Dad disowned me over one comment- how do I fix it?

[erasemybrain]

Hi, this is long.
I have previously had a brilliant relationship with my parents. I'm married and have 2 children. We have always been very close. My DH has no parents and they have treated him like a son. They have looked after our children - we have never paid childcare. We recently had a week off work to renovate a room in their house. We do a lot for each other. I speak to my mom every day and my dad every couple of days if we haven't seen them.
We usually holiday together and have done for years. Dad used to pay for the holiday and now we do (power shift?). We do all the work, cooking etc. We also do all the driving once we have arrived. We often do the same things on holiday - throw backs to when we were kids, but it's a very democratic and organic process deciding what we want to do and we don't have to do things all together.
Anyway- this year may half term we were on holiday- dad was celebrating a big birthday while we were there. Other family has come along to stay nearby. Everything was going well, we had had a nice day. It was his birthday the next day. We sorted dinner and my teen was being a bit rude/cheeky to me (as is often the case, testing boundaries!). He has been at the accommodation all day with my husband and the rest of us had been a couple of places (ie I hadn't been nagging him all day!) I told him he had been rude and he took that on the chin because he knew he had. My dad said "oh will you give it a rest" I said "if you don't like it go somewhere else" - there were numerous other places to be other than sat at the table with us. He had already finished his food.
Well this lot the touch paper and he got his car keys and drove off. He had left his phone behind and we all sort of carried on as normal. My mom did ask him not to go but he left anyway. He was gone a couple of hours and by the time he came back we were all in bed- small accommodation you could hear everything. He came in and seemed even more angry than when he left. He went into his bedroom and demanded that my mom pack his case. She was begging him to stay. My DS who had been cheeky was sobbing and begging him to stay. My mom said she had chest pain and he ignored her. He was packing his things and I slipped out of the chaos and sat in his car. I hoped that then I could talk to him and apologise (even though I didn't feel what I had said had warranted that reaction- we are normally people who say what we think!) He locked me in the car and I couldn't get out. I could hear my son sobbing and begging.
I have never seen him behave like this before he was so so angry. I saw my husband standing in his was asking him to stay and talk. My Dad said he didn't want to hit him but he would if he didn't move. Again this couldn't be more out of character. I was very very worried. Someone let me out of the car and I went in to try and get him to talk but he was fighting us to get out. All I could think of what if he crashes and dies my son will be affected forever.
The neighbours started shouting for us to keep the noise down and my dad started shouting for help. The look in his eyes was wild and I really felt like I didn't know him at all. My mom was still begging him to stay.
We let him leave. He drove 200 miles home.
There was an aftermath of trying to contact him and make sure he was ok. Mainly other family members. He would only really speak to my son. My other younger son was in bed and terrified of the whole thing.
I text him the next day but he was accusing me of assaulting him and was still clearly angry.
He hasn't spoken to me or my husband since. This shows no sign of improvement. He thinks we did a terrible thing trying to stop him from leaving. I did send him and email explaining how worried for him we were (this seems to make him angry that we were worried) that we only tried to stop him from leaving because we love him etc, etc. That resulted in him blocking me.
For clarity my husband stood in his way and held his hands up to his shoulders and stood his ground. I hugged him to stop him leaving. Arms round his waist.
Please help me fix this. I miss him so much. It feels like a dream that I'm going to wake up from. It was so out of character. I have thought some kind of medical issue but then why would he be carrying it on! I have told a few friends who know him (who have been on holiday with us and them) who can't believe it either!
Thank you so much for reading.

If someone told me to leave, I would leave and think about whether I just needed to leave to cool down or to leave the holiday. So yes, I think it's completely normal to leave if that's what you are told to do.

You clearly think restraining someone and stopping an adult from leaving is normal behaviour. I wonder how you would react to a man blocking your path refusing to let you leave and then someone else throwing their arms around you to stop you leaving. The neighbours would not have been woken if the father had been allowed to leave. Yes it's chauvinistic that he thinks his wife should pack his bag, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to keep an adult somewhere against their will.

If people were restraining me against my will I would not keep quiet and submit.

If he does just start being normal am I crazy to just go along with it? I won't forget.

