Wishing a good day to survivors of bad fathers

[no_hypocrisy]

My father made a lot of mistakes with me and kept on going. When he died, he continued what he started by leaving me with a pile of debts and disinheriting me while leaving his neighbor $35,000.

My sister and brother received a variation of the same fatherly love, so we can't say there was favoritism.

Dad showed more affection for his dog than for us and taunted us with it.

He died two years ago because he was in a car accident that he caused and refused medical attention and hid the incident from me and my siblings. As a consequence he suffered a fatal heart attack a week later.

I don't miss him. I didn't cry when he died and I still don't feel like crying. I don't hate him but I don't miss him either.

And I don't feel like Fathers Day is something I could celebrate even posthumously.

To this day I don't understand why a father would want to hurt his child(ren) in any way (physically, emotionally, psychologically). My father only spanked me once when I was 2-1/2 and that was enough for me. I was never close to him after that. We merely lived together.

BTW, I returned to take care of him after Mom died, about a month before he died. He was desperately trying to push me out of the house while leaning on the ($35,000) neighbor for help. I don't know why.

I kind of hope this is a solitary writing and nobody has been through my experience. But in case you have, I offer you my solidarity.

[MADem]

1. How terribly sad-I am sorry you had to go through all that.

Learning to be a good parent is something that probably needs to be taught to some people, because they can't rely on local example. I know some schools are addressing this prior to the "teen pregnancy" phase of life.

Some people just never learn HOW to parent--they go with what they know-- and unfortunately, they pass it on. Children learn what they live, as they say.

I have to credit the "celebrities" who do model the attributes of a good parent, even if they sell the pictures to PEOPLE or HELLO! magazine. At least there's a visual representation of caring parenting out there for kids in bad spots to see, and realize that their experience is not the paradigm.

[onethatcares]

2. I was my dads punching bag

and neither he or my mom could figure out why I ran away from home a bazillion times when I was a kid.

got beat with belts, boards, hands, whatever was handy

had my hands held over a trash fire to teach me not to play with matches because I had taken a steak, a potato and an apple
to cook in the woods over a fire that was totally safe inside a rock ring. (this was the late 50s)

He never talked about anything but work,

When he died I shed no tears, I don't think I'll shed tears for my mom either. She was an enabler or maybe she had her own
private hell with him.

Our family is the most dysfunctional that I have ever seen.

It's taken me years to come to terms with his abuse. He fucked my relations with my sons up so bad because I had no idea
how a parent was supposed to act so.

I stand in solidarity with you.

[mrmpa]

4. My older brother cried..........

when Mr. Rogers dies. Brother said that Mr. Rogers taught him how to be a father. I've come to terms with my dad's behavior. I know that he suffered from depression and PTSD (Korean War). Was an alcoholic because of this.

He learned late in life to be a father. He was an excellent grandfather.

[djean111]

3. Hey, every father's day, until he died, my task was to find a card that said

Yes, you certainly are my father. No flowery bullshit. It would have read as sarcasm.

Verbal and physical abuse. I visited him - my boyfriend at the time could not comprehend why i had not talked to him in thirty years - because we had one free Delta ticket, and it was me to my father, or boyfriend to Vegas.

Phone call - dad, this is djean111
dad - we (he and second wife) have no money, and our house is too small.
Me - I just was going to visit for two days, I don't want anything from you.
dad - oh, okay then.

Highlight of visit, I was standing in front of him and he raised his arm to scratch his head, and I flinched. I was about 50- 55.

Dead now. Second wife and kids inherited whatever was there. Not angry, just meh.

So I understand. Best wishes and peace to you!

[mnhtnbb]

5. I understand

although my father happened to be the good parent.

It's mother's day that causes me similar feelings. I didn't cry when she died--although I was the one who had to fly all the way across the country
to deal with the aftermath of her death because my brother (her favorite and the one who could do no wrong) was out of the country. And I swear, if there does turn out to
be an afterlife, if her spirit shows up to greet me, I will tell her to fuck off.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Yeah, I got one of those. Not physically abusive (to me) but just doesn't like people ...

... no exceptions for family members.

Couldn't be persuaded to part with money for just about any reason, unless to indulge his hobbies.

We're basically just waiting for him to die ... curious what will happen to his money, not much chance it will help any of us.

