Wife, mother, loyal friend to the end, model, classic car collector. almost 30 years old, and seen alot in my few years here on earth. People usually come to me for advice, and i give in return grounded, realistic answers.
Gender: Female Location: San diego Member Since: January 18, 2005 Answers: 822 Last Update: June 30, 2016 Visitors: 35340
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Favorite Columnists Dragonflymagic adviceman49
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What do you do when your dad, who is a crazy, ridiculous control freak tries to dictate who you marry? My dad is insane (I know that's disrespectful to say about your dad and I'm sorry), but he just doesn't want me to be able to run my own life. I've looked up the signs of an overly controlling parent on the internet and he has almost all of them.
I'm an adult (I'm 27) and he tries to control what I eat, what kind of car I drive, who I have as my friends, where and when I go to church, and other such things. Most irritatingly, he tried to control where I went to college, what classes I took, when I moved out of his and my mom's house, and what career path I chose. When I refuse to do as he says, he can have a giant fit and gets C-R-A-Z-Y. He makes me feel smothered and it's extremely unpleasant to be around him.
Now, what would you do if you had a father like this? What would you do if your boyfriend, who you love more than life, asked your father for your hand in marriage and your dad said no. He honestly believes he can stop me from marrying who I want to and I'm afraid of what will happen to our relationship when I go against his wishes.
If your dad just hated your boyfriend and insists that you two won't get married and knows you two are planning to get married against his will. He's threatened to put a stop to it, which he can't, but it's annoying that he thinks he can. It's also scary because he's the kind of guy who'd pull something like ruin the wedding IF he showed up at all. What would you do? (link)
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WOW, first of all im sorry your going through this. Its awful when a parent just cant get themselves together and act like a mature adult.
I dont know what you mean by "he gets crazy" but i hope you can fix this so that he behaves himself.
If he is the type of person that would potentially "try to pull something" as you put it at your wedding then i wouldnt chance it. Depending on how far off the wedding is, you might try staying calm and talking to him logically and saying "if your against my wedding then im sorry but i cant have you there, and i would be sad because i would hope that you would support me in this but im not going to let you ruin my special day"
let him stew on that for a while, and see how he starts acting, see if his actions start to change at all towards you. I would start with small statements here and there to get him thinking about the way hes acting.
Be a little firmer over time and make sure he knows that hes basically on probation from this point on if hes going to be allowed to be at your wedding. most importantly stay calm, dont feed into the BS and yell or show emotion back. usually overly emotionally people feed off your reaction so whatever you do just stay calm, show a blank face, and just stare and see how he reacts if hes surprised by that at all.
you could also try saying things in a very calm quiet manner, without ness. making eye contact but letting him know in a casual off handed way that "well if your going to act like this then...." and then add on to whatever it is you want to say.
If he wants to burn bridges with people that care about him then hes going to die alone and even more unhappy then he already is.
usually ill throw that one in there, in a calm manner while also letting them know that they are over reacting and are ruled by nothing but their emotions.
Tell him he needs to have conversations WITH you instead of at you, and to respectfully let you know when hes ready to do that and youll be open to it. Until then you may need to ignore him, move out with your boyfriend, stop taking his calls, or whatever to MAKE him see that whatever hes doing NOW isnt helping so he should probably stop.
good luck! and i hope it goes well!
congrats on getting married!
; )
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Rating: 5
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Thank you so much for your advice. It was perfect and I really appreciate it. God Bless you.
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