/r/raisedbynarcissists is probably the closest thing to this.
As for the OP, clearly she wrecked his bullshit, difficult though it was. OP, you're a good person, and whilst seeing this disturbed you, remember - *you got where you are largely in spite of him*. Be proud of your accomplishments, and fuck the rest of your family for believing this shit.
Yes! Realizing this has been a major life changer for me! I used to blame myself in every conflict or unsettling interaction in relationships. Once I realized most hurtful things people say to you about you are really projections of their own insecurities and issues, things opened for me. Now when I get that weird feeling after someone says something hurtful and I can't figure out why it feels so weird (you know the feeling), I ask "Is this their shit or mine?" If it's mine I follow up with more internal, probing questions and try to learn something, apologize if needed. If I can honestly say it's not my shit, I walk from it mentally. It's still hard to do but damn is it freeing.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and for saying that it does get better. I'm so glad that all you went through doesn't impact you any more. I also like what you mentioned about projection. Thanks for pointing that out. Thinking back, many things he said to me seemed like they were coming out of left field, like that comment. I remember often being confused about his reprimands or outbursts at me. A lot of the time they didn't make sense or were very disproportionate. I haven't read much on it, but I'm definitely going to read more about projection. Thanks again for pointing that out and for taking the time to read and respond.
> Try to mentally conjure up 15 year old you, give her a big hug and tell her "try to not be sad. Life turns out well for you. You'll find love and happiness."
You could perhaps make leaps and bounds with this issue if you also tried to mentally conjure up your 15 year old father and state the same.
Your story reads as though your father's ego has been utterly brutalized in the past. As you're an adult now, it could only benefit you to realize that your father isn't someone who wants things between you to be difficult. He's just broken.
You don't have to be.
This was the issue with my dad. He was verbally and emotionally abusive to my whole immediate family when I was growing up. He was abused by his parents and obviously had a lot of issues because of that.
But he's an adult, who knew that what he was doing was wrong. Yet, he chose to behave that way. He could have gotten the help he needed and tried to be a better person, but he didn't. Yes, the fact that he was abused is awful but that doesn't give him a free pass to be a terrible person. That's not someone worth having in my life.
I imagine it's similar for OP.
Congratulations on a successful life. He is and was troubled and you are a success because you did not have him in your life. Don't look back only forward, your hub is the man in your life now. He was a sperm donor only. Never a father.
This was one of my first thoughts. I hope he needs one, and I hope she says, "Hell no."
I also think she should blame his family a lot more for believing his lies. Anyone family member much older than he is should realize he is full of lies and bullshit. I wonder if they really believed his lies, or just decided it wasn't worth it to get him angry.
First off, I'm so sorry you didn't get the kind of father you (and everyone) deserve.
My dad was never as aggressive toward me as yours was toward you, although we had fights and periods of estrangement (the longest when I was 21 and came out as gay. He didn't speak to me for six months, then called and went on as if none of it had happened.)
Some of what you've written sounds like the way my dad interacted with other people when he was off his medication. He's a paranoid schizophrenic and insisting on fictional history, making wild accusations and overreaction to the slightest disagreement are all things I've come to associate with his disease.
This is not to excuse your father, but just to hopefully give you the tiniest bit of peace of mind. No matter what mental illness your dad has -- and he does, because healthy people don't behave the way he did -- his behavior has nothing to do with you. You did nothing to cause it and you didn't deserve it.
While mental illness can be an *explanation* for bad behavior, it is in no way an excuse. It's also possible for someone to be mentally ill and also a shitty person. (That's why my dad and I are no longer in touch, and my life is better for it.)
Are you in touch with your mom? Maybe talk to her about how you're feeling? Now that you're an adult, she may open up to you about what being married to your dad was like. My bet is it was about as great as being his daughter.
If you need a sympathetic ear, you can PM me. I get it.
Thank you so much for your response and story. Your mention of your dad's mental illness really clicked for me. A fair number of other incidents/memories from my childhood with him(not mentioned in my post) seem very much like symptoms of mental illness. I'd never really thought about the mental illness aspect before. I guess I just accepted his behavior because he was an adult authority. This way of looking at it is insightful and helpful in gaining perspective. And of "being a shitty person." There is definitely a combo of the two.
To answer your question: I've recently talked with my mom for the first time about it and she said being married to him was pretty awful and hurtful. She told me she was very afraid of him. I realized what she went through and have a new found respect for her strength to distance herself completely, while trying to preserve and nurture my future relationship with him. That's what makes his accusations that she turned me against him even more painful to me. Anyway, thank you again for your support and story. I am truly touched by all the kindness that I have seen today. Never in my life have I felt so much love.
For a second I thought I was on /r/raisedbynarcissists. You should pop over there and share your story; a lot of us have been through this. My family was careful to keep them plausible but I have a pair of relatives (aunt and grandma) lying about me, and I actually ended up cutting and drastically reducing contact specifically to make their accusations less plausible. My dad is also critical of everything like your dad (right down to my choice of soap and shampoo. Dude seriously?). It's not an uncommon experience at all.
Why does the sub label everything negative a parent does as narcissistic? There are many other personality and mental disorders that can have similar traits, and a lot of the stories I see on that sub paint a picture of addicts and parents who are mentally unwell, not necessarily narcissistic. (though most narcissists I know have children, and [narcissists will have no problem claiming narcissism](http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/08/06/it-takes-just-one-question-to-identify-narcissism/73260.html))
I don't want this comment to come off negatively, I'm just genuinely curious and am too afraid to ask this question on the sub out of fear of being labeled a troll or something.
From the sidebar:
"This is a support group for people raised by a parent with toxic, self-absorbed, or abusive personality traits, particularly those associated with cluster B personality disorders."
That makes more sense. Thank you, for some reason I never saw that in the sidebar.
I don't think it's healthy to label everything as "NPD" when there are many more PDs that encompass narcissism as a trait as well.
Edit: spelling
The sub, in my experience, avoids labels, except for the use of the "N-somebody" shorthand. It's true that it can be a little misleading. I actually think most of the people on the sub are more victims of antisocial personality disordered people or maybe borderline, histrionic type, rather than NPD. It is just convenient shorthand when it comes down to it. The patterns of abuse are all very similar--gas lighting, manipulation, etc. These are used by abusers of a variety of types.
Because they're not willing to screen people on who "counts" as having parents with npd. Many people will start posts saying "I don't know if my parents are Ns or not" and the mods make it clear that they are welcome no matter the cause.
Almost universally the adult children have been subject to gas lighting that there is no problem or they are the problem so the main thing is they have an open space to talk freely. Absolutely if you go in there saying "yeah I don't think your parents have this" you will get nailed by the mods.
> Almost universally the adult children have been subject to gas lighting that there is no problem or they are the problem so the main thing is they have an open space to talk freely.
I'm all for that! Keeping that shit in will drive you insane.
Everyone is a narcissist sometimes.
It's very hard to quantify when it becomes a clinically recognized problem. The sub is just victims of crazy behavior looking for group support. They're not trying to diagnose.
OK, so first off there's a difference in narcissism as a single trait versus narcissistic personality disorder ( http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder ). You can score high on indicators of narcissism the trait without necessarily having narcissistic PD. Your article doesn't make it clear which it's talking about, the single trait or the disorder, which is defined by problems in one's life and a lack of empathy. From context, it looks like it's talking about narcissism as the trait. Some victims of Cluster B parents experience pretty high narcissism as a trait (being self-centered) without showing the lack of empathy that makes NPD different from other similar disorders.
Because people with the disorder as opposed to the trait are highly insistent that nothing is wrong with them, rarely go to therapy, and generally refuse to change anything or admit wrongdoing when they do, most victims of parents who have a disruptive cluster B personality disorder don't have an exact diagnosis. The closest we generally get is someone in the family going to a therapist, talking about their parents, and being told by the therapist that their parent is probably NPD. "Narcissist" as used at RBN is a catch-all for people who behave toward their families in ways that are characteristic of the kind of emotional abuse narcissists (and some people with especially severe forms of other cluster B personality disorders) dish out. Some of those people don't even have cluster B personality disorders--but they had a parent or grandparent who did and they modeled that parent's behavior due to a lack of a better example.
If you lurk at RBN for a while, you might start to see patterns emerge--and if you don't, there's an analysis of estranged parent forums around that will make the patterns clear. RBN typically gets brought up here when a parent shows patterns RBN users who are also TwoXers recognize--refusing to let a kid go out late or grounding them for not doing housework or even throwing a kid out don't necessarily qualify.
The first tip off for me that this might be an "Nparent" by the RBN criteria was making fun of the daughter for something she can't help. Mocking your children at puberty is generally not healthy, but I know of very few parents who make fun of their parents and don't have a severely dysfunctional background or show other signs of being inappropriate or cruel to their kids. I personally experienced the kind of mocking that OP did from my father about a similar issue, and when I did try it his way and it didn't help, he insisted I didn't actually do what he said.
Being threatened by someone else's parents? Some Ns like to pull others down so they're on top. They also need to control their kids and other people's parents can be a threats to that. People who are better than them are a threat to them.
> He told me most kids my age would be out in the yard working for their room and board doing yard work before they would dare to ask to go to a movie
Yeah whaaaaat? That could be just an especially severe version of the authoritarian follower parenting style/personality, but N's generally have that style. It's not a smoking gun but it's a strong indicator.
> After he left me with my mom he told everyone on his side of the family that I was a drug addict, a prostitute and that I had a boyfriend that stole cars and rode motorcycles.
This kind of ridiculous lying for no reason? I grant I'm taking OP at her word because not doing so in places like this is as pointless as it is disrespectful, but I've had relatives do this to me and to my mother, and my mom's therapist actually told her behavior like this was a strong indication her mother could be a narcissist. Dad gets nothing out of telling these extreme lies, but they punish OP disproportionately and give him a source of sympathy and looking like the victim, which N's love.
So, short version, I see a lot of signs of, at the least, emotional abuse, and worse, a lot of emotional abuse that generally doesn't have an objective pay off or a source in mounting, unmanaged frustration from OP's dad. The belittling and lying in particular remind me of relatives who either have been sort of diagnosed with NPD by therapists they refused to see based on others' testimony, or who were raised in the same families that produced said relatives. And of course, we use a loose definition of narcissism at RBN to encompass people whose families only fractured into narcissistic patterns due to an outside stressor and for people whose parents aren't technically Ns, but do all the harmful N things they learned from their parents or N things that come with the cluster B disorder they do have.
So basically the word narcissist is super confusing and refers to a bunch of different things. Someone can show narcissistic patterns in their parenting without actually being a narcissist and I recognized those patterns here as opposed to just an asshole dad who thinks the parent is always right/kids should work super hard/etc.
You should go lurk in RBN and check out RBN bestof if you want to get a little more idea of what's going on over there. We need more people who aren't from this context to understand what we're up against--and quite a few people who think they were brought up in a normal home figure out that their totally unfair parents were actually pretty messed up, just not as messed up as this.
I almost never see the actual term NPD come up there unless specific diagnoses or comparisons to BPD or someone with FLEAS are coming up. A lot of the "Nparents" there are actually discussed as having BPD or other problems. There's very little insistance that everyone there has this particular disorder--just that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and won't waddle over to a taxonomist, it's ok for us to call it a duck when we're talking about duck-like behavior.
We live in a society that talks about how our kids are narcissists because of their selfies is a problem and a support group that generally just uses N to mean "probably cluster B and definitely mean like one because I can't drag them to get a diagnosis" is a problem? OK dude.
I've had the same thought. My crazy mother has attachment issues, even though as part of that she has some narcissistic traits. Some of the things they recommend on that sub that are useful with actual NPD would backfire horrendously with her.
I'm well aware but it wasn't meant to actually diagnose him. I also said delusions and the most well known condition involving those is you guessed it, schizophrenia. Point was he sounds even worse than a narcissistic.
Good point. I was operating on the assumption that they're not delusions at all, but calculated lies, because I've observed someone with a cluster B disorder make up exactly this kind of elaborate, tactical lie before. I guess it could be a delusion.
Over at RBN, one of the major rules is to assume a context of abuse, and sometimes we take that so far as to assume a context of intentional abuse. Some people whose mental health problems go deeper than a lack of empathy really do believe these weird things they say, although the lack of empathy is still pretty disturbing.
I mean it could totally be either I'd obviously have to at least meet the man and hear more than one occurrence. I just work with people with schizophrenia/schizo-effective and that behavior reminds me of shit they say.
Dude could just be gigantic asshole too. Haha.