It sure would have been nice to have a real father. No one is going to miss him when he's gone.

[LiberalEsto]

7. I'm still trying to figure out what happened with my father during WW2 and afterward

Last edited Sun Jun 19, 2016, 09:49 PM - Edit history (1)

Some years ago, long after he died, I visited my aunt, his sister, in Estonia. She told me stories of what a generous and wonderful and fun-loving older brother he had been to her. He bought her pretty dresses and took her to the theater.

I started crying as she spoke. I told her I had never seen that side of him, only a stingy, sour, angry father who hit me with a belt if I made too much noise, or argued with my younger brother, or whatever else displeased him. A father who slapped me as a small toddler for the crime of twirling around in my dress and laughing. He cursed and yelled a lot, or sulked in moody silence. (I was older and was blamed for any arguments with my brother) I remember in high school begging my mother to try to wheedle a dollar out of him for a pair of knee socks, because I was afraid to ask him for anything. I wore ugly out of date hand-me-downs from a second cousin who was much older. And he'd bought his sister new dresses! Took her to see plays! I felt so envious of my aunt, and so sad.

My aunt could not believe her ears when I told her how he had treated me. She had stayed in Estonia with her own father when the Soviets occupied the country in 1944. My father escaped; their brother was already living abroad. My father. who was rejected for combat because of severe nearsightedness, ended up in a displaced persons camp in postwar Germany, where he met my mother, also a refugee from Estonia. They married and emigrated to the U.S. in 1949. I was born in NYC a few years later. Correspondence with relatives back in Estonia, behind the Iron Curtain, was heavily censored and infrequent. My father managed in the early 1980s to go back for a brief visit but was estricted by Soviet authorities to the capital, Tallinn, and forbidden to visit his home town or other places. My aunt, cousins and a few other relatives were permitted to visit him at the hotel, but were afraid to say much because the room was probably bugged.

So she didn't know almost anything about what happened to him when he left Estonia, only that he had gone to the U.S., had a wife and two kids. A few photos were exchanged by mail. Though I didn't know many details, I filled her in on his stay in the DP camp and departure to the U.S.

"What happened to him?" she asked me as she struggled to understand how the charming brother she once knew became so mean. I said I didn't know. My mother used to tell me about her war experiences, stories that gave me nightmares as a kid. But he never talked with me much about anything. I grew up convinced that he hated me.

I have such issues about him that I can't go to Christian churches because I can't stand the concept of God the Father, cannot imagine a loving male deity. I turned to the Goddess decades ago.

[Kaleva]

8. My mother-in-law's father was wrecked by the war

One could argue he was a war hero but as a civilian, he should have been locked away in prison.

[OriginalGeek]

9. I survived a bad step-father

and became a half-decent one. Got calls and texts from my sons and my daughter took me out for dinner.

Thought about how much I miss my dad and didn't even think once about calling my step-father. Talked to him for a few minutes at Mom's funeral several years ago so that'll do until I can pee on his grave. (Figure I might as well live up to my status as worst step-child in history.)

[a la izquierda]

10. My dad wasn't particularly bad, but he wasn't great either.

Granted, he's still alive, but I have a very different relationship with him now. He was a philander who was rarely around. I don't think he ever watched me play a single softball game, swim in a meet, or run track while I was in high school. I had to pay (or actually borrow) my way through college because his new wife wouldn't allow him to pay his court-mandated college tuition for me; my mom and I were too poor to afford an attorney to challenge this. Thus, I started life tens of thousands in debt.

I'm currently my dad's therapist. He called me the day my beloved grandma died to tell me he was having an affair and that my brother came out of the closet. I didn't know what to say about his affair; he didn't really worry about my brother.

Father's Day is tough, as I see everyone posting on Facebook about how great their dads are. I can't do that.

Now my mom, on the other hand...she's amazing.

[raccoon]

11. Bull, he just didn't want to pay it. That was his bullshit excuse.

because his new wife wouldn't allow him to pay his court-mandated college tuition for me;

People often blame their spouses when they don't want to take responsibility for their behavior.

Anyway, that was shitty of your father. Sorry that happened to you.

I had a shitty father too. He always had it too easy growing up, had his mother to bail him out of trouble over and over.
I remember him as an abusive, scary alcoholic.

He died when I was a kid. At least I got survivor SS.