My own dad is so cold with me

[Samuraisammy]

I feel so alone. Other than my OH. All my supportive male relatives have passed away. Loving Great Uncles, Grandfather, and I’m ‘left’ with my dad.

I know this sounds ungrateful but being in touch with him just makes me feel worse, I’m made to feel like an inconvenience whenever I call. It’s as though he waits for the one sentence that he can twist around to make me sound unreasonable when saying something friendly or being chatty. When he’s around me it’s even worse. It depends entirely on his mood, but most times he makes no effort to talk if he’s come round to my house.

He doesn’t hug me, I remember asking my mother when I was young why dad never hugs me or says I love you? And she just said he shouldn’t have to say I love you, you should know it already.

I just feel so empty and sad. All my elder male relatives were full of lots of warmth, laughter, calling me soft words like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘love’, ‘love you lots’.
My dad has always just called me by my name and like I say, never said the word love in any form.

I don’t understand it but I can’t seem to get past it either. His dad (my Grandfather) was so warm and friendly to everyone including my dad, I don’t know how or why he’s come out the way he has. I don’t know if he’s suffered any trauma or I don’t know if he has a condition of some sort, but I can’t seem to move past it or move forward.

I just feel sad and drained by his company, I feel worthless as a daughter. Does anyone else experience this?

Yes I know what you mean, from my mother. She is not a warm person, I am not sure if she loves anyone or not, it's hard to tell. Although my father tells me she does, but hmm.. She is not really a cuddly grandma either.

Strangely she has become more like this over the years, and is becoming more and more of a miserable old woman. Yet when I was a young adult I thought we were close and I loved her dearly at the time. But when you don't get anything back that withers away. Sometimes I wonder if she is on the spectrum. I know she has health issues but not to be close to her family can't help?

I think your mum is behaving like my dad in making excuses and saying that you should take the love on trust. But if it's not expressed how can we know it's there? They could just be saying that because that's the convention - of course your parents love you. Or they don't want to think about it.

Do you feel that your dad has changed towards you over the years?

I am sorry it is making you feel low OP, you are not worthless, its him. He sounds difficult. Hopefully you have other warmer relationships.

Low contact then cut him off entirely. People who make arguments over innocent comments are bullies spoiling for a fight.

I often say this but the space between reality and fantasy causes depression. You have a fantasy of what a dad should be but the reality , for whatever reason ,is that your dad will never be like that. Its not going to change and expecting it to will only continue to upset you. Acceptance is the key and then you can decide whether you can be bothered having much to do with him at all. He sounds contrary and that is no asset to your life.
Maybe some counselling would help to talk it through.

Pemba

My mother is extremely similar to yours and I can state with absolute certainly she is not on any spectrum and neither is your mother. Its likely that she is very much also a product of her own upbringing; my mother was born during WW2 and her father was emotionally distant.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is said to be a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life.
Please educate yourself re ASD because unintentional misunderstanding like this sentence you've written, and I feel it is absolutely unintentional here, can cause distress to others.

OK sorry, I certainly didn't mean to upset anyone Attila

Like the OP, I have the experience that the parents of the 'cold' parent were a lot warmer, so I don't really see how that ties into the apparent coldness being due simply to the era they were brought up in, as obviously grandparents came from an even earlier era which you would imagine was even more repressed.

I remember my late grandmother saying how my mother as a child rejected being hugged, so that seems to indicate that it's something in her personality. But you are saying that ASD is not to do with personality, only communication? I am really sorry I got that wrong if so. I am just trying to understand her.

She had PND after the births of my brother and myself and this affected us both badly. I suppose I am quite angry with her really. She is generally miserable and in recent years has become more right wing and a bit racist. Although all her grandchildren are mixed race. I find her very difficult,but my father expects me to visit frequently and he says my visits cheer her up, which I don't see much evidence of..

Been where you are. Tried for years to improve the relationship, much to the detriment of my wellbeing. Then realised I was the only one trying, and disowned him. Not spoken to him for years. He tells my brother now that it's a shame I'm so stubborn!

Find other ways to get your validation (most importantly, from yourself), and drop anybody who makes you feel this way. Blood relative or not. You don't have to feel like this.

I know this sounds extreme but are you definite you are biologically his?? I have known such behaviour and later down the line it has been revealed that all that coldness was because of the secret that the shunned child was the result of an affair or similar

@Djifunrsn

Low contact then cut him off entirely. People who make arguments over innocent comments are bullies spoiling for a fight.

This.

Word for word.

Why bother putting in an effort with someone who brings you zero pleasure.

Avoid.

Pemba

Thank you for your understanding re my comments I absolutely know any reference to ASD was completely unintentional on your part and not designed to cause harm.

You have every right to be angry with your mother and for that matter equally your father too. He basically enables his wife in her excesses of behaviour out of self preservation and want of a quiet life. He has also failed you as a parent here by failing to protect you from her from childhood. He threw you under the bus and keeps wanting to do that even now (hence him expecting you to visit him frequently; its so he can get away from firing line and put you in her path instead).

I realise you want answers as to why she is like this but you may never get those. You need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

Your mother may well have some form of untreated - and untreatable - personality disorder and its anyway not your fault she is the ways she is. ASD is not a personality disorder; its a triad of social and communication impairments. You did not make her that way; chances are her own family treated her poorly as a child and as an adult she never sought, nor wanted to seek the necessary help. She just decided to dump it all on you, her own child, instead.

You have a choice re these people and you do not have to keep putting yourself in their line of fire nor set yourself on fire to keep them warm.
Read also about FOG; fear, obligation and guilt in toxic families. Such people also do not change and you need to keep your children well away from them too.

@Kabakofte

I know this sounds extreme but are you definite you are biologically his?? I have known such behaviour and later down the line it has been revealed that all that coldness was because of the secret that the shunned child was the result of an affair or similar

Have you read any of the Stately Homes threads? The assertion that people would not treat their own children this way is... well, just wrong. Most abusive parents are biological parents.

Attila thanks for your thoughtful response. There is certainly a lot to take in there, and I feel that I am re-evaluating my childhood. I feel a bit guilty, that maybe the situation was not as extreme as I have stated, but then again my brother and I both ended up with mental health issues and my brother died of his alcoholism. Not her fault really if it's something inate in her (and why do we always blame the mother - misogyny!) but her emotional withdrawal must have been a factor. I have a close loving relationship with my own DCs.

You could be right about my mother's own upbringing, my grandmother also had PND when DM was young, (although she later became the lovely cuddly grandma that my own kids never got), my grandfather could be an unpleasant man though, a bit of a bully and probably narcissistic.

Anyway thanks, I feel like I've had a free counselling session! 😀

nor set yourself on fire to keep them warm

Great phrase @AttilaTheMeerkat

I did say at the start of my thread ' I know this might sound extreme' and I also appreciate that biological parents are abusive, all I meant was this might be an explanation which had not been considered. That's all.