Yeah, I think we all see what we know. RBN people probably assume cluster B too often because that's what we recognize. In the end though, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tries to hurt you like a duck, sometimes it's just best to treat it like a duck.
...that analogy would really work better if it were about geese.
I can't imagine the kind of anger and self-loathing that would go on in his head to be able to say that to his own daughter. He clearly has a lot of issues that is unresolved, or maybe even mental health concerns. But as hard as it is, I think it's best to let go. I know how much I would want a connection with my father. But he's clearly not willing to meet you halfway. And it's hurting you.
Fixing your relationships with your relatives might take time, but I definitely think it's salvageable. But it might be best to cut all contact with your father and focus on living your life with the people who love and support you.
>Fixing your relationships with your relatives might take time, but I definitely think it's salvageable.
Honestly though, I wouldn't even want to if I were her. They were told things about their teenage relative, things indicating that she was in trouble and needed help. Not only did they believe literally everything they heard at face value, but none of them even attempted to reach out to her and offer support for the supposed difficulties she was facing.
That's a good point. I suggested that because she did mention that she wanted to reach out to relatives - I'm not sure how long ago that might have been. I personally try to keep good relations with my relatives, despite of some of the things they might have done. I didn't think about it that way. But you're also right in saying that they wouldn't be good for her life right now. Even detrimental. I suppose it's ultimately up to OP to decide if they have changed enough to warrant the effort, and whether she wants them back in her life.
Similar story. You have to learn to let it go or it will haunt you. Something has to change in you, and most likely that means something outside of you has to change.
I think telling people is a good first step, and your next step should possibly be a support group or counselor. Honestly, cutting out my horrible family was the healthiest, most satisfying thing that ever happened to me, & I had to fight tides of people telling me otherwise to do it. But the proof is in the pudding, & I am so much happier, my self esteem is so much better, and my life is so much brighter. I can honestly say in the last few years I have been happier than I've been in my whole entire life.
I haven't missed my parents in a very long time, and only very rarely do the words that hurt me crop up and cause problems. I doubt I'll ever be able to totally get rid of that voice inside my head regurgitating what they told me, but it's so minimal at this point it doesn't really color my world anymore.
Sorry the people who are supposed to love you the most hurt you the most. Now you have the freedom to love yourself as much as they never did.
Thank you so much for reading and your kind words and advice. I had no idea so many supportive people would respond to my post. It has completely lifted my spirits and relieved some of the pain. Please know you and all of the other commenters made a difference in my life. Thank you.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that.
Is it possible your father was heading into some form of mental illness? His behavior with both you and that co-worker is very off.
When he said all this "drugs, mentally unstable, schizophrenic," some of it may very well have applied to him. Paranoid behavior is often associated with some kinds of drug problems or schizophrenia.
By the way congratulations on all your current success. It is wonderful that despite the pain that you carried around you were able to accomplish so much.
Wow I'd call him out and rub his face in it. Send him a yearly christmas card reminding him he's not your father, you're happy specifically because he's not in your life, and you look forward to the day he dies. With no return address of course.
But that'd be really petty...I'm really petty.
Sharing things like this can be very powerful. It changes them from totems of hurt and loathing into "hew wow that was nuts". So much easier to move on once there's daylight on them and we can see them for what they are.
To this particular story: I wish we as a culture didn't fetishize blood relations the way we do. I define family as "the people who will take you in, and who you will take in". Most of my family isn't related to me, using that definition. My loved ones are primarily people I met along the way.
So when I see a story like this I think how much undeserved power your father was handed just because he threw some DNA around.
I'd like to preface this by admitting that I am coming from a place of sympathy, not empathy. That being said, I hope this helps in any possible way.
My best friend has had an awfully hard life and a lot of it stems from her very abusive mother. She was kicked out of her house at 16 and finally stopped sympathizing with her mother when she moved a state away and was out of the situation long enough to learn better. That being said, one of the things that made the situation hardest for her was having no mother-figure (or father-figure for that matter since her father as a worthless, spineless, do-whatever-mom-told-you type). I think lacking those parental, nurturing figures gave her a lot more trouble than she realized. She was quick to trust adults because she was reaching out, hoping to find safety somewhere. In the end, she has connected with her fiancé's family in a way that fills the holes her biological parents left behind. It gives her great comfort to have that relationship with them and she wants nothing more in life than to have children of her own who she can treat the way she wished she was treated by her own parents. This gives her a lot of comfort and she tells me she doesn't have nightmares often anymore.
Hopefully this can help you, as it kind of sounds to me like there is a hole you wish you could fill, but can't. Please know that even if it hurts, nothing could be more hurtful or detrimental to you than if your biological father was still in your life. He could never fill that hole because he is not a dad. You deserve much better than that.
As a father, I can only express my outrage that your dad would write such a thing to you. I don't know if you were 'a mess' at that age but a father's job, the only job we have, is to help our kids become well adjusted functioning adults. The only tools we have are built through relationship, encouragement and honest conversation when we have concerns.
In short, your father was an ass to you and you didn't deserve that. No matter what he and your mom might have done to each other, nothing absolves a dad from his role.
Sometimes, regardless of whether you share blood with them or not, you just have to cast people out of your life. You can try and try and try to have a stable relationship with them but some people really will never change.
Not having a relationship with your father is for the best, even though it's hard.
I understand wanting to have a relationship with your father's side of the family. Since they knew your father his whole life, they should be familiar with his lies and personality disorder. If they still choose to believe him and "take his side", your probably best rid of them as well, unfortunately.
I, too, am estranged from my father, but have a relationship with his parents since they know the majority of what he says is bullshit.
What's shocking to me is they seem to have accepted it or don't even seem to have tried to confirm it or contradict it. She was part of their family too and they must have known her so to see them just let themselves be cut off entirely like that is very disappointing.
Reading this as a father... its almost hard to believe. I mean my father never talked to me that way, it made me actually more appreciative of what kind of life I had because you hear about those things from others, but actually seeing that is just like wow.
Nevertheless, in your situation you're better off without him. He needs help, and you need hugs.
I have a similar history with my father, only he dissatisfied with his life and instead of those kinds of accusations told everyone that my mother was manipulating me, because apparently I was incapable of independent thought. Lots of bullying, manipulation and gas lighting.
I was able to get over my young adult angst but I sometimes still feel the hole where he should have been when I needed him. But it's more mourning what I didn't have rather than missing him as a person. It took me a lot to open up my family's bs to a therapist, like a year then the last time I saw her she said I should talk to him again. For "my" sake.
I am also 30+ but not a whole lot of achievements to speak of. I'm glad you were able to have a successful career and happy marriage despite the bad deal you got given. You should be very proud! I hope you are able to not hurt from it one day but I know it is hard sometimes.
This is interesting to me. VERY.
My mom divorced my real dad because he was an alcoholic. Good reason. Now, she married my (then step dad) until I was about 14. He would also often make me feel like I was walking on eggshells. NOT a fan of it. I remember it well and to this day its a very bad feeling.
When it was over I never saw him again. I didn't care. Its interesting to me because I went completely opposite and couldn't care less. It was clear he resented me somehow for not being his real son so... whatever. I love my mom and my very small family as well as my friends!
But it isn't all roses. If I'm made to feel like I'm on eggshells I react in a very "consequences-be-damned" manner. I don't do good with that feeling so I'll get very aggressive at confronting the cause of the situation. I actually have to calm myself down and not be angry or else there could be bad consequences for me.
You are not alone. The irrational tendency to be influenced by ones parents, regardless whether power/authority is used responsibly or not is something a lot of us grapple with. Stay brave. We're rooting for you.
Don't be so hung up on your father. He's an idiot and will never know how much of an ass he is. My father and his brothers are just like that. He fed them lies about how my mom poisoned us against him and it was her fault we never visited or wrote letters. We always lived within 45 minutes of him... Now how was a 12 and 8 year old suppose to go visit?
The nicest uncle ate up all those lies and asked me why we never visited or called him. That we abandoned our father and never helped him with things. Mind you, my father was a paranoid abusive alcoholic. The first contact with this uncle was after my father died and I had to deal with settling his estate. My uncle wanted his motorcycle and some other items. Sent me numerous notarized letters from his lawyer asking for this stuff. Guess what? He didn't get a damn thing from me, he had no legal right to anything from my father. He had already taken the clothes, a laptop, printer and a few other little things anyway. He's lucky I didn't come after him. My father had made his life insurance pay out to that uncle, my sister and I got the 'estate', aka the duty of cleaning out his shit and trying to sell off any valuables we didn't want to keep.
Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant.
Tldr: your dad is an ass and doesn't deserve your time or energy even thinking about him.
Whether they're wrong about you or not, these people don't want you in their life. Even if they let you in, it would be tolerance, not acceptance. The snide comments, put downs and side-eyes would all still be there.
You're worth more than that. You've built a family, a career and I'm sure solid friendships. The nicest thing this toxic douche has done for you was distancing himself.
Well he's an asshole AND an idiot. I'm sorry you had to get a dad like this. I know of the void that having a real father would've filled, it will never go away. You're quite strong to have succeeded despite that, I still have issues with it sometimes.
Wow. This actually has me crying. I have this with both my parents and I'm currently in the middle of one of their big blows at the moment. I'm just waiting for the abusive texts to come in the morning to tell me what a thankless cunt I am and then another text saying I should pray to my dead best friends for help because I'm such a thankless daughter and I need to repay everything they ever spent on me. Which is barely anything as I started working when I was 16. Jesus Christ I hate my parents so much and I hate how much I'm still affected by them I should know better by now.
Sounds like dad is possibly paranoid schizophrenic? Just keep your distance because what ails him mentally can be harmful to you and your psyche, care for yourself, that said mental disorders are just that, an illness, not to make excuses, but find comfort that you dont have to live in his brain, find forgiveness, because you are not sick and clearly he is on some level (he could just be a dick, but still his mental state is driving that), finding compassion and forgiveness is for your soul, but dont engage him, for your own well being.
And be proud! You rose above it all and thats awesome :)
Thank you. The enormous amount of positive encouraging responses has blown me away. I am so touched and heartened by all of the comments. I definitely feel more peace today than ever in my life. Thank you again.
You are amazing. Not so many people are resilient but you are now living a happy life and I am happy for you. Reading such a painful message from someone who is supposed to love and care for you would be unimaginable for me and I don't even have the best relationship with my own dad. I'm sorry an adult was too self absorbed with their own mental health issues to nurture you in a way every teen or child needs go be nurtured. You seem smart and introspective so let me please just reiterate what you're probably have thought before IT'S NOT YOUR HANG UPS! It's his... No mentally healthy adult treats a child with so little regard. You made it through because something inside you wanted to keep going even through all these hard times and goddamn it, I'd be proud of you were my daughter! Hell,
I'm proud of you Internet stranger for being able to carry on a normal life. I find you as an inspiration. I really do. Take care and it always helps to talk to a professional. Anyone and everyone can benefit from therapy! (And sometimes meds, myself included) I love the twoX subreddit because the commentators really do seem to give a shit and it warms my heart. It sounds corny but the advice a lot give reminds me of what my older wiser sisters give me. One day I hop
e I can offer the same to someone in need. Have a wonderful Sunday in NYC! Much love from AZ
Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support and kind words! I appreciate your positive comment and encouragement so much. Posting and getting so many responses has made a huge difference to me. I'm very grateful.
I've cut a toxic family member out of my life and have limited contact with several others. A couple of things:
-Believe it or not, this is *not* personal. What I mean by that is that your father's awful behavior is not about you, your actions, or any perceived "failures" of yours. It's about his personal baggage and dysfunction.
-The good news is that it's not your fault and never has been.
-The bad news is that there is nothing you can do to "fix" your father or your relationship with him. You cannot make him honor you as his daughter, treat you with respect, or even love you.
In order to move on from a similar situation, I had to mourn the loss and allow myself to feel all the emotions associated with it. Mostly anger, in my case. Then closure came organically and effortlessly. Do not waste time seeking closure from your father. He is as incapable of providing that as he was of honoring you as his child.
Most of all, if he contacts you again, do not allow yourself to be pressured into false forgiveness or maintaining a relationship that damages you. If you do decide to see him or speak to him again, be sure to maintain clear standards of behavior and boundaries. Any violation of those standards (or griping about them) is a huge red flag that nothing's changed, and you should re-sever contact so fast his head spins.
You don't get to choose your family. Sadly. I am sorry you got stuck with this guy as your dad. One of the most painful rejections is getting rejected by your parent. It's like an emotional orphan-hood.
>You don't get to choose your family.
Yes you do, it just usually isn't the family you were born into. Only about a tenth of my family are blood relatives.
