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My Dad is a Jerk!
My dad is SUCH a mean, inconsiderate jerk. I wish I'd written this last night because I'm dying for someone to give me advice right now. I also wish I could tell you
all about my family history, but I'll try to keep it short.
My granddad (mom's dad) is in the hospital right now and my dad's being a jerk about it. I grew up with my grandparents living about a block from my home. They were a part of our daily lives. They helped raise me and my sister and have done an awful lot for all of us that we should be grateful for, as has my mom's entire family basically.
After my grandmother died, my sister and I were grown and she had moved away, but I was still in town and helped my mom take care of my granddad daily. My dad hardly does anything. He gets mad at my mom because he says that she takes better care of my granddad than she does of him, which is a lie and hypocritical because he takes better care of his parents and niece than he does of us.
My granddad fell in his driveway on January 11 and hit his head so hard on the concrete that he was diagnosed with a cracked skull, a concussion, and bleeding around the brain. My mom and I took him to the doctor, who said he'd be fine as long as it didn't get any worse, but this past saturday night, he has headaches that indicated that it WAS getting worse. We took him to the emergency room and he was airlifted to a bigger hospital in a city about an hour away. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, but he is having surgery tomorrow to drain the blood that is
building up.
Saturday, my dad sat on his fat butt, ate, and watched tv while we were at the emergency room. When I came home just for a moment to get some things, I told him what was going on and he still just sat there. Later, when my mom and I came home to pack, preparing to stay in the city that my granddad's hospital is in until we knew what was going to be done about his condition, my dad STILL just sat there and didn't come with us. Saturday night, all day sunday, and most of monday went by and all we got from him were a few texts. He didn't visit and he didn't even call to talk to us in person. He couldn't even pretend to care. Monday, he finally visited, but only because he was in town anyway to help a friend of his with something.
We got home yesterday and my parents invited me out to dinner. We went out and my dad, who was the one who WANTED to go out, was in a bad mood. He talked rudely and hatefully to us, so I stopped trying to pretend that I wasn't mad at him like I'd been doing for the sake of getting through thd dinner. Then, he asked how late I stayed up the previous night. It's like he thinks he's so amazing that the only logical explanation for how I could ever be mad at him is if I was tired, on my period, or someone poisoned me against him.
Then tonight, after I'd encouraged my mom to tell my dad how she felt, they had a HUGE fight that, lucky for me, I got to be there for. It was horrible. My dad started screaming at her for things that were not all that relevant to what was happening. My dad unjustly accused her and her family of things he has no right to accuse them of. Basically he just had a big pity party because he knew he was wrong, but has always been too egotistical to admit it, or at least that's what I think.
He accused my mom and her family of things, probably in an attempt to make excuses for why he hasn't been there for my granddad, but everything accusation he made were things that his own family has done and done worse. My mom's family treats him like a blood relative. They're more generous to him than he could ever repay them for and my uncle even paid for him to go to the Master's with hi. My dad's family leaves me and my mom out all the time. They plan things around our schedule, not to make sure we CAN come, but to make sure we CAN'T. However, can't say anything to him about it because he'll get mad and defend them. He advised my engaged sister to hold her tongue about her problems with her future in laws because that's what he wants my mom to do for him and what he feels is right. He's alright with his relatives treating his wife and daughters like scum, just not with us saying anything about it. However, He's constantly saying bad things about my mom's family.
My dad's sense of right and wrong is very distorted. I'm sick of him being a hypocrite and I'm sick of him being mean and thoughtless to us and our extended family, especially my mom. Does anyone have any good advice?
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Tell your father how you feel,try to explain him what all this means to you.You aren't anymore that little girl he knew(now you're grown up and you wants to see all your family happy)It's your right to tell your opinion beside you feels terrible and all that has hurt your feelings.Perhaps he will understand that but try to talk calm,not loudy,and be sure he understands the way you feels.hope I can help!
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It is unfortunate that your father is the way he is. While I cannot explain why he is like this I can understand why you feel the way you do for your father sounds a lot like my dad did.
About ten years before his death he finally cast the proverbial straw that broke the camels back by hurting my wife, verbally. From that point forward I wrote him out of my life. I wrote him and told him he was wrong and until he apologized I wanted nothing further to do with him and why. I included everything I could remember he ever did that wronged me all the way back to childhood; including things he stole from me.
I knew he would never apologize for he was a very much what your dad sounds like. He was always right. It was his way or the highway never anyway else, with family. My father also suffered from depression though since he was never wrong he would never admit to it so getting treatment was not an option.
I can't say why exactly your father feels as he does towards your mothers family or why his family treats you and your mom they way they do. Obviously it is something he says to them. As for your moms family he may feel that all the help they gave your family that they either saw him as a failure or he just couldn't provide for his family to their standards. If the latter is how feels then he too may suffer from depression.
I see a bit of a controlling influence in him from what you have written. Being controlling is also part of the depression.
What can you do about this. Probably nothing to change him. For yourself if you want you can do as I did and cut him from your life. It sounds like you don't live with mom and dad so cutting him from your life is possible. It seems from what you have written his family doesn't care one-way or the other about you and your mom. So all you really need to do is be supportive of your mom.
The best thing you can do for yourself though is to have a few sessions with a psychologist. To be able to talk one on one with someone who I'm sure can offer better advice in a better setting than I or any of us can. I believe you would benefit greatly from this for getting this anger off your chest in a proper manner and setting will be helpful.
