Just said goodbye to my 70 year old dad following a visit, and feel terrible that what I primarily feel is relief that he is gone and heavy, heavy guilt that this is my feeling. Basically, I find him irritating, dull and selfish
I loved him as a little girl and was fiercely loyal to him as a teenager as a result, but looking back things are less clear. Small things, like the way holidays were always about him/my mum and what they wanted, which was lying sprawled on the beach for days at a time while we 'entertained' ourselves, got sunburn and nearly drowned on several occasions. Sent my brother and I to school with horrible cheap school bags from the market (social death as a 90s teenager, and we pleaded with him not to - plenty of money so no problems there) and made us wear horrible cheap trainers and clothes. Sneered and jeered if we wanted to watch a soap or TV programme he didn't like.
After our mum died he walked out - couldn't cope, got married again, she didn't like kids so that was that. Had very little contact with him until he left woman#1, took up with woman#2 (who liked us, the feeling was reciprocated) and then took up with woman#3, who is pleasant enough but is similar to him to be honest: a bit irritating and fussy.
He has rewritten our childhood to be this great, lovely, exciting time when the reality was more like he and my mum standing back, watching us nearly get run over/drown/burn alive and then telling us off for it. Being bullied at school, largely because the two of them made us social pariahs. He also makes stuff up randomly and I know he does. It's very strange.
He takes no interest in anything that doesn't concern him directly - no current events or news, he doesn't keep in touch with old colleagues or family I might know so if I say "how is Bill, heard from Maureen?" he doesn't know. A conversation about books involves him wittering for nearly half an hour while he tells you the plot of the novel in such excruciatingly close detail that even if you wanted to read it there is no point. Went to the cinema at Christmas to see The Hobbit as we'd read it when I was a kid - endless complaining about too much fighting. Won't eat anywhere but Wetherspoons, even when I'm paying: just won't hear of it. Constantly pokes and fiddles and noses around the house to the extent i'm on edge whenever he's here. All he wants to talk about are his own journeys and trips in mind-numbing detail "well we packed the caravan, we saw we needed milk so we went to Asda, but they'd run out of skimmed so we had to buy semi and then we realised we needed butter as well so we went to Tesco and they had semi and we said, ha ha ha, we said we should have just come here in the first place! And then ..."
He treats me like a child, which I know can be par for the course with parents, but it just makes me want to cringe when (for example) we smell cow manure and he wrinkles up his nose and says in a silly high-pitched voice, "OOOH! Have you TRUMPED?" I'm 32, ffs. And every time he says something like that, I feel, just fleetingly, like I hate him.
I feel awful about this, as I just dread seeing him and hate it when he visits, and it seems so mean to describe my dad in this unflattering way. But his rewriting of history and lack of ability to see outside of himself is REALLY challenging my ability to like him as an equal adult when he persists in treating me like a naughty teenager.
What CAN I do?
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My dad
10 replies
themoonandback · 12/04/2013 15:58
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