Now he has shown his true colours, he doesn't have to pretend anymore does he. You will join your mum in tiptoeing around him just to try and avoid another outburst.

It's a form of control, it's manipulative and bullying. Your mum has allowed this and is passing it onto her child. You are now considering passing it on to your own children.

If it were me, I would not allow him to be around my children because he is a volatile and aggressive bully.

But, by all means, subject your children to that if you think it's best to 'keep the peace'.

@erasemybrain you say the business isn't doing well. You don't say how old your parents are but from experience I'd say it's time to give up on the business we're careering into a recession and he won't be able to ride it out this time. Even pouring money into it by borrowing, taking out a second mortgage won't work. The worry and fear can be all consuming.

Reported

Thanks for highlighting this. Saves me posting something ruder.

If you or your husband had laid hands on my to stop me leaving I’d never speak to you again either.

Hugging and trying to hug to stop someone leaving is a thing my mother used to do when she was being emotionally manipulative and I absolutely will not stand for it.

If I say I’m leaving, you better let me leave or I’d be phoning the police and I am not joking.

Ooh, is he King Lear? Brilliant!

There's an inspiration for ChatGPT (other LLPs are available.) "Rewrite the plot of King Lear as a series of Mumsnet posts". <scampers off>.

<scampers back> Try it! Just brilliant. I'm reluctant to post the OP's original question and see what it says cos copyright, etc.

I agree they should not have touched him.

But he created the fight.

1. He flounced off for hours. remember without his phone.
2. He came home and woke up the house. Why? If he just wanted to leave he would have packed quietly or left first thing in the morning. We understand his full motivation when he was shouting the odds. He wanted all the attention and created a drama to get it.
3. He flounced off again that night, you see him has having zero responsibility for escalating whereas I do think he was responsible.
4. He has now had a months long sulk, even after the apology.
5. But what you are most conveniently forgetting is that OP has been trained into this behaviour by her father. Of course she reacts by escalating- because she has been trained since infancy that that’s what we do in our family. Or does that count for nothing with you?

😆

Do you usually wake up a sleeping house shouting to tell them that you’re leaving, but Mummy better pack my suitcase first?

Or if you’re leaving do you just, you know, leave?

I would have phoned the police the minute any of them set their hands on me or tried to obstruct me leaving.

I was trained by my family to escalate things too, it doesn't excuse my bad behaviour when I do it. I have learnt to do things differently now because I'm an adult and adults have choices to learn and grow. I've never said the father was perfect, I've said that if I was physically restrained against my will I would be furious (and that is putting it mildly). I'm not interested in arguing with you, after this post I'm done.

I read OPs post differently to you. She said it was a small house and they could hear everything. She said the father "demanded" the mother pack the bag (not shouted) the mother then begged him to stay saying she had chest pains (escalating the situation through guilt). What a sensible person would have done in this situation is let the father go home and get the mother to hospital if they truly believed she was having chest pains, none of that happened, so clearly OP didn't believe her mother either. And you may well have been willing to stay until the next day, I personally would not be willing to wake up in a house I didn't want to be in on my birthday. I would want to be home and having a peaceful day.

He was a danger to himself and others, driving late at night in a temper.

He wanted everyone to worry and they did, success!

Now he has to decide how long to punish his daughter for.

This is so weird but it reminds me of my own dysfunctional family. The language is dramatic and not right, the behavior on all sides is messed up too ; begging, restraining, holding round waist, wtf. No.

If your family network is dysfunctional then you don't realise sometimes what's actually going on.

People would now accuse me of acting like I have a rancid UTI. The truth is, I've finally woken up to how fucked up it is and have detached significantly from it. I now speak my truth too. So I appear like a different person. I'm simply growing through the fucked upness and dint want part of it any more.

I can't really tell who plays what role in this dysfunction you describe. Your dad's dramatics are like a child. It's possible that this is a build up of so much you don't realise and he's flipped because of multiple frustrations.

I have a dynamic where my own teen will be a twat to me, egged on by highly narcissistic family members. Not ok with me anymore. After years of it, I've cut off from the main perpetrator (a male sibling). Be very careful what your teenage son is observing. I don't care if he's a typical teenager, he needs correcting and to be respectful. So good to keep letting him know you are to be respected as the key person of importance; his mother.

