Trying to understand my dad’s behaviour after years of distance

[Dadissue]

I’m hoping someone can help me dissect my dad and work out why he is the way he is. I don’t know whether it’s a personality disorder or mental illness or something else entirely but I’d appreciate any insight! Sorry if this is long.

Basically my parents met at 19 and around a year later found out my mum was pregnant. She found out at 20ish weeks so felt it was too late to terminate, thus I was born shortly after they turned 21. My dad proposed, they bought a house together and tried to make it work.

When I was about 10 months old, my mum left him without warning one day when he was at work. I didn’t know any of this until my early 20s, I was fobbed off constantly as a child when I asked why they split. She just told me she never really loved him, they were way too young and she fancied him but didn’t love him so she left. He had a breakdown and refused to see me, accused my mum of cheating and said I wasn’t his child, demanded a paternity test. Again, I had no idea any of this happened till my mum told me in my early 20s. He never disclosed the results of the test but obviously I was his so he started seeing me again.

I saw him every weekend. He spoilt me rotten. Basically anything I wanted, I got and he just never said no. Designer clothes, trainers, the latest tech or toys, expensive days out, pricey birthday parties, an annual holiday abroad etc. It was a crazy dichotomy because my mum always worked min wage jobs and we were very poor, lived on a council estate but then I had flash trainers and never missed a school trip for example (including abroad) because he’d throw money at me… Mum also told me when I was older that he barely paid her CM but that she didn’t complain because he’d buy me clothes, pay for trips, bday parties etc and she felt it evened out.

Anyway, when I was about 8 or 9 he decided he wanted to be an actor so moved to London. He still visited me every weekend and still threw cash at me until I was 13ish then he’d only see me maybe monthly or every other month but would put £100 a week in my bank account so I could have fun with friends which I loved at that age obviously!

When I was 18 he started making excuses not to visit me. This varied from chest infections through to kidney stones and back pain meaning he was unable to travel. I said I’d come to him but then he’d be sick with something terribly infectious so fobbed me off. After about a year of this, I snapped and basically asked what his issue was. He just didn’t have a good reason at all, he said he genuinely was sick and had had a bad run of it but that it wasn’t personal. I ended up telling him to grow up, quit his pathetic pipe dream and get a real job. It had been a decade and the biggest part he’d got was a TV advert, I didn’t think he was going to make it …

We then didn’t talk at all for about 7 ish years. My DH insisted I get back in touch, said he should be in our DC’s life, so I did. I travelled down to him and he basically spoke about himself none stop for the full two hours we were together. Explained the acting hadn’t worked out so he’d tried his hand at directing but that hadn’t gone so well either and now he was going to retrain as a masseuse. I felt a bit sorry for him, he just seemed to exist in fantasy land really. I was happy to hear he was retraining as something a little more usual but also sceptical about it to be honest. I travelled down to see him a few months later but much the same- he just talked about himself, didn’t really ask me anything at all and so I gave up.

Part of me thought the onus was on him anyway to be frank, I’m his only child and he should be putting the effort in. I haven’t spoken to him since so it’s been about 8 years. Last year he self published two very clearly AI generated books about his life. If you wondered how self absorbed he is then that’s probably a very clear indicator. I have no idea why anyone would want to read his life story, he’s a failed actor and isn’t really that remarkable. I find it a little embarrassing.

Just wondered what you made of him as a character really and what this says about him- narcissist? Or just mentally ill and delusional?

Is knowing this important to you? Just sounds like a broken relationship and a father who is selfish really

A little bit. I think most people would prefer to have a relationship with their parents than not if possible.

Gosh this sounds like my dad !! My dad really didn’t want the responsibility of me, did all the nice bits, liked spoiling me but that
was really to show off to new gf’s and I wouldn’t see him for 3 or 4 months when a new relationship came along. I just posted today as we don’t have a great relationship and I really wanted some external perspective.

I doubt you’ll get want you want from him, unfortunately if he’s not got his act together now when you have kids and tried to create a relationship he never will. My dad comes and go when it suits him. I can be telling him all about how busy life is with my teenagers, university, daughter getting her first job etc and he’ll listen and then say oh right, so when are you don’t to drive over and see me. All on his terms, all about him. I then have to sit and head all about him and what he’s been up to.