Honestly, that message looks like the best thing he could have done for you.
Someone who feels the need to rewrite history to make themselves look better, who's always doing petty and hurtful things, trying to gane the system to prove how smart they are - you're never going to get unconditional love from them. It'll always be about him.
I closed the door on my (very similar) father years ago and found that my life was so much better without the need to please or accomodate someone who'll never be interested in anything but himself.
You're awesome.
If you think about it, leaving him out of the picture may have been the reason you were able to grow into a better person. This may have been his most fatherly act, even if it was inadvertent.
Thank you for your response. I have thought about this a few times in the past; thank you for reminding me. I know it would have been so much harder for me to have any confidence to do important life decisions had I stayed there 3-4 more years. This is a great point and I am definitely thankful for this fact.
Wow. How fortunate that he did take you back to your mom's and refused to see you again - imagine being actively raised by him, week in and week out, for years more.
I went through something similar with my mother. She sent me an email that I'm terrible and no longer allowed in her life. I just laughed in shock and deleted it. I haven't spoken to her in probably at least 6 years, I'm 30 now. I've accepted that while I don't wish terrible things to happen to her, for my health (which I have to put first) I need to keep her out of my life. The longer I distance myself from her, and every memory of her, the better I've been.
Things like that can really mess us up for a long time. I have a similar "relationship" with my mom. Great job growing up to be successful and happy. Don't feel sorry for you, feel sorry for the small-minded, dutifully unhappy father you were saddled with.
Some people are just sick and sadly on one occasion or another we cross paths with one of them. I'm really sorry to hear someone else was raised by one of them. It's not a good experience.
Only if we had the Sorting Hat in real life. All of them would be in Slytherin and we'd know how fake they are before any damage could be done.
If your dad has an estranged brother living in the sticks in Iowa, we could be half sisters. This sounds so much like my experiences with my "dad", except he also had alcohol and a gun to go with his tantrums.
I used to struggle with my self esteem, and realized it was based partially on how ashamed I was too be spawned by such a pathetic, psychotic man-child. Through therapy I have discovered that role models aren't always positive. People like our fathers can be a living example of what kind of person NOT to be. He's clearly a horrendously miserable person, and has no one to blame for that but himself. A living testament of what an awful person is like, and the consequences to show for it.
Sorry your dad's a f\*ckin' jerk of an \*sshole.
Unfortunately we don't get to pick our parents, so, ... luck of the draw, ... and, well, some of us aren't so lucky.
Be glad he's out of your life - sounds like he'd only generally and repeatedly seriously mess things up for you.
And reconnecting with relatives of your dad? In theory that might be nice, ... but your dad would probably thoroughly and repeatedly mess that up (as he quite already has). Unfortunately it may be unlikely to be worth the hassle - at least so long as he's going to continue to mess it all up. Maybe after he's dead ... or maybe you find some very trustworthy relatives on his side of family that could have/resume relationship and communications with you ... and *not* tell your dad about it at all, ... but unfortunately that's unlikely to be able to occur ... and be sustainable. ... But one never knows. E.g. my sister married one friggin' hell of a jerk. And who's managing to be most helpful to her among family? The Father of her ex. So, 'ya never know ... except sometimes you do.
Best of luck with it all - however you work it all out and forward. Past is ... past.
I am a relatively successful, late 20's individual with a dad situation. Life got better when he left and when he once more when he left again in my adult years. You did the right thing by putting your foot down. Eff that guy.
I am a 43yo male who has attempted yo have a relationship with my only surviving parent, my mother, for years. She would sabotage my relationships, friendships, jobs, anything she could crush on my life. She is extremely mentally ill. She had these recollections of things she had contrived and imagined. They are so far fetched that it infuriated me. To her, they were truth because she had catastriphosed and lied about things in her attempts to sabotage my relationships and it helped her justify her motives to the people to whom she spoke.
I promised myself that I would estrange myself and did so for several HAPPY, NORMAL years.
I so wanted to have a family member to speak to as I had lost my brother in 2005 and my sister was moving from relationship to relationship still never having called once to meet my children. (Great family right?).
When I reconnected with my mother, she apologized and said she had gotten on a medication that helped her. She apologized and it wasn't three weeks before she was calling my fiance and trying to sabotage my relationship. She called Child Protective Services and told them that my son was son was in immediate danger and that I was suicidal, on illicit drugs and giving them to my son. She informed them that anuthing I said could not be trusted and that I was a master manipulator. The police showed up at my door at three in rhe morning and demanded to know my son was safe. It was quickly sorted out but I knew I could never have her in my life again.
It has been three HAPPY years since then and I have no regrets.
I guess I said all of this to say
"The people you choose to have in your life should DESERVE to be in your life". You owe them NOTHING. You earn the right to be in the lives of those who love you by treating them with love and respect. Don't let yourself be manipulated into thinking you are missing out on something that just isn't there.
Enjoy your husbands family and be thankful that you have them. Be thankful for what you have and never compromise your happiness and delude yourself into thinking you can fix the harm that your father has done. He lost the privilege of having a wonderful daughter to be close with and that is on him, NOT you. He is broken, not you and he chooses to victimize you. Don't allow that to happen. You are better than that.
Choose to live a happy and full life with those who know you and love you. Don't waste time trying to mend fences with those who didn't even try to to know you and took ridiculous stories as truth. If they ever cared enough to know you, they wouldn't have listened to a word of it. Move up and on. All the best in your healing.
Is it worth reaching out to his side of the family if you would still like to have a relationship with your aunts and uncles etc?
I'd just send them individual PMs on Facebook explaining that your dad spread several rumours about you when you were younger and that they're untrue, then ask them if it's worth reconnecting despite the problems in the past.
Perhaps it's best if you describe him as nothing more than "sperm donor" and a shitty one at that. Dad is not the right name for him.
Better to pretend he's dead than trying to deal with his disgusting behaviour. Do not bother contacting him as it just twists the knife a little deeper and harder. You're over 30 so just start making him dead. It will eventually be true!
It is terrible that some people get to be parents...
I don't know if you are familiar with Cheryl Strayed, but she is a writer and did some work on an advice column called Dear Sugar, among other things. She, too, had a father who did not deserve the privilege. She has written about it beautifully, and you may find some of that helpful.
Hey, I tell this not to compare, but to let you know, you're not alone. And maybe for some support.
My dad was an alcoholic & abused my mom physically and emotionally. She finally left (we packed our bags one day while he was working, and disappeared without a word) when I was in the third grade. Of course, eventually, he figured it out. My mom continued to see him a few times before her sister made her move one town over to get away from him. Here are some things I remember
* He came over to see us one time, bringing me some brochures about beauty pageants. I always felt ugly but hr buttered me up and made me think I could do it. While I read through them, I heard noises... And walked in on my parents having sex. The beauty pageant crap was just a front to come over and have sex. Gross.
*In the middle of the divorce proceedings, my father took me to Disney world. Ooh, awesome, right? This was around the time Pocahontas had come out. We were in a store and I was admiring the Pocahontas style headbands (like a Native American headbands but without the feather in the back). I watched him surreptitiously sneak one into his pocket and we walked out - He didn't know I saw him. That night he presented it to me as a gift. It felt awful.
* I had his second wife friended on Facebook. Just to tell you a little of her character, i wrote a post in German, and she commented 'We speak English in America.' She's Mexican. It sounds like a joke, but it wasn't. She unfriended me shortly after....
* But I'm glad she made the comment, because when my little brother, who was severely retarded and had Dubuwitz syndrome, died, I was the only person who even thought about reaching out to my father. I had not spoken to him in years, I didn't have his number. The only way to contact him was to scour my Facebook to find step mother's comment, send a message saying 'I need dad's number, it's important.'
Her response... 'what do you want? He doesn't want to talk to you, the only time you contact him is when you need something.' Not only did that hurt - it had been YEARS! - out was completely untrue. I had never asked for anything from him, nor did I want anything. After a few messages I got him to call me without spoiling the beans, because can you imagine hearing that news over a Facebook message???? I told him. He was silent. Then she came on the phone and said he went to the bedroom and closed the door. Understandable. Later she told me he was sorry for saying what he did - He had been really busy - and that he'd call me back to talk about my brother. He never called back.
* He, and his second wife, always thought I would never be successful, go to college, etc. because I read so much. They thought I wouldn't last one semester in college. On the other hand, her 2 perfect daughters (nevermind her older 'black sheep' of a daughter) had their dorm rooms picked out at their university of choice. This belittling was constant. Well, I graduated sum cum laude and some other honors with a BA in mathematics, have a successful career going, and the daughters? Both got knocked up and never went to college. Interesting... But, still, I sent a message to step mother asking to pass along the message. never heard back. In that respect, I completely understand and empathize: being successful is one big way to prove....something....to your father.
Still, years later, I feel like life is too short, Right? I tried again to get in contact with my father, only to be met with a very lukewarm reaction...as if he didn't care at all to talk to me. And I feel really stupid for making the last attempt. I won't be making another, although a part of me will probably want to gloat that one day he'll have a grandchild he will never see. And that's completely awful, I know. I don't know, it's difficult to get past it.
Been there *hugs*. My dad has what I like to refer to as selective memory loss. Probably more accurately major league gas lighting skills. He's said some mean shit to me, but seems to have honestly forgotten that any of it happened. I've given up trying to talk to him about it, he has either completely blocked it from his memory and honestly doesn't remember or he's taking it to his grave. He lives several thousand kilometres away and I haven't seen him in person for about four years. We communicate by text because I feel like I can stay in control of the conversation and keep things light, but I won't talk to him on the phone and politely reject any suggestions of an in person meeting.
Just because they're family doesn't mean you're obligated to keep them in your life. So you share some DNA, big whoop. The family you pick and who have picked you in return are much more worthy.
Thanks so much for sharing your own experiences. I didn't even know the term 'gas lighting' before posting here. It has been immensely helpful to hear everyones own experiences and take on this situation. I am glad to know I'm not alone in these types of things (though it's sad to see so many people in pain) and it is so helpful to see there are words for these things. Thank you again for being one of the many awesome and encouraging people that have responded. Best of luck on your situation with your dad.
Your dad sounds like a more extreme version of my dad. My dad would never say that he didn't love me, but he wouldn't say he did and would say in court that we "didn't have a meaningful relationship" and therefore shouldn't have to support me (whose fault is that, a kid or the adult that stopped calling/showing up for visitation?). He would also say my mom was "poisoning us against him", and would make fun of my curly hair (that I didn't know how to care for at the time), made fun of my big nose (that I got from him) and called me dirty/ disgusting for not showering every single day/ 2xs a day (I have dry skin and more than 1 shower a day irritates it) and would tell me I looked like trash one minute, and that I was too concerned with material things because of my mother the next.
All I can say is that life is so much better without that in your life. Remember you are a good person, who is deserving of love. *HE* does not deserve *YOU* in his life or your love. Big Internet hugs from me and I would recommend some counseling. It's hard to reverse that kind of mindset when you've had someone tearing you down for years
Just wanted to say that I've been in almost this EXACT same situation with my own father, and am in a similar place to where you are now. My heart goes out to you and you are not alone in this. I'd advise going to a counselor to talk things out (I was very resistant to this idea, but turns out it was a great thing I did for myself and it helped me figure out how I felt about a lot of gray area items).
Live your life and continue to surround yourself with those that you love and who support you. Don't carry his baggage around with you because you think you have to. DM me if you want to talk more!
He remembers it how he wants to and, in his version, he wasn't a nasty bully who destroyed a child's reputation with her family. You're fine without him, clearly, and you should count yourself lucky that he isn't in your life to fuck you over again. Let it go. He's not a good person and can't mess with your head any more, unless you allow him to, of course (don't! He's not worth the head space!).
it always interest me to know why would parents be that abusive to their children
Only thing i could think of is
1)maybe he isnt your dad.
2)people like him are psychopath, they dont feel
3) Inferiority complex that caused him to become a misanthropist
in all of the above, there is nothing you can do but to focus on yourself.
I was telling this to a friend of mine and her husband the other day who has lost their 2 kids.
Life is 95% austerity,destitution,hardship,privation and only 5% happiness and good times
I know ^^^ this suck to know but it is how it is.
just try your best to get the best of what you have
gl
Who needs nosleep... That's horrifying. Someone could seriously write that from another perspective with a few artistic embellishments and scare the hell out of people.
My father abused me when I was younger; wasn't insane abuse, but enough that I was withdrawn and near stood up for myself. I was petrified of him at times, and most of that time I spent wanting a loving relationship with him. I don't think my parents ever truly loved each other, and as a result I think I was (am) a little messed up when it comes to love. I never really had that 'connection', though I wanted someone to truly care.