What you said to your dad - I'd be very pissed off by that comment. But, is your dad usually a dick? Is he usually used to having full power and control and that comment you made shows that's gone now, so he flipped? Sounds like your mum panders to him? Is he a long term dick who expects to be treated preferentially, who demeans the women? Or is more going on and he's just had enough? I can't entirely tell.

Hindsight is great - if it was your correcting the teenager that he was commenting on, I would say ' please leave me to parent thank you'. I don't see that as disrespectful. It also makes things very very clear to him, to your teen and anyone else listening. I sense that you get disrespected and belittled at times.

I feel you need to back away, breathe, stop getting so desperate about this. It's feels infantile ( I understand as am in a fucked dynamic). Leave him be and stop feeding this silly drama. The more desperate you act, the more you encourage unproductive dramatic behaviour. Things should not be swept under the rug either. My entire life has been built on a family that sweeps every weird inappropriate thing under rugs.

If he has something like dementia then only time will tell. Treat him as if he doesn't and it's actually explainable until anything changes to suggest he is ill.

I was trained by my family to escalate things too, it doesn't excuse my bad behaviour when I do it. I have learnt to do things differently now because I'm an adult and adults have choices to learn and grow. I've never said the father was perfect, I've said that if I was physically restrained against my will I would be furious (and that is putting it mildly). I'm not interested in arguing with you, after this post I'm done.

I read OPs post differently to you. She said it was a small house and they could hear everything. She said the father "demanded" the mother pack the bag (not shouted) the mother then begged him to stay saying she had chest pains (escalating the situation through guilt). What a sensible person would have done in this situation is let the father go home and get the mother to hospital if they truly believed she was having chest pains, none of that happened, so clearly OP didn't believe her mother either. Yet OP says "My mom said she had chest pain and he ignored her." When OP ignored her mother too but she's trying to make her father look bad. OP said "he was fighting us to get out". Meaning they were forcing him to fight them to get out.

And you may well have been willing to stay until the next day, I personally would not be willing to wake up in a house I didn't want to be in on my birthday. I would want to be home and have a peaceful day.

"He has now had a months long sulk, even after the apology."
Well if OPs apology was anything like her post here 'My dad disowned me over one comment' I'm not thinking it was a great apology. The comment was not the biggest issue in the situation at all.

OP has since posted about how awful her father is in so many ways but in the original post she says it was out of character for him. So I'm taking what she says with a pinch of salt. Especially since she and her husband were the ones that escalated the situation and terrified her children. It's completely unacceptable to be forcing someone to stay somewhere to the point that they are yelling out to the neighbours for help. Her dad should have called the police.

Edited to add posted too soon before I'd finished and didn't realise.

I must admit I took against him when you said he went into his bedroom and "demanded" that your mother pack his case. That screams arrogant prick to me.

Also when she said she has chest pains and he ignored her.

He sounds like a bloody twat.

I wouldn’t be surprised if his family have walked on eggshells around him in the past, or if he’s been diagnosed with something bad/ had bad news and the stress has bubbled over and been triggered by this incident.

Don’t contact him any more OP. He knows you want to mend bridges. He doesn’t. The ball’s in his court now isn’t it.

What an absolute drama from all of you. Let it all die down and in future, all of you need to calm down 🤔

The fact the neighbour shouted to shut you up.

The restraining and your reaction says that every one in the family is highly dysfunctional. There will be narcissistic behaviour dominant in such a family; it always is. The ones who really consider looking at themselves and embarking on much needed therapy are the ones lower in any narcissistic or sociopath traits in the family.

I'm 15 years into therapy. I am now an alien to my family. 15 years ago I absolutely would have performed dramatics and all sorts of child like behaviour - for me it would be in my role trying to keep peace and fix things that aren't for me to fix. I can still go to the dramatic if I don't pause myself.

You need a break from your family OP and serious self reflection.

No one should ever be restrained ever.

I have a very annoying Autistic son who punches things at times. I'd like to restrain him but there's no way you should do that to another human. It's utterly cruel tbh.

Sounds like your DF overreacted.