If your employer has and EAP program, most companies that have Health Insurance do. The EAP program will find a pay for a specific number of visits with the psychologist, which is all you should need.
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I can understand you are hurting because Dad shows no emotion and doesnt seem capable of being grateful,loving, caring, supportive, etc. It's probably due to the family he was raised with. Theres a likelihood they never showed emotion, never showed love for each other and the only thing they had was a sense of pride in was their bloodline. Being related by blood means more than unconditional love to them. They may not even love each other but they show preference in taking care of out of duty to someone of their own blood. This alone, does not make a healthy functioning family. Sounds very disfunctional to me. Makes me wonder why your mom ever married him in the first place.
You are the one asking, not your mom, so I can't say what she should be doing. Your Dad is stuck in life, having had many good examples of what a loving caring family is, for him to have decided to make some changes in his personality. Change is hard for people. Some take an entire lifetime to make one small change and others never do at all. Its up to mom to decide whether she wants to stay with him even though life with him is a dead end and will never get better, or if she wants to leave. What needs to be dealt with is your feelings. I can understand being very angry at your father. My daughters have felt the same. My oldest said she hated him so much she didn't want him to ever meet his grandchild. My youngest and her boyfriend are so upset with his recent treatment of them in last 6 mo. that she says when she does marry the guy she wont invite Dad. I simply told them what I will basically tell you here:
What you do, how you react is entirely your choice. Dad is not likely to get any better. (I left their dad over 6 yrs ago) So I can understand how for your own mental health and well being if you limit your time with him or choose not to ever see him again. But will you as a loving caring person find yourself with regrets once you are on your death bed? Some times in life, the child ends up more mature and loving and adult-like in behavior than their actual parent or parents. Just because someone is biologically your parent and older than you doesn't mean they have a good grasp on life and are living theirs to the best and the fullest. You can not force anyone to grow up including a parent. In fact, we as humans are incapable of making any person change for the better. We can at most present a good example for them to follow but the desire to change ones behavior must start in their minds with will power kicking in to see it through. When a person is stuck, they don't want to hear about how what they do makes you feel. They are not open to hearing what is lacking or what expectations anyone has of them. They are not in a place where mentally and emotionally they are even capable of receiving and dealing with such information. So both of you confronting your dad as you have, which you can see, did not produce favorable results. So what can you gain from having had him as a father? Determination to not marry someone just as bad and repeat the same story because you can see what effects it has had on mom and you kids. But love can blind us to someone faults, we can end up lying to ourselves about the warning signs we see early on and instead of bailing then, we hang on thinking it will miraculously get better cus we are praying to God asking him to help. God can not answer a prayer that involves the will and decisions of another person in relation to you because He's given that same choice of free will to every people, not only the ones who are doing the best with it. So if God isn't going to step in and change your Dad, there isn't much you can do but pray that God or dads angels are able to influence the thoughts in his mind and heart, so he finally decides to change for the better.
You need to be able to forgive him for not having been a better father. You just need to feel it inside, its not something you say to him cus he won't receive it and start a fight. If he's not asking for forgiveness, say nothing to him. What I am talking about is letting go of the disappointments and to really forgive, cus not forgiving won't hurt him at all, but it will hurt you over time bringing on all sorts of illness.
If Dads biggest lesson to learn in life was to be more loving and supportive to everyone and he failed. And what if one of your big lessons to learn in life is forgiveness, are you going to choose to fail at your lesson just because he failed at his? It doesnt make sense when looked at that way, does it? I had to decide to forgive my ex husband for the many hurtful things he said or did to me during 30 years. I found it easier to forgive if I found a different way to feel about the situation, looking at it from a different point of view. Instead of looking at it from a standpoint of all the negative done towards me, I chose to realize that without adversity, there is no impetus for myself to have grown. I learned to love myself enough to remove myself from an abusive relationship that was finally beginning to affect my physical health the last 5 of those years. I learned better how to understand God and how all that works, with prayer, people having free will, and of course the need to forgive. I realized that if my ex had not been the harsh man he was, I would have never grown as a soul in the areas I did. Personal growth for each of us souls is the end goal, to become more like our creator. So I decided I was happy to have had the opportunity to learn to grow, as painful as it was, but looking back, it was all worth it. If forgiveness is one of the things you need to experience, if you don't master it with your dad, the lesson will keep repeating throughout your life in other circumstances until you pass the test...thats the way it works. I know its not easy. You may need to go through grieving, the fact of never having had the dad you really wanted, before you are ready to forgive. Other than all this, I can't think of any else. By the way, each of my daughter have come to grips with the fact that Dad will never be any better than he currently is, so they limit their time visiting him and the moment his behavior or words or lack of caring begins to affect them, they leave. So they dont have to deal with guilt over keeping Dad out of their live, they keep things on their terms and when he is unreasonable or says hurtful things, they don't take it personally because they know he is emotionally crippled and also mentally got some illness going on, they do the smart thing and avoid taking on more negative vibes from him than is neccesary and leave the moment he starts. It doesnt seem to affect him adversely when they just say they have to go and just upbruptly leave. It's like he is coasting through life oblivious to what he is doing and how its affecting others. Perhaps your Dad is oblivious, maybe due to some undiagnosed mental impairment like my kids dad. Their Dad is on a never ending cycle that keeps repeating: cheery happy, irritated, loses his patience, angry and then hurtful, apologizes and then repeat, rinse, do over again. Haha, but sadly thats what some peoples lives are like. Hope this gives you a broader perspective on whats going on.
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