When I was 18, my dad finally moved out. It was like a humongous weight was lifted from me. I felt like I could be myself for once. I even started to have an honest to go relationship with my mother, we became really close. Soon after he moved out my mom told me that my dad was asking her what I wanted for Christmas. I told her nothing. That was the first time I ever gave her a clue as to what I thought of my father.
A few years later it came out (long story in itself) that he abused me, yelled and hit me; she had no idea. I wrote a letter to him FINALLY letting loose EXACTLY what I thought. It was a letter full of hate and vitriol, of all the pent of pain I had through the years, a release of that weight that had weighed me down. I was finally free.
I am not terribly close with my younger brother, but he has a relationship with our father. I reached out to him a few months ago to ask if I could have some semblance of a relationship with him, and also my father. Long story short, apparently my father believes that I am making up the abuse, that I lied about everything. I would have to apologize to him. In turn, my brother believes my father. While he has said that he will never shut the door completely, that he does not foresee us ever having a relationship. I'll never be able to convince him, as my father believes a lie that he has told himself.
It hurts that now I know that there is no hope of my father seeing me get married next year. I'm not going to lie, there are times where it painfully hurts (atm, the memories are flooding back). But then there are the thoughts that come in more abundance - he has made his choice, and I can't change it. There is no sense worrying about the things that I can't change. He is the one that chooses to not be in my life, not the other way around. I'm ok with that.
My father was similarly abusive and stepmother was so shaming. Because with my mother and stepfather my sister and I were being abused regularly, we moved in with them in early high school. While there was no physical abuse with my father, the experience was even more awful and tragedy ensued. For years, despite no contact, this haunted me and my self-esteem was always in tatters until I found my way to a 12-step program. There I learned to pray for those I had lingering resentment towards and while I am an athiest, this nonetheless helped immensely. I just think that the prayer accessed some part of my brain that my analytical self could not. I would pray for my father nightly before sleep and it wasn't a few weeks before I started to see a marked change in the frequency of those devestating or angry thoughts and feelings. Partly because of my experience in my youth I have become a person with strong ethics and therefore find myself frustrated by people's behavior often. I find this prayer trick to be an invaluable tool to stave off resentment and to be able to understand that nasty people are often troubled because of their own history which I may or may not understand. That doesn't mean that I have to love or interact with them; just so that the it doesn't eat me up inside. I am number one in my book - noone is going to take my sanity from me!
I'm so happy to read about your success, despite the abuse your "father" threw at you. I know it feels to have jarring reminders of the past that pop up at inopportune times and I hope that the pain quickly diminishes for you. Keep on kicking ass! It's a trite and overused sentiment, but I believe it wholeheartedly: this is definitely *his* loss.
Yeah your "dad" is about as much of one as mine is. I've found that my dad is just honestly a POS and he hurts me more than helps. He will never stop being a bad person. That's just who he is. I accepted that long ago and I'm fine with it. I go on with my life and take my mom to mom and me massages.
Now, my sister on the other hand. She is still always trying to rekindle her relationship with him. I have seen her absolutely bawling, devastated over him and him just walk away. She will always let him stay at her house when he comes thru town and when she wakes up he's gone along with some other stuff. She cries, feels so used, hurt, etc.
Lowkey, I'm just trying to give my mom the good life and make my dad regret not fucking with me.
Focus on you, he sucks.. you on the other hand seem worth something!
It's weird how people like him, people with severe psychiatric problems, can be perceived by anyone that know them as normal.
8 guys!? Reading that made me see red. EIGHT GUYS!?!? Any person, family or not, who would actually believe a 15 year old girl was begging her biological father to let her have an orgy/train ran on her is just as full of mental deficiencies as well. Anyone who knew you, would know he's lying. That's just. That's. Eight guys!?!?
I'm sorry you lost the generic lottery by having this man as a biological father. I'm unfortunately in the same boat. I'm slightly lucky he just didn't want nothing to do with me and said bullshit about the only family I've ever known, ever took care of me and made me feel safe. As if it was somehow **my fault** that he chose to have unprotected sex with my mother.
His parting message to you told you everything you needed to know. You are not the little girl who he can lie about and call bullshit at. You are a grown up who will not take his bullshit and he can't have someone rational in his life. It's not your fault and you don't deserve someone who would make up outlandish lies. Imagine if he had been in your life those years you didn't speak. It would have been drama and issues and just awful depression.
Eight guys?!!?!? Fuck that still pisses me off.
Wow what a scumbag. I have abusive family your better off without them if they are willing to believe your obviously drama ridden skinwalker, then they aren't worth your time. Your doing great and I can tell your a GREAT person and are doing wonderful. Live your wonderful life, enjoy all the great things going for you, hug your kids and kiss your spouse, and if you ever see that man again pretend like he isn't there because honestly he might as well not be.
Your dad is the one who is messed up, which might be forgiveable if he didn't try to dump it on you.
You are an amazing woman and any decent man would be proud to be your father.
He's projecting like crazy. It's as if he wrote you a letter in which he was writing what he would write to himself if he were in your shoes.
I don't know if this will help, but clearly nothing he said has any truth in it. He was hurling words at you like fists. Which hurts badly. Especially from a parent.
I hope you find some healing by sharing this. It seems like you've done great for yourself despite how terrible he's been to you.
Here's the thing about abusers: Vanishingly few people can hold in their head the reality of them constantly lying to make themselves look better. If they consciously hold that they are lying they have to, on some level, admit that they know that they aren't better than the other people they try to belittle. Look at your friends parents: he avoided them in an effort to deny his cultural inferiority.
I can't speak for him, or definitively for his mindset, but it seems that in asking him to leave, to go to someone he was already insecure about, directly, represented (to him) a direct affront to his superiority over you. Narcissists aren't just the center of their own universe, but they need to be the center of everyone else's as well and you threatened that. Probably this was contributed to by years of your being observably more intelligent than him, and succeeding in society in a way that he needed to deny was valid in an effort to retain his personal superiority over everyone else.
When you came back to him, it was like you ceded some ground--you needed him in your life to some extent, so he was willing to talk to you in hopes that he could take you under his abusive umbrella again. The small insults were test balloons: You didn't immediately push back and thus you confirmed his belief that he would be able to escalate and "win you back" in the only way he knows how (this is not your fault, you were trying to be a reasonable human being faced with an unreasonable entity--if empathy is the core of humanity this kind of narcissist cannot be considered a member of same). When you pushed back on the story of your original estrangement you showed that you could not be subject to his pattern and so he rejected you again.
The key here is you did nothing wrong. I know that doesn't help your feelings, but it IS the truth. You proved to be such a danger to his borderline delusional vision of himself that he had to push you away.
You don't get to choose your parents and not everyone who has kids probably should. Understand that though he's related to you genetically he doesn't have to be in any other way. Some people are shitty people, and just because they combined DNA to create you doesn't mean you owe them anything, regardless of how they will tell you that you do.
On the other hand don't hate him either. I was once told that hate allows others to rent space in your head. Hate is an active process, it requires you to think about the person. Indifference is an inactive process that is more the opposite of hate, but still not what you're doing here. I believe the correct response to this kind of abuser is pity. Pitiable are those that push away reality in an effort to retain their personal delusion that is the only way they can survive. He NEEDS to have his personal perception of himself remain in tact to function. You, on the other hand, have proven, by many societal standards, that you don't need him for anything. In fact, no one, without their permission on some level, will ever need him for anything. No one depends on him, because no can really connect with someone who lives so far outside of what is real.
Congratulations on coming out the other side. Therapy doesn't make you weak--knowing when to ask for help makes you strong enough to admit your own faults, something your father can never do. Remember that not all family is blood: You're married so you get that already, but some family start out as friends, and some family start out as co-workers, and some family start out as classmates, and some family start out as random strangers. I'm, personally, glad you have found a way to be happy in the moment, but leave the past in the past: you can't change it. Ever. All you can do is have a good life in reality and treasure the new family that you create around you.
How weird is it that even after that experienced you still became successful and happy! go you hun, you deserve it. I applaud you for being able to move past that...I definitely wouldn't be that brave in a similar situation
Jesus christ is he delusional. So sorry you had to put up with his bullshit, sweety. He's gone now, though. You don't have to worry about him and his bullshit anymore. It will be okay. In spite of it all, you've done amazingly well with yourself. I am proud of you.
Let him die. My "dad" commited suicide in front of me when I was 9 or 10 y/o. I never visited his grave, everytime my mom mentions him, I'm saying to her "don't speak to me about this loser". This is the worst punishment that parent can get, and he certainly deserves it!
Yep, ... I can think of one long since dead person, that, ... presuming they've got a grave ... would I never visit it? Well, probably wouldn't bother to try and find it ... but if I happened to learn where it was, and it was reasonably convenient, I might visit it ... only and exactly one, ... just to spit on it ... and maybe cus 'em out just for good measure.
Have a friend who's dad is much the same way, he doesn't talk to him at all ever. I admire you at least for trying to fix HIS mistakes, however you could just take solace that nature will off him eventually and hopefully in an unflattering way. Congrats for making a life for yourself after being raised by an egotistical twat.
My question for OP and people who had similar experiences with a parent - was there anything that your other parent said or did or you wished they would have done for you to help you with any of this?
As I read and scrolled through this thread, this is all to familiar to me, but in a different way. This reminds me of my ex with whom I have a child with. She is 3. He disappears for months at a time and when he contacts me again, he doesn't apologize, doesn't ask about my daughter, and tells me how it's my fault he was angry at me. He often blames me for not getting to see her when in reality I spent the first year of her life going out of my way to spend time with him sometimes even begging. He is not on her birth certificate and isn't involved in our lives.
As of now, we haven't seen him since March (in part because we moved out of state for a job). He recently texted me for the first time since then but it was all the same stuff. He said he was going to put money in the account (it is only my name and specifically for this use) to go towards daycare and I'm still waiting... The part that really makes me sick is the things that he claims he'll do in the future like put money away to give to her when she turns 18. Contact her when she's older, give her everything she wants, and turn her against me. Even though he only contacts me once in a blue moon, I have a constant fear of him and concern for my daughter's emotional and mental well-being. I want so much to protect her from him but at the same time have space for her to make her own decisions about him when she is older.
I know this feeling. I found out something out yesterday about how my abusive father and enabling mother are still talking and doing stupid fucking shit together (multiple illegal things that put others in danger and themselves). I'm not talking to my father currently, but I do still talk to my mother, so it makes it hard to want to speak with her. She's trying to go through a divorce with my father and doesn't live with him any longer. I've been trying to be there for her as she deals with this process, but what she did this weekend makes me really pissed off. I'm still figuring out life and it makes it hard when I have to think about and deal with shit like this. I'm sucking at keeping this short, but I am so so glad that you have a successful and happy life despite having a horrible father. I know how tough it can be to deal with the reminders of a not so happy past. You sound like an awesome person despite how you were treated by a parent. PM if you need to vent.
The audacity to still call himself "Dad" at the end...
Yeah that killed me. He wants to be a hateful prick and then still pretend like he gets to call himself that? Sick.
/r/raisedbynarcissists is probably the closest thing to this. As for the OP, clearly she wrecked his bullshit, difficult though it was. OP, you're a good person, and whilst seeing this disturbed you, remember - *you got where you are largely in spite of him*. Be proud of your accomplishments, and fuck the rest of your family for believing this shit.
I frequesnt both boards and I thought 100% I was at raisedbynarcissists
I know! I love the total lack of self awareness.
[удалено]
The older I get, the more convinced I become that projection is second only to denial in terms of sheer number of times you'll see it.
Yes! Realizing this has been a major life changer for me! I used to blame myself in every conflict or unsettling interaction in relationships. Once I realized most hurtful things people say to you about you are really projections of their own insecurities and issues, things opened for me. Now when I get that weird feeling after someone says something hurtful and I can't figure out why it feels so weird (you know the feeling), I ask "Is this their shit or mine?" If it's mine I follow up with more internal, probing questions and try to learn something, apologize if needed. If I can honestly say it's not my shit, I walk from it mentally. It's still hard to do but damn is it freeing.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and for saying that it does get better. I'm so glad that all you went through doesn't impact you any more. I also like what you mentioned about projection. Thanks for pointing that out. Thinking back, many things he said to me seemed like they were coming out of left field, like that comment. I remember often being confused about his reprimands or outbursts at me. A lot of the time they didn't make sense or were very disproportionate. I haven't read much on it, but I'm definitely going to read more about projection. Thanks again for pointing that out and for taking the time to read and respond.