So to clarify -

• Your dad undermines you in front of your DC, making a rude comment directed at you as he sits there at a table having eaten a meal he didn’t buy, didn’t prepare, and isn’t clearing up after, on a holiday he isn’t paying for.
• Your dad then storms off for hours in a huff
• Your dad wakes everyone up from their sleep, GC included, yelling and deliberately causing a scene, scaring his wife, daughter, and GC while demanding a woman pack his (a grown man’s) bag for him.
• Your dad is still punishing you months after the fact, for merely reacting to his totally uncalled for/rude comment with a little quip of your own, despite the fact he’s had you all grovelling, and despite the fact he literally instigated the entire thing
• Your dad has a history of acting the same way towards your mother

Verdict - your dad is a horrible, entitled, manipulative, misogynistic bully. He’s being downright abusive and I fear you’re all so used to the dysfunctional dynamic he has created that you’re willing to blame yourself for his actions. Make no mistake this entire song and dance was by his design, he knew he was upsetting everyone and is using your emotional response as a weapon against you. It’s deliberate and it’s textbook.

He did not want to “just leave” and no this is not your fault. If he wanted to “just leave” he’d have done so without waking up the entire household, but then he wouldn’t have been able to paint himself as the injured party and you as the instigator nor would he have you all dancing like puppets now, would he?

He didn’t get the reaction he expected when he spoke to you like crap in front of your DC, so he escalated, he then didn’t get the reaction or attention he felt entitled to, so again he escalated, then once he had his wife, child and GC in hysterics he decided to DARVO the crap out of the whole thing and piss off making sure none of you would then enjoy your holiday. He wanted to make sure you all sufficiently suffered for your so-called crimes against his over-inflated ego.

OP please do what’s right for your children here, and by way of that yourself too. Enjoy your holiday, leave him to stew, don’t apologise any longer and if he tries to speak to you again as if “nothing happened” tell him that the time and space has actually allowed you to see things from a rational, far less emotionally charged point of view, and that having done that you are actually extremely disturbed, disappointed, and disgusted by his behaviour. He’s got away with being this way so far because by the time he’s been done punishing his primary victim (your mother) with the silent treatment she’s just so glad the punishment is over she’s not thought to ask if it was ever actually deserved. Please do not forget this man has actually tried to accuse YOU of being the abusive one, he’s actually being extremely calculated like most abusers are. Protect yourself, your children, and all of your peace by telling him to get lost.

Sounds like a terrible time. You and your partner were perhaps heavy handed with your dad (arms around his waist)? I suppose he locked you in the car so he'd only got one of you to deal with. All this time afterwards he's doing just fine now? Gave your mum chest pain? Oh my, where is the respect? If you've apologized you'll have to wait until he feels like contacting you, for older people trust is everything sounds like you overstepped the line.

Hmm, so he has form with giving your mum the silent treatment. Sounds like he’s just having a turbo baby tantrum to me.

On the other hand, I don’t really understand the family dynamic of you telling him if he didn’t like it to go somewhere else. I wouldn’t speak to my dad like that especially on his birthday. Is the disrespect you all show to each other the norm in your family?

@Justno98 reading your post - that does ring very true. I used to apologise to my own highly abusive male sibling after he'd been vile continually to me! I'd apologise for reacting to it after years of it. You are brainwashed into believing it's all your fault. And will be punished severely for ever challenging those in charge within the regime. Like OP did.

My own male teen was for years recruited to speak to me in strikingly similar ways to other abusive family members- supported by abusive males and sociopathic matriarch ( my mum). Now it feels too late even though I have gone No contact and significant low contact.

The fact grandad only wanted to talk to the teen son. That reminds me of my dynamic so well. Teen son is golden boy in the making OP. You don't want that. He will be the golden child to grandad and will be used against you.

I've just walked out of a 45 year coma now that I see what was happening in my own family and how my own teen was observing and copying the tactics towards me.

To add - my abusive male sibling would become highly triggered when he observed me ever correct or even gently guide my own son! He'd have a go at me. And my own mum would. This is identical to what's happened to you here. Your family is a mess.

Not convinced this is true
Who gets locked in a car when they are inside it?