages away on the quiet! Addicts are also masters at hiding it, especially when we see it as a weakness rather than the problem it is. Just saying. We're in every walk of life, the vast majority not in gutters or dens at all. It wouldn't hurt to have a look at the addiction profile.

I would also take a look at the recovery community because there is much there that rings clear bells when we are battling our way through family dysfunction.

He’s absolutely NOT an addict. Never ever used drugs, never gambled, very occasional social drinker.

What about you here re your dad; do you not matter?. He has given you no consideration whatsoever here.

It is not your fault he is like this and you did not make him that way. Not all people who have crap childhoods either go onto actively choose to abuse their own now adult children like you have been and still are at his hands.

Your dad will never be "happy" as long as he is alive. He uses you as one of his very own personal scapegoats for all his inherent ills. He has you as a still willing audience and not walking away from him now is a mistake that will cost you dearly.

What is your own definition of abuse if not your dad's behaviours towards you?. His friendship group are like him in that they are abusers too.

Are you really all that surprised that your parents are now separating; given how your dad is around his family I wonder why your mother stayed with him at all, well till now anyway.

Your dad chose to replicate his childhood by going onto abuse his own family unit. He took the low road here and he is not at all deserving of you as his daughter. He abuses you as well and you do not have to sit there and take it from him. You would not accept this from anyone else (would you?) so why does he get a hall pass?.

You learnt a lot of damaging crap about relationships when you were growing up and your boundaries re him are messed up due to his abuses of a family unit he also chose to create.

You need to ask yourself why you keep putting your own self in his line of fire. Doing the same thing over and over in the hopes of getting a different result is futile and your last sentence in your initial post is the "sunken costs fallacy" made real.

This is who your dad really is; an abuser and they do not change. His "friends" are all very much like him too.

Blimey - if you knew my dad or my mums childhood stories you would be shocked!
But my dad is so so wonderful.
My mum was also a wonderful person and mother (Alzheimer has her now)
When ever anyone blames their childhood I always reflect on what my dad went through and think... fuck off - you've no idea.
I could weep for him and I'm 50+ now!
I have no doubt your Dad had an awful upbringing as well.
Once I certainly couldn't even slightly begin to understand.
But it does not give him carte blanche to abuse his family.
It really doesn't.
This is HIS choice.
HE is choosing to behave like this.
WHY?? Because it works for him.
Always has, hasn't it???
You all rally round, you all forgive him so why would he change?
He has no reason to.
A bad upbringing is a piss poor excuse.

So what for you now?
Are you going to allow him 'to get away with it' again!?
And again and again....???

Some friends they are. Have you tried getting him to go no contact with THEM. If so, there appears little hope of him changing, but by going no contact maybe it will wake him up to what he's doing. I've not been in that situation with a parent, but have a sibling with whom it's finally come to a no contact situation, which is easier I think than doing it with a parent, although it wasn't me that instigated it, but it's done me good. So I imagine it's a hard thing to do, but if you're suffering, sometimes one has to think of one's own wellbeing.

A shitty childhood does not excuse his behaviour toward you.

I completely agree with *Attila" as always. Lots of people have crappy childhoods, myself included but I swore I was never going to be like that for my own children and I would like to believe that I am not. We are a very close family unlike my own growing up.

You don't owe your Dad anything, especially to be his emotional punching bag. I can't get past him telling you to fuck off and calling you names and you still went back for more.

Just because someone is a blood relation, even a parent does not mean you accept being treated like dirt. You need to step back. The reason your Dad is saying he needs his children right now is because your Mum has sensibly removed herself from this abusive relationship. I would be asking why you are still kind to him when he used to make your Mum cry a lot with his rages.

I am very very LC with my own Dad. He feels the need to put the boot in every time he sees me so now I make sure he doesn't see me.

Have you any proof that these friends actually exist, or of what they really think or tell him to do?

I’ve met his friends. There’s 2 of them. They’re vile.
I am reading what you all say. It’s very difficult when he has been so lovely a lot of the time. But you’re right, we are emotional punch bags. We forgive him and he does it again. Sometimes there’s years in between blow ups although the way things are with DM he’s very on edge right now