Not sure if / how to help dad

[mypoordad]

My parents have been married for over 35 years. My mother is a narcissistic abuser and other than 2 text messages per year, I have no contact with her. She was awful to my father and he had planned to leave her as soon as I was independent, but for whatever reason he didn't have the strength and aged 70+ he told me there's no hope now and he just has to wait for her to die so he can live I don't blame him for feeling like that.

Since going NC with my mum I have noticed a few things which concern me. My dad barely speaks on the phone to me anymore. On the rare occasion that he does, I am on speaker phone and I can hear my mother telling him what he should say, which he parrots back to me. I receive text messages from his phone, but I believe it is my mother pretending to be him. The language is the same as my mothers, and the texts are sometimes the same abusive stuff I used to get from my mum (and except worded as "your mother and I think...") and I get messages about how wonderful my mum is. When I ask directly if it is my mother using his phone, I get a response back saying no, it's all from him.

He refuses to visit me without my mum, and on the rare occasion we are able to meet without her eg because I'm passing through their train station and he comes for 5 mins to say hello, he seems scared and unsure of what he can say to me. Sometimes he lets through tiny glimpses of what's going on but 20 seconds later he clams up, tells me to leave it and not to worry. I haven't gone through their train station since January so I haven't seen him for a long time

He has no other support network, my mother forced him to cut off contact with his family 35 years ago. I have offered him many times to move in with us, we have a room set up for him whenever he decides he's had enough, but he won't take it.

Is there anything else anyone can think of that I could do to help him?

Point out that he might die first, and then he's wasted his whole life?

Send him a link to somewhere like www.mankind.org.uk/ or mensadviceline.org.uk/ ?

But ultimately he is making this choice. My Dad did the same. He died first too.

He is also allowing himself to be used as a flying monkey. But I do understand why you keep in contact - I chose to stay i full contact with my mother for the sake of seeing my father.

It's a really sad situation, but we have to let them live their own lives. I know that by the time he died my dad was sorry he'd made the choices he had. But living with an abuser all those years - it grinds you down. It can feel like an impossible effort, when you have no effort left in you.

He knows there is a room waiting for him, you have done all you can. the rest is on him.

Thank you for these. The trouble is that my mother appears to be intercepting communications between me dad and me so if I send him the links, he won't get them. He isn't even allowed to access his emails, my mum has to open them and read them before he can see them. And yes, it is his choice but he is ground down. I suspect he will die before her as he's 10 years older.

My mother has managed to destroy my relationship with my lovely dad

Is there another way of getting the info to your dad? I presume your mum is more interested in intercepting communications from you rather than all communications to your dad? Could you set up an email address that looks like it's from a male friend or even a company? Or use post and send a printed letter so it looks like it's from a company? I don't know what your dad is into but I can imagine your mum might ignore something that looked like it was just about football/golf/cricket/etc etc?

My mother intercepts all communications as far as I'm aware. So he's not allowed to log into his emails, she will log in and read them for him and then let him. My mother also used to open all our post and read it before giving it to us, I expect that hasn't changed. My mother doesn't have a job or friends, she is home all day and has a lot of time.

Could you drive over there, say dad I am taking you out to lunch. Take him to lunch and then bring him home with you? What would happen? Other than that if he is elderly, are you worried he is suffering abuse from her, in which case SS could get involved maybe?

If your mother abused you as a child do you accept that your DF, as an adult, chose to throw you as a child, under the bus to save his own personal discomfort?

Or was it not that simple? I struggle with the silent adults standing by wringing their hands when children are abused.

This is an awful situation OP, I feel for your Dad and you too.
Does your mother go out to do the shopping on her own or anything like that leaving your Dad on his own even if it’s just for an hour? Do you know the neighbours? I wondered if you get on with them and trust they won’t say anything could you ask them to call you if they notice she goes out so you could call your Dad and try and speak to him without her there controlling him?
Could you speak to your Dad’s GP? I know they can’t give out any confidential details but they can listen to your concerns. Maybe they could ask him to attend the doctors surgery for a checkup and insist on speaking to him on his own if your mother is with him?

Thank you everyone for your ideas.

I don't think driving over there to take him for lunch will be an option. They are being very careful due to Covid but even before Covid, I tried this many times and he refused because of the grief he would get from my mother if she wasn't part of it.

My mother does not leave the house without him. I believe my father is allowed to go out on his own for food shopping (he is responsible for all the housework) but that's it. I have managed to catch him when my mother has been in the bath but he refuses to talk to me and tells me to ring when she's out. They live in a small flat so she would hear that he's on the phone.

I think the GP is a really good idea. I did wonder if this might be appropriate but then chickened out.

