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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Ex-pat father - he's now very ill

3 replies

chemicalworld · 04/08/2022 12:58

Hi there,

My father and his wife moved abroad about 10 years ago now to live in Cyprus. We've not had the easiest relationship, as he never really knew how to be a good Dad, has alcoholic tenancies and has just never really been there for me. He has helped me financially, and when I see him it always gets emotional, he carries a lot of guilt due to how he left my Mum and my brother and he has a wife who i've never really been able to connect with due to their affair when I was 10.

He lives in Cyprus, and i've not been able to see him for 2.5 years due the pandemic and general complications this year with air travel. He is 70 next year, and is now in an intensive care unit. I am now flying out to see him for a few days, the cost of the flights is £500 as it's peak summer.

Does anyone else have experience of how to handle this? Though he hasn't been the greatest Dad I do still love him, and unfortunately don't trust my step mum to look after him properly. His condition is what it is because neither of them realised he was so ill despite his symptoms. I'm not really sure what i'm asking to be honest, I can't see him being able to come back to the UK even if he agreed. I can't just up and leave to go and care for him in another country, so I guess i'm just going to have to go see him, and possibly wait for him to die (if he pulls through this) over 2000 miles away.

I've never had the relationship that we could have had, because he chose another life. But, I guess, that's his choice and something i'm just going to have to live with.

OP posts:
PeaceLillyWhiteFlower · 09/08/2022 18:23

Is your question wondering how much energy and money to expend now?

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 09/08/2022 18:36

I think you have to let yourself recognise that you didn't cause his current problems and it's not down to you to fix any of it. See him and make your peace if you can but don't feel guilty. His current wife might not be great at looking after him, but she is the person he chose to be with. Cyprus might not be the right place for him at the moment, but it's the place he chose to be. All of his choices were his, and his alone, you were only a child when he left you have no responsibility for anything that happened then or since.

It sounds as though he feels guilt for leaving his family but he shouldn't be expecting you to also bear his emotion. Perhaps saying something like "it's in the past Dad, no need to mention it again". Be kind to him and yourself.

It's just as hard, I think, when someone you have a complicated relationship dies. You are mourning the person but also the relationship that you should have had but didn't.

Gaveitall · 09/08/2022 18:43

BlackAmericannosugar
has said everything I would have said to you.

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