Unfortunately they are incredibly selfish individuals, your husband wouldn’t dream of being like that, imagine him treating your daughter like that. Sorry you’re experiencing this but I would put your own feelings and emotions first. I very much doubt he’ll change now.

You will never understand your father. You can spend years trying to work out why he did things, what motivated him, what his drivers were, what kind of personality disorders he may or may not have and so on.

What happened, happened. It no longer exists anywhere other than in your mind. You may need to grieve a childhood you didn't have, a parental relationship you didn't have - but spending your time and energy trying to analyse why your father did what he did - where does that get you?

You are a grown up now. You are in charge of your destiny and you are in charge of who is and is not in your life and on what terms you want them to be in your life. You cannot change your father or make him a different person, you only get to control what you do in regards to a relationship with him. Sounds like he has spent plenty of time focussing on himself - how about you focus on yourself and don't give him your time and headspace? If you decide that you want to be in touch and have him in your life in whatever limited capacity he is capable of, then that is your choice and your decision, but don't have him because you feel sorry for him or feel obliged in some way.

Also, your DH doesn't get to dictate or insist that you should have a relationship with your father. It is your call.

This is a sad story and I can relate to elements of it. There are many threads on MN about people who struggle with their parents being self-centred and somehow refusing to connect with them, their children.

My belief is that when people are sad and wounded by their life experiences, they either face up to it (which is hard), or they close themselves off to it. If they follow the latter path, over the decades of doing this their emotional world just keeps shrinking and by the end they can’t even begin to truly relate to others, especially where there are complex feelings involved (as there are in your case, of abandonment, guilt, loneliness and failure).

Your dad is walled in and absolutely petrified of making a real emotional connection to you - and probably anyone.

At this stage it’s tempting to hold onto hope that he might re-evaluate his role in your life, he might want to build a bridge. But perhaps your own path of growth has to be to accept that this is never going to happen. To grieve that loss, feel the immense pain of it, and then move forward with the love you have from your partner and the other people in your life. Good luck with it - I feel the answers are within you and not with your dad.

To be honest, he just sounds like a man who was utterly uninterested in being a father and still is.

The money was just a way to "fulfill his obligations", or more accurately to assuage his guilt.

He sounds a lot like my Dad, had a kid too young he didn't want. Except mine stuck around, and just worked away during the week, and spent his weekends and doing his hobbies or shagging his mistress, showing absolutely no interest in his wife and kids.

They're just selfish people. There's no point trying to analyse it or label it. The only label you need is dickhead.

This doesn't make sense. An unsuccessful / aka 'resting' / aka 'unemployed' actor living in London isn't going to be able to splash the cash around like he did. Nor do unsuccessful actors ever get the opportunity to have a professional move into directing and make a go of it. All very odd.

I think you can’t really dissect it. They were just kids when they had you an asks he had a dream and you all went through tough times as a result. You could easily have ended this saying he was a rich actor, I’d guess most of it is luck so I don’t think you should knock his life choices. I guess he tried by seeing you/ spoiling you even though that doesn’t really help. Calling him pathetic or pitying him doesn’t help anyone because you’re just stuck in a negative circle. I hope you made/ are making a happy life for yourself either way

How about we stop blaming your father and take a look at the whole picture. He married a woman he fathered a child with who left him shortly after explaining that she never loved him. I would imagine that was quite upsetting for him. Just because your mother didn't have feelings for him, doesn't mean he didn't have feelings for her.
He then (after flipping out a bit and demanding a paternity test which would be sort-of reasonable if we assume he was hurt by her departure and acted out in anger) was a present father who saw you every weekend and supported you financially.
You continued benefitting from his finances well into your teenage years until the day when YOU made a point of travelling to him to call him a looser and had the audacity to demand he gets a real job. And then you still somehow expect him to bend over backwards to build a relationship with you, while simultaneously accusing him of being a narcissist. Am I missing something?

Quite a lot, Catza, quite a lot.

Throwing cash at a kid in lieu of being there for her from age 8-9 isn't being anything like a decent father.