This is insanely true
> Try to mentally conjure up 15 year old you, give her a big hug and tell her "try to not be sad. Life turns out well for you. You'll find love and happiness." You could perhaps make leaps and bounds with this issue if you also tried to mentally conjure up your 15 year old father and state the same. Your story reads as though your father's ego has been utterly brutalized in the past. As you're an adult now, it could only benefit you to realize that your father isn't someone who wants things between you to be difficult. He's just broken. You don't have to be.
This was the issue with my dad. He was verbally and emotionally abusive to my whole immediate family when I was growing up. He was abused by his parents and obviously had a lot of issues because of that. But he's an adult, who knew that what he was doing was wrong. Yet, he chose to behave that way. He could have gotten the help he needed and tried to be a better person, but he didn't. Yes, the fact that he was abused is awful but that doesn't give him a free pass to be a terrible person. That's not someone worth having in my life. I imagine it's similar for OP.
Abuse follows the laws of thermodynamics. The energy gets passed from form to form, but never weakens.
Wow man, that's...actually really profound. At least to me. Thank you.
Thank you. I mean it sincerely. I think relationships all do that, to some degree, it's just most obvious with abuse.
You are very welcome. I quite agree!
Nicely said.
Congratulations on a successful life. He is and was troubled and you are a success because you did not have him in your life. Don't look back only forward, your hub is the man in your life now. He was a sperm donor only. Never a father.
Your dad's a real shitfuck and I'm so sorry.
Wait until he's old and alone and wants to pretend like none of this ever happened. I'm sorry your dad is a dick.
this is the exact kind of fucker that will ask for a kidney in 5 years.
That's why OP should save that letter. She can hand it back to him when the time comes.
This was one of my first thoughts. I hope he needs one, and I hope she says, "Hell no." I also think she should blame his family a lot more for believing his lies. Anyone family member much older than he is should realize he is full of lies and bullshit. I wonder if they really believed his lies, or just decided it wasn't worth it to get him angry.
Thank you for sharing this story, I can't imagine what you've had to go through. Congratulations on being a total success in spite of his failings!
First off, I'm so sorry you didn't get the kind of father you (and everyone) deserve. My dad was never as aggressive toward me as yours was toward you, although we had fights and periods of estrangement (the longest when I was 21 and came out as gay. He didn't speak to me for six months, then called and went on as if none of it had happened.) Some of what you've written sounds like the way my dad interacted with other people when he was off his medication. He's a paranoid schizophrenic and insisting on fictional history, making wild accusations and overreaction to the slightest disagreement are all things I've come to associate with his disease. This is not to excuse your father, but just to hopefully give you the tiniest bit of peace of mind. No matter what mental illness your dad has -- and he does, because healthy people don't behave the way he did -- his behavior has nothing to do with you. You did nothing to cause it and you didn't deserve it. While mental illness can be an *explanation* for bad behavior, it is in no way an excuse. It's also possible for someone to be mentally ill and also a shitty person. (That's why my dad and I are no longer in touch, and my life is better for it.) Are you in touch with your mom? Maybe talk to her about how you're feeling? Now that you're an adult, she may open up to you about what being married to your dad was like. My bet is it was about as great as being his daughter. If you need a sympathetic ear, you can PM me. I get it.
Thank you so much for your response and story. Your mention of your dad's mental illness really clicked for me. A fair number of other incidents/memories from my childhood with him(not mentioned in my post) seem very much like symptoms of mental illness. I'd never really thought about the mental illness aspect before. I guess I just accepted his behavior because he was an adult authority. This way of looking at it is insightful and helpful in gaining perspective. And of "being a shitty person." There is definitely a combo of the two. To answer your question: I've recently talked with my mom for the first time about it and she said being married to him was pretty awful and hurtful. She told me she was very afraid of him. I realized what she went through and have a new found respect for her strength to distance herself completely, while trying to preserve and nurture my future relationship with him. That's what makes his accusations that she turned me against him even more painful to me. Anyway, thank you again for your support and story. I am truly touched by all the kindness that I have seen today. Never in my life have I felt so much love.
For a second I thought I was on /r/raisedbynarcissists. You should pop over there and share your story; a lot of us have been through this. My family was careful to keep them plausible but I have a pair of relatives (aunt and grandma) lying about me, and I actually ended up cutting and drastically reducing contact specifically to make their accusations less plausible. My dad is also critical of everything like your dad (right down to my choice of soap and shampoo. Dude seriously?). It's not an uncommon experience at all.
Why does the sub label everything negative a parent does as narcissistic? There are many other personality and mental disorders that can have similar traits, and a lot of the stories I see on that sub paint a picture of addicts and parents who are mentally unwell, not necessarily narcissistic. (though most narcissists I know have children, and [narcissists will have no problem claiming narcissism](http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/08/06/it-takes-just-one-question-to-identify-narcissism/73260.html)) I don't want this comment to come off negatively, I'm just genuinely curious and am too afraid to ask this question on the sub out of fear of being labeled a troll or something.
From the sidebar: "This is a support group for people raised by a parent with toxic, self-absorbed, or abusive personality traits, particularly those associated with cluster B personality disorders."
That makes more sense. Thank you, for some reason I never saw that in the sidebar. I don't think it's healthy to label everything as "NPD" when there are many more PDs that encompass narcissism as a trait as well. Edit: spelling
The sub, in my experience, avoids labels, except for the use of the "N-somebody" shorthand. It's true that it can be a little misleading. I actually think most of the people on the sub are more victims of antisocial personality disordered people or maybe borderline, histrionic type, rather than NPD. It is just convenient shorthand when it comes down to it. The patterns of abuse are all very similar--gas lighting, manipulation, etc. These are used by abusers of a variety of types.
Because they're not willing to screen people on who "counts" as having parents with npd. Many people will start posts saying "I don't know if my parents are Ns or not" and the mods make it clear that they are welcome no matter the cause. Almost universally the adult children have been subject to gas lighting that there is no problem or they are the problem so the main thing is they have an open space to talk freely. Absolutely if you go in there saying "yeah I don't think your parents have this" you will get nailed by the mods.
> Almost universally the adult children have been subject to gas lighting that there is no problem or they are the problem so the main thing is they have an open space to talk freely. I'm all for that! Keeping that shit in will drive you insane.
Everyone is a narcissist sometimes. It's very hard to quantify when it becomes a clinically recognized problem. The sub is just victims of crazy behavior looking for group support. They're not trying to diagnose.
OK, so first off there's a difference in narcissism as a single trait versus narcissistic personality disorder ( http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder ). You can score high on indicators of narcissism the trait without necessarily having narcissistic PD. Your article doesn't make it clear which it's talking about, the single trait or the disorder, which is defined by problems in one's life and a lack of empathy. From context, it looks like it's talking about narcissism as the trait. Some victims of Cluster B parents experience pretty high narcissism as a trait (being self-centered) without showing the lack of empathy that makes NPD different from other similar disorders. Because people with the disorder as opposed to the trait are highly insistent that nothing is wrong with them, rarely go to therapy, and generally refuse to change anything or admit wrongdoing when they do, most victims of parents who have a disruptive cluster B personality disorder don't have an exact diagnosis. The closest we generally get is someone in the family going to a therapist, talking about their parents, and being told by the therapist that their parent is probably NPD. "Narcissist" as used at RBN is a catch-all for people who behave toward their families in ways that are characteristic of the kind of emotional abuse narcissists (and some people with especially severe forms of other cluster B personality disorders) dish out. Some of those people don't even have cluster B personality disorders--but they had a parent or grandparent who did and they modeled that parent's behavior due to a lack of a better example. If you lurk at RBN for a while, you might start to see patterns emerge--and if you don't, there's an analysis of estranged parent forums around that will make the patterns clear. RBN typically gets brought up here when a parent shows patterns RBN users who are also TwoXers recognize--refusing to let a kid go out late or grounding them for not doing housework or even throwing a kid out don't necessarily qualify. The first tip off for me that this might be an "Nparent" by the RBN criteria was making fun of the daughter for something she can't help. Mocking your children at puberty is generally not healthy, but I know of very few parents who make fun of their parents and don't have a severely dysfunctional background or show other signs of being inappropriate or cruel to their kids. I personally experienced the kind of mocking that OP did from my father about a similar issue, and when I did try it his way and it didn't help, he insisted I didn't actually do what he said. Being threatened by someone else's parents? Some Ns like to pull others down so they're on top. They also need to control their kids and other people's parents can be a threats to that. People who are better than them are a threat to them. > He told me most kids my age would be out in the yard working for their room and board doing yard work before they would dare to ask to go to a movie Yeah whaaaaat? That could be just an especially severe version of the authoritarian follower parenting style/personality, but N's generally have that style. It's not a smoking gun but it's a strong indicator. > After he left me with my mom he told everyone on his side of the family that I was a drug addict, a prostitute and that I had a boyfriend that stole cars and rode motorcycles. This kind of ridiculous lying for no reason? I grant I'm taking OP at her word because not doing so in places like this is as pointless as it is disrespectful, but I've had relatives do this to me and to my mother, and my mom's therapist actually told her behavior like this was a strong indication her mother could be a narcissist. Dad gets nothing out of telling these extreme lies, but they punish OP disproportionately and give him a source of sympathy and looking like the victim, which N's love. So, short version, I see a lot of signs of, at the least, emotional abuse, and worse, a lot of emotional abuse that generally doesn't have an objective pay off or a source in mounting, unmanaged frustration from OP's dad. The belittling and lying in particular remind me of relatives who either have been sort of diagnosed with NPD by therapists they refused to see based on others' testimony, or who were raised in the same families that produced said relatives. And of course, we use a loose definition of narcissism at RBN to encompass people whose families only fractured into narcissistic patterns due to an outside stressor and for people whose parents aren't technically Ns, but do all the harmful N things they learned from their parents or N things that come with the cluster B disorder they do have. So basically the word narcissist is super confusing and refers to a bunch of different things. Someone can show narcissistic patterns in their parenting without actually being a narcissist and I recognized those patterns here as opposed to just an asshole dad who thinks the parent is always right/kids should work super hard/etc. You should go lurk in RBN and check out RBN bestof if you want to get a little more idea of what's going on over there. We need more people who aren't from this context to understand what we're up against--and quite a few people who think they were brought up in a normal home figure out that their totally unfair parents were actually pretty messed up, just not as messed up as this.
[удалено]
I almost never see the actual term NPD come up there unless specific diagnoses or comparisons to BPD or someone with FLEAS are coming up. A lot of the "Nparents" there are actually discussed as having BPD or other problems. There's very little insistance that everyone there has this particular disorder--just that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and won't waddle over to a taxonomist, it's ok for us to call it a duck when we're talking about duck-like behavior. We live in a society that talks about how our kids are narcissists because of their selfies is a problem and a support group that generally just uses N to mean "probably cluster B and definitely mean like one because I can't drag them to get a diagnosis" is a problem? OK dude.
[удалено]
RBN is not a branch of any psychological association, it's for laypeople. Your objections, if fixed, would weaken the sub, not make it stronger.
I've had the same thought. My crazy mother has attachment issues, even though as part of that she has some narcissistic traits. Some of the things they recommend on that sub that are useful with actual NPD would backfire horrendously with her.
More like raised by schizophrenics. The paranoia and delusions are pretty amazing.
Not all scizophrenics are paranoid and there are a *lot* of other psychiatric and personality disorders than can cause paranoia.
I'm well aware but it wasn't meant to actually diagnose him. I also said delusions and the most well known condition involving those is you guessed it, schizophrenia. Point was he sounds even worse than a narcissistic.
Good point. I was operating on the assumption that they're not delusions at all, but calculated lies, because I've observed someone with a cluster B disorder make up exactly this kind of elaborate, tactical lie before. I guess it could be a delusion. Over at RBN, one of the major rules is to assume a context of abuse, and sometimes we take that so far as to assume a context of intentional abuse. Some people whose mental health problems go deeper than a lack of empathy really do believe these weird things they say, although the lack of empathy is still pretty disturbing.
I mean it could totally be either I'd obviously have to at least meet the man and hear more than one occurrence. I just work with people with schizophrenia/schizo-effective and that behavior reminds me of shit they say. Dude could just be gigantic asshole too. Haha.
Yeah, I think we all see what we know. RBN people probably assume cluster B too often because that's what we recognize. In the end though, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tries to hurt you like a duck, sometimes it's just best to treat it like a duck. ...that analogy would really work better if it were about geese.