My mother is emotionally abusive in private. My father did not see much of it because it happened when he was at work and she would deny it or lie about it. However, my mother also abused him and I'm angry that he didn't have the strength to leave and take me with him, but at the same time he was worn out and just human. My concern is that she is continuing to be emotionally abusive to him, is very controlling (eg she decides what his favourite colour is!) and treats him like her dogsbody.

An awful situation and I hope it somehow works out. I cannot think of any advice not already given.

My father did not see much of it because it happened when he was at work and she would deny it or lie about it. However, my mother also abused him and I'm angry that he didn't have the strength to leave and take me with him, but at the same time he was worn out and just human.

Did he not believe you then? Or did he choose to dismiss and minimise the abuse of a child so that he as an adult was not inconvenienced?

His actions then and now (v resistant to your help) - suggest that he is a passive enabler. Silence is compliance.

You would be better served looking at investing your finite emotional energy, head space and time in healing the deep emotional deficits / wounds that both of their parenting has caused. I suspect you are diverting your precious energy into a futile co-dependent rescuer role with your DF. If you have your own DC, partner, etc direct your energies on yourself because that will benefit the people who will be impacted by your emotional growth.

It’s a tough lesson to accept - but your DF was not there for you as a child, he threw you under the bus time and time again.

What Sssloou wrote. Women like your mother cannot do relationships so need a willing enabler to help them, this person here is your dad. He has abjectly failed you as a parent too and in a straight fight he would likely choose her over you. They get what they want out of their relationship and theirs is an unhealthy and dysfunctional relationship of codependency. He is a weak man and has acted too out of self preservation and want of a quiet life.

You would be wise indeed to steer well clear of both he and your mother going forward. He has also played an active role in ruining his life here.

Very tricky ☹️ which of your parents is in better health?

I'm afraid I totally agree that your father has been a passive enabler. He let you struggle with her toxic nature rather than deal with it himself. My grandfather, much as I loved him to bits, did the same and it left my mother going through years of hell.
He made his own bed OP, I wouldn't be wasting your energy worrying so much about him. Sorry if that sounds really harsh.

Thank you all for reading and your responses.

@Heffalooomia I believe my mother is in poorer health. Hard to say as she plays up her ill health to get what she wants whereas my dad says nothing because he doesn't want to worry anyone, but she's obese, diabetic and had cancer 20 years ago.

@Sssloou @AttilaTheMeerkat @vintageyoda

My feelings on this are so complicated and DH also sways from one point of view to the other. My dad always made me feel that he believed me, whenever he tried to stand up for me he would also get horrendous abuse, and she would make things worse for me because she hated it whenever he stood up for me. She would self harm and make out to others that we did it to her and everyone would believe her because on the outside, she looks like an angel. I remember one time my dad was so angry at how awful she had been to me that he raised his hand to beat her but stopped himself, so she made our lives even more hell for months.

My dad didn't feel able to leave her as it would have meant eg if they shared custody, that I would have to be on my own with her without the very little protection he could give me (because she was good at carrying out most of her abuse when he wasn't present) and because we were living in another country at the time as asylum seekers and there was something about them having to stay together as a family otherwise we could potentially have been kicked out of the country, particularly as it was hard for him to seek help in a foreign language. All this resolved itself by the time I was a teenager but at that point he was ground down.

On the other hand I do feel angry at him and there are a few times where I know my dad told my mother what she wanted to hear (eg agreeing that I look ugly) so that he can have an easy life and it makes me think that this is now his problem.

I'm focusing most of my energies on my lovely DH and DS but I do feel sad that my dad might be suffering and I don't want him to.

Can you take a long hard look at your DS and imagine how you would behave if your DH abused him like your DM abused you day in day out.

Your DF is still choosing your DM over you now. He has chosen not to build a RS with you or your DS.

You have been through enough as a refugee and fleeing counties on top of abusive parents. Healing you so you can be the best mother to your DC and enjoy the best life with your DP should be the focus. Have you had professional support?

@Sssloou has it right on this op - your father is still choosing his wife, despite all her years of abuse.

He is denying himself a lovely relationship with you and his gc because he is co dependent in his own abusive relationship (which means he gets something from it to).

It is very hard and extremely complex I know, but you have offered him a place to stay and family who would love him. There is nothing else you can do and I would let him go.

Why does he allow your Mother to send msgs from his phone? He is still allowing her to abuse you! He has let you down. I'm sorry

and he had planned to leave her as soon as I was independent,

All of the lies he told his little girl, the empty promises. He didn’t protect you, he didn’t rescue you, he didn’t come to you when you were independent - he has facilitated the abuse to continue into adulthood......as well as sabotaging your efforts to go NC. You know the texts are from her - he allows this.

I think you have it right when you mention concentrating on your DH & DS. All the best to you.