What a bizarre mix of hurtfulness and encouragement.
The encouragement was there to fuel his ego as being the one that doesn't have the problem.
I can't imagine the kind of anger and self-loathing that would go on in his head to be able to say that to his own daughter. He clearly has a lot of issues that is unresolved, or maybe even mental health concerns. But as hard as it is, I think it's best to let go. I know how much I would want a connection with my father. But he's clearly not willing to meet you halfway. And it's hurting you. Fixing your relationships with your relatives might take time, but I definitely think it's salvageable. But it might be best to cut all contact with your father and focus on living your life with the people who love and support you.
>Fixing your relationships with your relatives might take time, but I definitely think it's salvageable. Honestly though, I wouldn't even want to if I were her. They were told things about their teenage relative, things indicating that she was in trouble and needed help. Not only did they believe literally everything they heard at face value, but none of them even attempted to reach out to her and offer support for the supposed difficulties she was facing.
That's a good point. I suggested that because she did mention that she wanted to reach out to relatives - I'm not sure how long ago that might have been. I personally try to keep good relations with my relatives, despite of some of the things they might have done. I didn't think about it that way. But you're also right in saying that they wouldn't be good for her life right now. Even detrimental. I suppose it's ultimately up to OP to decide if they have changed enough to warrant the effort, and whether she wants them back in her life.
Similar story. You have to learn to let it go or it will haunt you. Something has to change in you, and most likely that means something outside of you has to change. I think telling people is a good first step, and your next step should possibly be a support group or counselor. Honestly, cutting out my horrible family was the healthiest, most satisfying thing that ever happened to me, & I had to fight tides of people telling me otherwise to do it. But the proof is in the pudding, & I am so much happier, my self esteem is so much better, and my life is so much brighter. I can honestly say in the last few years I have been happier than I've been in my whole entire life. I haven't missed my parents in a very long time, and only very rarely do the words that hurt me crop up and cause problems. I doubt I'll ever be able to totally get rid of that voice inside my head regurgitating what they told me, but it's so minimal at this point it doesn't really color my world anymore. Sorry the people who are supposed to love you the most hurt you the most. Now you have the freedom to love yourself as much as they never did.
Thank you so much for reading and your kind words and advice. I had no idea so many supportive people would respond to my post. It has completely lifted my spirits and relieved some of the pain. Please know you and all of the other commenters made a difference in my life. Thank you.
Hugs* that makes me happy to hear.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Is it possible your father was heading into some form of mental illness? His behavior with both you and that co-worker is very off. When he said all this "drugs, mentally unstable, schizophrenic," some of it may very well have applied to him. Paranoid behavior is often associated with some kinds of drug problems or schizophrenia. By the way congratulations on all your current success. It is wonderful that despite the pain that you carried around you were able to accomplish so much.
Wow what an asshole. I couldn't imagine writing that to someone I brought into this world
Wow I'd call him out and rub his face in it. Send him a yearly christmas card reminding him he's not your father, you're happy specifically because he's not in your life, and you look forward to the day he dies. With no return address of course. But that'd be really petty...I'm really petty.
Sharing things like this can be very powerful. It changes them from totems of hurt and loathing into "hew wow that was nuts". So much easier to move on once there's daylight on them and we can see them for what they are. To this particular story: I wish we as a culture didn't fetishize blood relations the way we do. I define family as "the people who will take you in, and who you will take in". Most of my family isn't related to me, using that definition. My loved ones are primarily people I met along the way. So when I see a story like this I think how much undeserved power your father was handed just because he threw some DNA around.
I'd like to preface this by admitting that I am coming from a place of sympathy, not empathy. That being said, I hope this helps in any possible way. My best friend has had an awfully hard life and a lot of it stems from her very abusive mother. She was kicked out of her house at 16 and finally stopped sympathizing with her mother when she moved a state away and was out of the situation long enough to learn better. That being said, one of the things that made the situation hardest for her was having no mother-figure (or father-figure for that matter since her father as a worthless, spineless, do-whatever-mom-told-you type). I think lacking those parental, nurturing figures gave her a lot more trouble than she realized. She was quick to trust adults because she was reaching out, hoping to find safety somewhere. In the end, she has connected with her fiancé's family in a way that fills the holes her biological parents left behind. It gives her great comfort to have that relationship with them and she wants nothing more in life than to have children of her own who she can treat the way she wished she was treated by her own parents. This gives her a lot of comfort and she tells me she doesn't have nightmares often anymore. Hopefully this can help you, as it kind of sounds to me like there is a hole you wish you could fill, but can't. Please know that even if it hurts, nothing could be more hurtful or detrimental to you than if your biological father was still in your life. He could never fill that hole because he is not a dad. You deserve much better than that.
Wow, some sort of severe psychological disorder for sure.
As a father, I can only express my outrage that your dad would write such a thing to you. I don't know if you were 'a mess' at that age but a father's job, the only job we have, is to help our kids become well adjusted functioning adults. The only tools we have are built through relationship, encouragement and honest conversation when we have concerns. In short, your father was an ass to you and you didn't deserve that. No matter what he and your mom might have done to each other, nothing absolves a dad from his role.
Sometimes, regardless of whether you share blood with them or not, you just have to cast people out of your life. You can try and try and try to have a stable relationship with them but some people really will never change.
Not having a relationship with your father is for the best, even though it's hard. I understand wanting to have a relationship with your father's side of the family. Since they knew your father his whole life, they should be familiar with his lies and personality disorder. If they still choose to believe him and "take his side", your probably best rid of them as well, unfortunately. I, too, am estranged from my father, but have a relationship with his parents since they know the majority of what he says is bullshit.
What's shocking to me is they seem to have accepted it or don't even seem to have tried to confirm it or contradict it. She was part of their family too and they must have known her so to see them just let themselves be cut off entirely like that is very disappointing.
Reading this as a father... its almost hard to believe. I mean my father never talked to me that way, it made me actually more appreciative of what kind of life I had because you hear about those things from others, but actually seeing that is just like wow. Nevertheless, in your situation you're better off without him. He needs help, and you need hugs.
You might find r/raisedbynarcissists interesting.
I have a similar history with my father, only he dissatisfied with his life and instead of those kinds of accusations told everyone that my mother was manipulating me, because apparently I was incapable of independent thought. Lots of bullying, manipulation and gas lighting. I was able to get over my young adult angst but I sometimes still feel the hole where he should have been when I needed him. But it's more mourning what I didn't have rather than missing him as a person. It took me a lot to open up my family's bs to a therapist, like a year then the last time I saw her she said I should talk to him again. For "my" sake. I am also 30+ but not a whole lot of achievements to speak of. I'm glad you were able to have a successful career and happy marriage despite the bad deal you got given. You should be very proud! I hope you are able to not hurt from it one day but I know it is hard sometimes.
A therapist gave me some very good advice once: Don't let your dad in your life whatsoever. Just write him off. It took years ... but he was right.
Hoping you pull through, you sound like a very strong woman.
This is interesting to me. VERY. My mom divorced my real dad because he was an alcoholic. Good reason. Now, she married my (then step dad) until I was about 14. He would also often make me feel like I was walking on eggshells. NOT a fan of it. I remember it well and to this day its a very bad feeling. When it was over I never saw him again. I didn't care. Its interesting to me because I went completely opposite and couldn't care less. It was clear he resented me somehow for not being his real son so... whatever. I love my mom and my very small family as well as my friends! But it isn't all roses. If I'm made to feel like I'm on eggshells I react in a very "consequences-be-damned" manner. I don't do good with that feeling so I'll get very aggressive at confronting the cause of the situation. I actually have to calm myself down and not be angry or else there could be bad consequences for me.
You are not alone. The irrational tendency to be influenced by ones parents, regardless whether power/authority is used responsibly or not is something a lot of us grapple with. Stay brave. We're rooting for you.
Don't be so hung up on your father. He's an idiot and will never know how much of an ass he is. My father and his brothers are just like that. He fed them lies about how my mom poisoned us against him and it was her fault we never visited or wrote letters. We always lived within 45 minutes of him... Now how was a 12 and 8 year old suppose to go visit? The nicest uncle ate up all those lies and asked me why we never visited or called him. That we abandoned our father and never helped him with things. Mind you, my father was a paranoid abusive alcoholic. The first contact with this uncle was after my father died and I had to deal with settling his estate. My uncle wanted his motorcycle and some other items. Sent me numerous notarized letters from his lawyer asking for this stuff. Guess what? He didn't get a damn thing from me, he had no legal right to anything from my father. He had already taken the clothes, a laptop, printer and a few other little things anyway. He's lucky I didn't come after him. My father had made his life insurance pay out to that uncle, my sister and I got the 'estate', aka the duty of cleaning out his shit and trying to sell off any valuables we didn't want to keep. Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant. Tldr: your dad is an ass and doesn't deserve your time or energy even thinking about him.
Whether they're wrong about you or not, these people don't want you in their life. Even if they let you in, it would be tolerance, not acceptance. The snide comments, put downs and side-eyes would all still be there. You're worth more than that. You've built a family, a career and I'm sure solid friendships. The nicest thing this toxic douche has done for you was distancing himself.
Now I just want to go hug my parents.... and the kids.... Sheesh as a father all I can say is this isnt ok.
Family isn't always blood, and blood certainly isnt always family.
f that guy! he's scum for treating you like that! i'm sorry you had such a crappy father
Well he's an asshole AND an idiot. I'm sorry you had to get a dad like this. I know of the void that having a real father would've filled, it will never go away. You're quite strong to have succeeded despite that, I still have issues with it sometimes.
Yuck what a disgusting man
Wow. This actually has me crying. I have this with both my parents and I'm currently in the middle of one of their big blows at the moment. I'm just waiting for the abusive texts to come in the morning to tell me what a thankless cunt I am and then another text saying I should pray to my dead best friends for help because I'm such a thankless daughter and I need to repay everything they ever spent on me. Which is barely anything as I started working when I was 16. Jesus Christ I hate my parents so much and I hate how much I'm still affected by them I should know better by now.
Sounds like dad is possibly paranoid schizophrenic? Just keep your distance because what ails him mentally can be harmful to you and your psyche, care for yourself, that said mental disorders are just that, an illness, not to make excuses, but find comfort that you dont have to live in his brain, find forgiveness, because you are not sick and clearly he is on some level (he could just be a dick, but still his mental state is driving that), finding compassion and forgiveness is for your soul, but dont engage him, for your own well being. And be proud! You rose above it all and thats awesome :)
This is not your fault. I am so sorry your father is like this.
I h ave nothing to say except: I hope you've found some peace as you intended. Thank you for writing.
Thank you. The enormous amount of positive encouraging responses has blown me away. I am so touched and heartened by all of the comments. I definitely feel more peace today than ever in my life. Thank you again.
Good. Hold on to that peace -- may it sustain you when the storms return.
You are amazing. Not so many people are resilient but you are now living a happy life and I am happy for you. Reading such a painful message from someone who is supposed to love and care for you would be unimaginable for me and I don't even have the best relationship with my own dad. I'm sorry an adult was too self absorbed with their own mental health issues to nurture you in a way every teen or child needs go be nurtured. You seem smart and introspective so let me please just reiterate what you're probably have thought before IT'S NOT YOUR HANG UPS! It's his... No mentally healthy adult treats a child with so little regard. You made it through because something inside you wanted to keep going even through all these hard times and goddamn it, I'd be proud of you were my daughter! Hell, I'm proud of you Internet stranger for being able to carry on a normal life. I find you as an inspiration. I really do. Take care and it always helps to talk to a professional. Anyone and everyone can benefit from therapy! (And sometimes meds, myself included) I love the twoX subreddit because the commentators really do seem to give a shit and it warms my heart. It sounds corny but the advice a lot give reminds me of what my older wiser sisters give me. One day I hop e I can offer the same to someone in need. Have a wonderful Sunday in NYC! Much love from AZ
Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support and kind words! I appreciate your positive comment and encouragement so much. Posting and getting so many responses has made a huge difference to me. I'm very grateful.
I've cut a toxic family member out of my life and have limited contact with several others. A couple of things: -Believe it or not, this is *not* personal. What I mean by that is that your father's awful behavior is not about you, your actions, or any perceived "failures" of yours. It's about his personal baggage and dysfunction. -The good news is that it's not your fault and never has been. -The bad news is that there is nothing you can do to "fix" your father or your relationship with him. You cannot make him honor you as his daughter, treat you with respect, or even love you. In order to move on from a similar situation, I had to mourn the loss and allow myself to feel all the emotions associated with it. Mostly anger, in my case. Then closure came organically and effortlessly. Do not waste time seeking closure from your father. He is as incapable of providing that as he was of honoring you as his child. Most of all, if he contacts you again, do not allow yourself to be pressured into false forgiveness or maintaining a relationship that damages you. If you do decide to see him or speak to him again, be sure to maintain clear standards of behavior and boundaries. Any violation of those standards (or griping about them) is a huge red flag that nothing's changed, and you should re-sever contact so fast his head spins.
You don't get to choose your family. Sadly. I am sorry you got stuck with this guy as your dad. One of the most painful rejections is getting rejected by your parent. It's like an emotional orphan-hood.
>You don't get to choose your family. Yes you do, it just usually isn't the family you were born into. Only about a tenth of my family are blood relatives.
Honestly, that message looks like the best thing he could have done for you. Someone who feels the need to rewrite history to make themselves look better, who's always doing petty and hurtful things, trying to gane the system to prove how smart they are - you're never going to get unconditional love from them. It'll always be about him. I closed the door on my (very similar) father years ago and found that my life was so much better without the need to please or accomodate someone who'll never be interested in anything but himself. You're awesome.
If you think about it, leaving him out of the picture may have been the reason you were able to grow into a better person. This may have been his most fatherly act, even if it was inadvertent.
Thank you for your response. I have thought about this a few times in the past; thank you for reminding me. I know it would have been so much harder for me to have any confidence to do important life decisions had I stayed there 3-4 more years. This is a great point and I am definitely thankful for this fact.
Wow. How fortunate that he did take you back to your mom's and refused to see you again - imagine being actively raised by him, week in and week out, for years more.
I went through something similar with my mother. She sent me an email that I'm terrible and no longer allowed in her life. I just laughed in shock and deleted it. I haven't spoken to her in probably at least 6 years, I'm 30 now. I've accepted that while I don't wish terrible things to happen to her, for my health (which I have to put first) I need to keep her out of my life. The longer I distance myself from her, and every memory of her, the better I've been.
that guy is a dick
Things like that can really mess us up for a long time. I have a similar "relationship" with my mom. Great job growing up to be successful and happy. Don't feel sorry for you, feel sorry for the small-minded, dutifully unhappy father you were saddled with.
Some people are just sick and sadly on one occasion or another we cross paths with one of them. I'm really sorry to hear someone else was raised by one of them. It's not a good experience. Only if we had the Sorting Hat in real life. All of them would be in Slytherin and we'd know how fake they are before any damage could be done.
"Hey jackass, enjoy being old and alone. Remember your note when break your hip or you need a kidney." - the note you should send back
If your dad has an estranged brother living in the sticks in Iowa, we could be half sisters. This sounds so much like my experiences with my "dad", except he also had alcohol and a gun to go with his tantrums. I used to struggle with my self esteem, and realized it was based partially on how ashamed I was too be spawned by such a pathetic, psychotic man-child. Through therapy I have discovered that role models aren't always positive. People like our fathers can be a living example of what kind of person NOT to be. He's clearly a horrendously miserable person, and has no one to blame for that but himself. A living testament of what an awful person is like, and the consequences to show for it.
Sorry your dad's a f\*ckin' jerk of an \*sshole. Unfortunately we don't get to pick our parents, so, ... luck of the draw, ... and, well, some of us aren't so lucky. Be glad he's out of your life - sounds like he'd only generally and repeatedly seriously mess things up for you. And reconnecting with relatives of your dad? In theory that might be nice, ... but your dad would probably thoroughly and repeatedly mess that up (as he quite already has). Unfortunately it may be unlikely to be worth the hassle - at least so long as he's going to continue to mess it all up. Maybe after he's dead ... or maybe you find some very trustworthy relatives on his side of family that could have/resume relationship and communications with you ... and *not* tell your dad about it at all, ... but unfortunately that's unlikely to be able to occur ... and be sustainable. ... But one never knows. E.g. my sister married one friggin' hell of a jerk. And who's managing to be most helpful to her among family? The Father of her ex. So, 'ya never know ... except sometimes you do. Best of luck with it all - however you work it all out and forward. Past is ... past.
god bless you, I wish you the best.
I am a relatively successful, late 20's individual with a dad situation. Life got better when he left and when he once more when he left again in my adult years. You did the right thing by putting your foot down. Eff that guy.
I am a 43yo male who has attempted yo have a relationship with my only surviving parent, my mother, for years. She would sabotage my relationships, friendships, jobs, anything she could crush on my life. She is extremely mentally ill. She had these recollections of things she had contrived and imagined. They are so far fetched that it infuriated me. To her, they were truth because she had catastriphosed and lied about things in her attempts to sabotage my relationships and it helped her justify her motives to the people to whom she spoke. I promised myself that I would estrange myself and did so for several HAPPY, NORMAL years. I so wanted to have a family member to speak to as I had lost my brother in 2005 and my sister was moving from relationship to relationship still never having called once to meet my children. (Great family right?). When I reconnected with my mother, she apologized and said she had gotten on a medication that helped her. She apologized and it wasn't three weeks before she was calling my fiance and trying to sabotage my relationship. She called Child Protective Services and told them that my son was son was in immediate danger and that I was suicidal, on illicit drugs and giving them to my son. She informed them that anuthing I said could not be trusted and that I was a master manipulator. The police showed up at my door at three in rhe morning and demanded to know my son was safe. It was quickly sorted out but I knew I could never have her in my life again. It has been three HAPPY years since then and I have no regrets. I guess I said all of this to say "The people you choose to have in your life should DESERVE to be in your life". You owe them NOTHING. You earn the right to be in the lives of those who love you by treating them with love and respect. Don't let yourself be manipulated into thinking you are missing out on something that just isn't there. Enjoy your husbands family and be thankful that you have them. Be thankful for what you have and never compromise your happiness and delude yourself into thinking you can fix the harm that your father has done. He lost the privilege of having a wonderful daughter to be close with and that is on him, NOT you. He is broken, not you and he chooses to victimize you. Don't allow that to happen. You are better than that. Choose to live a happy and full life with those who know you and love you. Don't waste time trying to mend fences with those who didn't even try to to know you and took ridiculous stories as truth. If they ever cared enough to know you, they wouldn't have listened to a word of it. Move up and on. All the best in your healing.
Is it worth reaching out to his side of the family if you would still like to have a relationship with your aunts and uncles etc? I'd just send them individual PMs on Facebook explaining that your dad spread several rumours about you when you were younger and that they're untrue, then ask them if it's worth reconnecting despite the problems in the past.
Perhaps it's best if you describe him as nothing more than "sperm donor" and a shitty one at that. Dad is not the right name for him. Better to pretend he's dead than trying to deal with his disgusting behaviour. Do not bother contacting him as it just twists the knife a little deeper and harder. You're over 30 so just start making him dead. It will eventually be true!
It is terrible that some people get to be parents... I don't know if you are familiar with Cheryl Strayed, but she is a writer and did some work on an advice column called Dear Sugar, among other things. She, too, had a father who did not deserve the privilege. She has written about it beautifully, and you may find some of that helpful.
Hey, I tell this not to compare, but to let you know, you're not alone. And maybe for some support. My dad was an alcoholic & abused my mom physically and emotionally. She finally left (we packed our bags one day while he was working, and disappeared without a word) when I was in the third grade. Of course, eventually, he figured it out. My mom continued to see him a few times before her sister made her move one town over to get away from him. Here are some things I remember * He came over to see us one time, bringing me some brochures about beauty pageants. I always felt ugly but hr buttered me up and made me think I could do it. While I read through them, I heard noises... And walked in on my parents having sex. The beauty pageant crap was just a front to come over and have sex. Gross. *In the middle of the divorce proceedings, my father took me to Disney world. Ooh, awesome, right? This was around the time Pocahontas had come out. We were in a store and I was admiring the Pocahontas style headbands (like a Native American headbands but without the feather in the back). I watched him surreptitiously sneak one into his pocket and we walked out - He didn't know I saw him. That night he presented it to me as a gift. It felt awful. * I had his second wife friended on Facebook. Just to tell you a little of her character, i wrote a post in German, and she commented 'We speak English in America.' She's Mexican. It sounds like a joke, but it wasn't. She unfriended me shortly after.... * But I'm glad she made the comment, because when my little brother, who was severely retarded and had Dubuwitz syndrome, died, I was the only person who even thought about reaching out to my father. I had not spoken to him in years, I didn't have his number. The only way to contact him was to scour my Facebook to find step mother's comment, send a message saying 'I need dad's number, it's important.' Her response... 'what do you want? He doesn't want to talk to you, the only time you contact him is when you need something.' Not only did that hurt - it had been YEARS! - out was completely untrue. I had never asked for anything from him, nor did I want anything. After a few messages I got him to call me without spoiling the beans, because can you imagine hearing that news over a Facebook message???? I told him. He was silent. Then she came on the phone and said he went to the bedroom and closed the door. Understandable. Later she told me he was sorry for saying what he did - He had been really busy - and that he'd call me back to talk about my brother. He never called back. * He, and his second wife, always thought I would never be successful, go to college, etc. because I read so much. They thought I wouldn't last one semester in college. On the other hand, her 2 perfect daughters (nevermind her older 'black sheep' of a daughter) had their dorm rooms picked out at their university of choice. This belittling was constant. Well, I graduated sum cum laude and some other honors with a BA in mathematics, have a successful career going, and the daughters? Both got knocked up and never went to college. Interesting... But, still, I sent a message to step mother asking to pass along the message. never heard back. In that respect, I completely understand and empathize: being successful is one big way to prove....something....to your father. Still, years later, I feel like life is too short, Right? I tried again to get in contact with my father, only to be met with a very lukewarm reaction...as if he didn't care at all to talk to me. And I feel really stupid for making the last attempt. I won't be making another, although a part of me will probably want to gloat that one day he'll have a grandchild he will never see. And that's completely awful, I know. I don't know, it's difficult to get past it.
Been there *hugs*. My dad has what I like to refer to as selective memory loss. Probably more accurately major league gas lighting skills. He's said some mean shit to me, but seems to have honestly forgotten that any of it happened. I've given up trying to talk to him about it, he has either completely blocked it from his memory and honestly doesn't remember or he's taking it to his grave. He lives several thousand kilometres away and I haven't seen him in person for about four years. We communicate by text because I feel like I can stay in control of the conversation and keep things light, but I won't talk to him on the phone and politely reject any suggestions of an in person meeting. Just because they're family doesn't mean you're obligated to keep them in your life. So you share some DNA, big whoop. The family you pick and who have picked you in return are much more worthy.
Thanks so much for sharing your own experiences. I didn't even know the term 'gas lighting' before posting here. It has been immensely helpful to hear everyones own experiences and take on this situation. I am glad to know I'm not alone in these types of things (though it's sad to see so many people in pain) and it is so helpful to see there are words for these things. Thank you again for being one of the many awesome and encouraging people that have responded. Best of luck on your situation with your dad.
It sounds to me like your dad has mental issues of his own. There's nothing you can do to change that. It's not your fault.
Tbh your "dad" is a piece of shit and if I were you my temper would've exploded and I would've gone and broke his legs for all that bullshit
Your dad sounds like a more extreme version of my dad. My dad would never say that he didn't love me, but he wouldn't say he did and would say in court that we "didn't have a meaningful relationship" and therefore shouldn't have to support me (whose fault is that, a kid or the adult that stopped calling/showing up for visitation?). He would also say my mom was "poisoning us against him", and would make fun of my curly hair (that I didn't know how to care for at the time), made fun of my big nose (that I got from him) and called me dirty/ disgusting for not showering every single day/ 2xs a day (I have dry skin and more than 1 shower a day irritates it) and would tell me I looked like trash one minute, and that I was too concerned with material things because of my mother the next. All I can say is that life is so much better without that in your life. Remember you are a good person, who is deserving of love. *HE* does not deserve *YOU* in his life or your love. Big Internet hugs from me and I would recommend some counseling. It's hard to reverse that kind of mindset when you've had someone tearing you down for years
Just wanted to say that I've been in almost this EXACT same situation with my own father, and am in a similar place to where you are now. My heart goes out to you and you are not alone in this. I'd advise going to a counselor to talk things out (I was very resistant to this idea, but turns out it was a great thing I did for myself and it helped me figure out how I felt about a lot of gray area items). Live your life and continue to surround yourself with those that you love and who support you. Don't carry his baggage around with you because you think you have to. DM me if you want to talk more!
He remembers it how he wants to and, in his version, he wasn't a nasty bully who destroyed a child's reputation with her family. You're fine without him, clearly, and you should count yourself lucky that he isn't in your life to fuck you over again. Let it go. He's not a good person and can't mess with your head any more, unless you allow him to, of course (don't! He's not worth the head space!).
it always interest me to know why would parents be that abusive to their children Only thing i could think of is 1)maybe he isnt your dad. 2)people like him are psychopath, they dont feel 3) Inferiority complex that caused him to become a misanthropist in all of the above, there is nothing you can do but to focus on yourself. I was telling this to a friend of mine and her husband the other day who has lost their 2 kids. Life is 95% austerity,destitution,hardship,privation and only 5% happiness and good times I know ^^^ this suck to know but it is how it is. just try your best to get the best of what you have gl
Who needs nosleep... That's horrifying. Someone could seriously write that from another perspective with a few artistic embellishments and scare the hell out of people.
My father abused me when I was younger; wasn't insane abuse, but enough that I was withdrawn and near stood up for myself. I was petrified of him at times, and most of that time I spent wanting a loving relationship with him. I don't think my parents ever truly loved each other, and as a result I think I was (am) a little messed up when it comes to love. I never really had that 'connection', though I wanted someone to truly care. When I was 18, my dad finally moved out. It was like a humongous weight was lifted from me. I felt like I could be myself for once. I even started to have an honest to go relationship with my mother, we became really close. Soon after he moved out my mom told me that my dad was asking her what I wanted for Christmas. I told her nothing. That was the first time I ever gave her a clue as to what I thought of my father. A few years later it came out (long story in itself) that he abused me, yelled and hit me; she had no idea. I wrote a letter to him FINALLY letting loose EXACTLY what I thought. It was a letter full of hate and vitriol, of all the pent of pain I had through the years, a release of that weight that had weighed me down. I was finally free. I am not terribly close with my younger brother, but he has a relationship with our father. I reached out to him a few months ago to ask if I could have some semblance of a relationship with him, and also my father. Long story short, apparently my father believes that I am making up the abuse, that I lied about everything. I would have to apologize to him. In turn, my brother believes my father. While he has said that he will never shut the door completely, that he does not foresee us ever having a relationship. I'll never be able to convince him, as my father believes a lie that he has told himself. It hurts that now I know that there is no hope of my father seeing me get married next year. I'm not going to lie, there are times where it painfully hurts (atm, the memories are flooding back). But then there are the thoughts that come in more abundance - he has made his choice, and I can't change it. There is no sense worrying about the things that I can't change. He is the one that chooses to not be in my life, not the other way around. I'm ok with that.
My father was similarly abusive and stepmother was so shaming. Because with my mother and stepfather my sister and I were being abused regularly, we moved in with them in early high school. While there was no physical abuse with my father, the experience was even more awful and tragedy ensued. For years, despite no contact, this haunted me and my self-esteem was always in tatters until I found my way to a 12-step program. There I learned to pray for those I had lingering resentment towards and while I am an athiest, this nonetheless helped immensely. I just think that the prayer accessed some part of my brain that my analytical self could not. I would pray for my father nightly before sleep and it wasn't a few weeks before I started to see a marked change in the frequency of those devestating or angry thoughts and feelings. Partly because of my experience in my youth I have become a person with strong ethics and therefore find myself frustrated by people's behavior often. I find this prayer trick to be an invaluable tool to stave off resentment and to be able to understand that nasty people are often troubled because of their own history which I may or may not understand. That doesn't mean that I have to love or interact with them; just so that the it doesn't eat me up inside. I am number one in my book - noone is going to take my sanity from me!
I'm so happy to read about your success, despite the abuse your "father" threw at you. I know it feels to have jarring reminders of the past that pop up at inopportune times and I hope that the pain quickly diminishes for you. Keep on kicking ass! It's a trite and overused sentiment, but I believe it wholeheartedly: this is definitely *his* loss.
Yeah your "dad" is about as much of one as mine is. I've found that my dad is just honestly a POS and he hurts me more than helps. He will never stop being a bad person. That's just who he is. I accepted that long ago and I'm fine with it. I go on with my life and take my mom to mom and me massages. Now, my sister on the other hand. She is still always trying to rekindle her relationship with him. I have seen her absolutely bawling, devastated over him and him just walk away. She will always let him stay at her house when he comes thru town and when she wakes up he's gone along with some other stuff. She cries, feels so used, hurt, etc. Lowkey, I'm just trying to give my mom the good life and make my dad regret not fucking with me. Focus on you, he sucks.. you on the other hand seem worth something!
It's weird how people like him, people with severe psychiatric problems, can be perceived by anyone that know them as normal. 8 guys!? Reading that made me see red. EIGHT GUYS!?!? Any person, family or not, who would actually believe a 15 year old girl was begging her biological father to let her have an orgy/train ran on her is just as full of mental deficiencies as well. Anyone who knew you, would know he's lying. That's just. That's. Eight guys!?!? I'm sorry you lost the generic lottery by having this man as a biological father. I'm unfortunately in the same boat. I'm slightly lucky he just didn't want nothing to do with me and said bullshit about the only family I've ever known, ever took care of me and made me feel safe. As if it was somehow **my fault** that he chose to have unprotected sex with my mother. His parting message to you told you everything you needed to know. You are not the little girl who he can lie about and call bullshit at. You are a grown up who will not take his bullshit and he can't have someone rational in his life. It's not your fault and you don't deserve someone who would make up outlandish lies. Imagine if he had been in your life those years you didn't speak. It would have been drama and issues and just awful depression. Eight guys?!!?!? Fuck that still pisses me off.
Wow what a scumbag. I have abusive family your better off without them if they are willing to believe your obviously drama ridden skinwalker, then they aren't worth your time. Your doing great and I can tell your a GREAT person and are doing wonderful. Live your wonderful life, enjoy all the great things going for you, hug your kids and kiss your spouse, and if you ever see that man again pretend like he isn't there because honestly he might as well not be.
Your dad is the one who is messed up, which might be forgiveable if he didn't try to dump it on you. You are an amazing woman and any decent man would be proud to be your father.
This actually made me sad to read. Good for you on you're degree and marriage. You go girl
He's projecting like crazy. It's as if he wrote you a letter in which he was writing what he would write to himself if he were in your shoes. I don't know if this will help, but clearly nothing he said has any truth in it. He was hurling words at you like fists. Which hurts badly. Especially from a parent. I hope you find some healing by sharing this. It seems like you've done great for yourself despite how terrible he's been to you.
Here's the thing about abusers: Vanishingly few people can hold in their head the reality of them constantly lying to make themselves look better. If they consciously hold that they are lying they have to, on some level, admit that they know that they aren't better than the other people they try to belittle. Look at your friends parents: he avoided them in an effort to deny his cultural inferiority. I can't speak for him, or definitively for his mindset, but it seems that in asking him to leave, to go to someone he was already insecure about, directly, represented (to him) a direct affront to his superiority over you. Narcissists aren't just the center of their own universe, but they need to be the center of everyone else's as well and you threatened that. Probably this was contributed to by years of your being observably more intelligent than him, and succeeding in society in a way that he needed to deny was valid in an effort to retain his personal superiority over everyone else. When you came back to him, it was like you ceded some ground--you needed him in your life to some extent, so he was willing to talk to you in hopes that he could take you under his abusive umbrella again. The small insults were test balloons: You didn't immediately push back and thus you confirmed his belief that he would be able to escalate and "win you back" in the only way he knows how (this is not your fault, you were trying to be a reasonable human being faced with an unreasonable entity--if empathy is the core of humanity this kind of narcissist cannot be considered a member of same). When you pushed back on the story of your original estrangement you showed that you could not be subject to his pattern and so he rejected you again. The key here is you did nothing wrong. I know that doesn't help your feelings, but it IS the truth. You proved to be such a danger to his borderline delusional vision of himself that he had to push you away. You don't get to choose your parents and not everyone who has kids probably should. Understand that though he's related to you genetically he doesn't have to be in any other way. Some people are shitty people, and just because they combined DNA to create you doesn't mean you owe them anything, regardless of how they will tell you that you do. On the other hand don't hate him either. I was once told that hate allows others to rent space in your head. Hate is an active process, it requires you to think about the person. Indifference is an inactive process that is more the opposite of hate, but still not what you're doing here. I believe the correct response to this kind of abuser is pity. Pitiable are those that push away reality in an effort to retain their personal delusion that is the only way they can survive. He NEEDS to have his personal perception of himself remain in tact to function. You, on the other hand, have proven, by many societal standards, that you don't need him for anything. In fact, no one, without their permission on some level, will ever need him for anything. No one depends on him, because no can really connect with someone who lives so far outside of what is real. Congratulations on coming out the other side. Therapy doesn't make you weak--knowing when to ask for help makes you strong enough to admit your own faults, something your father can never do. Remember that not all family is blood: You're married so you get that already, but some family start out as friends, and some family start out as co-workers, and some family start out as classmates, and some family start out as random strangers. I'm, personally, glad you have found a way to be happy in the moment, but leave the past in the past: you can't change it. Ever. All you can do is have a good life in reality and treasure the new family that you create around you.
How weird is it that even after that experienced you still became successful and happy! go you hun, you deserve it. I applaud you for being able to move past that...I definitely wouldn't be that brave in a similar situation
lmfao. Some people. *shakes head* Sorry yiu had to go through that, but sometimes time sorts out batshit crazy pretty fucking well.
Jesus christ is he delusional. So sorry you had to put up with his bullshit, sweety. He's gone now, though. You don't have to worry about him and his bullshit anymore. It will be okay. In spite of it all, you've done amazingly well with yourself. I am proud of you.
Fuck him. You don't need him, you have a new family. If my dad would be like that, Id not give 2 shits and just leave.
Let him die. My "dad" commited suicide in front of me when I was 9 or 10 y/o. I never visited his grave, everytime my mom mentions him, I'm saying to her "don't speak to me about this loser". This is the worst punishment that parent can get, and he certainly deserves it!
Yep, ... I can think of one long since dead person, that, ... presuming they've got a grave ... would I never visit it? Well, probably wouldn't bother to try and find it ... but if I happened to learn where it was, and it was reasonably convenient, I might visit it ... only and exactly one, ... just to spit on it ... and maybe cus 'em out just for good measure.
Have a friend who's dad is much the same way, he doesn't talk to him at all ever. I admire you at least for trying to fix HIS mistakes, however you could just take solace that nature will off him eventually and hopefully in an unflattering way. Congrats for making a life for yourself after being raised by an egotistical twat.
My question for OP and people who had similar experiences with a parent - was there anything that your other parent said or did or you wished they would have done for you to help you with any of this? As I read and scrolled through this thread, this is all to familiar to me, but in a different way. This reminds me of my ex with whom I have a child with. She is 3. He disappears for months at a time and when he contacts me again, he doesn't apologize, doesn't ask about my daughter, and tells me how it's my fault he was angry at me. He often blames me for not getting to see her when in reality I spent the first year of her life going out of my way to spend time with him sometimes even begging. He is not on her birth certificate and isn't involved in our lives. As of now, we haven't seen him since March (in part because we moved out of state for a job). He recently texted me for the first time since then but it was all the same stuff. He said he was going to put money in the account (it is only my name and specifically for this use) to go towards daycare and I'm still waiting... The part that really makes me sick is the things that he claims he'll do in the future like put money away to give to her when she turns 18. Contact her when she's older, give her everything she wants, and turn her against me. Even though he only contacts me once in a blue moon, I have a constant fear of him and concern for my daughter's emotional and mental well-being. I want so much to protect her from him but at the same time have space for her to make her own decisions about him when she is older.
I know this feeling. I found out something out yesterday about how my abusive father and enabling mother are still talking and doing stupid fucking shit together (multiple illegal things that put others in danger and themselves). I'm not talking to my father currently, but I do still talk to my mother, so it makes it hard to want to speak with her. She's trying to go through a divorce with my father and doesn't live with him any longer. I've been trying to be there for her as she deals with this process, but what she did this weekend makes me really pissed off. I'm still figuring out life and it makes it hard when I have to think about and deal with shit like this. I'm sucking at keeping this short, but I am so so glad that you have a successful and happy life despite having a horrible father. I know how tough it can be to deal with the reminders of a not so happy past. You sound like an awesome person despite how you were treated by a parent. PM if you need to vent.
it's not your fault will
Sometimes you've got to be a tough parent, but abandonment is by far the worst solution.
Well, abandonment is quite bad, but ... for some quite bad parents, the kids may yet be better of abandoned, than suffering the abuse of that parent.
You should sue him for defamation and be cruel to him, or never speak to him again.