Breaking contact with my dad

[Butters]

I surprised myself today and had a big falling out with my dad over the phone. I'd love to get another opinion on this matter but don't really have anyone to talk to, but I'd really appreciate any input. 

A little backstory: 

After my mom divorced him when I was 11, my dad and I lived together until I was 18. It wasn't good. My dad was very emotionally unavailable, had no emotional control and no ability to empathize. As a young boy I needed structure and a father figure but his abilities were more like a child's. This would trigger me so much that I'd hit him and throw stuff, I'd get so damn angry, just trying to get some understanding, some reaction. He'd just take it. He would behave like the victim, which is a running theme throughout his life. 

At the time he was addicted to alcohol as well, and would come into my room at 2AM to tell me he loves me. He would go through his phone contact list while drunk and call all these people telling them all these very inappropriate emotional things. Needless to say he has pushed everyone away in his life. He never took responsibility for this. He's the good guy, he's the victim. After all "his heart's in the right place" which in his view of the world is all that matters. 

Now skip ahead. I'm an adult, he's 69 years old and completely alone with no friends or social circle. We get along on a certain level, but whenever there's something I wanna tell him or I get my feelings hurt, he'll laugh at it, lie about something or blame something else. ANYTHING to change the subject. He has no ability or willingness to introspect and will immediately turn on me whenever I have feedback or criticism on his behavior. 

I understand that he must have had some huge trauma as a kid which caused him to be so emotionally unavailable. I think he was sexually abused, which he told me sometimes when drunk when I was like 13 years old, which is of course very inappropriate.

He's also old now and much cognitive decline over the years. 

I also understand that I will never get him to introspect or make any real attempt at emphasizing. But that doesn't take away the fact that his attitude is very disrespectful and hurtful. Preserving some parts of his ego is more important to him than the relationship with his wife (my mom) or even with me. It's like trying to carve up a diamond with a potato knife. 

Now although the life lesson "the ego can be very blunt" is super interesting and dandy, it's not really helping me right now. Part of me wants to break all contact with him for all the bullshit, but I can also see how he's tried his best in life but only if I view him as sorta "cognitively handicapped". 

Thinking about it now I can come up with another turnaround: maybe I secretly still want him to understand me, and I'm projecting my own trauma now. But whatever man, I'm just sick and tired of this shit. 

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you. 

[puporing]

@Butters No it's not okay what he's been doing and continuing to behave like a child and not the adult you need him to be. You do not have a responsibility to change him. You have the right to want empathy and understanding from people close to you. That said unfortunately you can't wait for him to miraculously change one day and be different towards you or feel regret about the past. Now it's important that you get to grieve your loss of never having had the father you deserved. And you can still love him but the highest love does not necessarily mean continuing taking his shit. In fact, in some cases the highest love is to show him that you do not tolerate such behavior any longer and you're not afraid of a "break" in the relationship if it comes to it (ie, it is negatively affecting your mental health and other goals in life).

I'm not advising you to go no contact or anything that's a very personal choice based on many things, but you should be able to not have to see him if he is being abusive towards you and this is totally okay and healthy to do. 

I hope it works out for you. 

[Nahm]

Be in control of what you are in control of, and let the weight of what you aren’t go. Don’t flirt with the line.

Be forgiving & understanding of ignorance, and don’t adopt the suffering. Enjoy whatever he is while he is for just what he is. Don’t expect or attempt anything else. Let yourself off the hook for his behaviors & happiness, his alignment & discord therein. You interpret how you want to, and you feel how you want to. Take whatever time away you want and if you want to, tell him you are and why. The more you zoom out and completely let it go from mind altogether, the clearer it gets and the better you feel. Sometimes it’s counterintuitive once zoomed in for a long while.  Also, that falling out might be things workin out. Difficult emotionally maybe, but probably felt good to get it out / address it too.  

[Leo Gura]

Tough situation. I've been there. I had to cut contact with my dad entirely for over a decade now. His influence on my life was just too toxic.

You have to make a judgment call as to whether having him in your life is a constant source of toxicity and holds back your evolution. If it is, then you should have a serious talk with him about that, and if he still continues unchanged then you can cut him off. But before you do that, you can consider just limiting your contact with him and see if that helps eliminate most of the toxicity, If so, then just keep a healthy distance with only sporadic contact.

The key question for you should be: Can you live the vast majority of your life and still actualize yourself while in contact with him? If the answer is yes, then try not cutting him off entirely and working through some of it with him. But if the answer no, then have that serious talk and cut him off if he refuse to change.

As a good rule of thumb, let's say 5-10% of your time you can sacrifice to dealing with negative bullshit from friends and family. Consider that charity work. But if it goes over 5-10%, cut that person off.

This is really a matter of learning how to set and enforce boundaries with people. Which is all about getting clear with yourself what you're willing to stand for and what is important to you. Define your boundaries clearly and communicate them explicitly to people. If they keep crossing your reasonable boundaries, that's on them. Don't feel guilty about enforcing your boundaries if they were clearly communicated and then repeatedly crossed.

[Gianna]

2 hours ago, puporing said:

it's important that you get to grieve your loss of never having had the father you deserved.

2 hours ago, puporing said:

in some cases the highest love is to .. not tolerate such behavior 

3 hours ago, puporing said:

it's not okay what he's been doing and continuing to behave like a child and not the adult you need him to be. You do not have a responsibility to change him. You have the right to want empathy and understanding from people close to you.

I really love and agree with these lines from @puporing. And if you're looking for support, permission, or validation in leaving your dad, you have our full understanding and compassion. We cannot move forward if we are anchored. And we cannot find something better if we are attached to what is worse, or what isn't working. But if you're looking to create resolve within you, here's what I would do. Because I know just how painful it is to feel the void of these missing emotional experiences.

1. Get emotional needs met. 

1. Create resolve around the missing emotional experience within you from the past.

(I wrote 1,1 because you don't have to do them in order) 
 

If you haven't already, I would get your emotional needs met so you don't continue to feel the lack of them. Now that we are adults, we can fulfill our missing emotional experiences by resourcing our 7 billion other humans on earth  I would specifically am for empathy, understanding, and validation, as far as the emotional needs to get met. Make sure you are getting these emotional needs met by someone who is emotionally mature and developed– either a friend, partner, therapist, whatever.  

The other really important thing I would do is create resolve within your being of the missing emotional experience from the past. You can do this by creating a re-experiencing of the feeling where you really needed your dad and he wasn't emotionally there. I would bring up that feeling in your body and then I would visualize the time where he would come into your room at night, drunk calling his friends. Then, in this visualization, bring your adult self into the picture/scene. What can your adult self do to meet the needs of the little boy in the room? Does the little boy need your adult self to grab the phone out of your dad's hands and teach him how to parent? Does the little boy need permission from the adult self to punch his dad in the face and tell him off? Does the little boy need to be taken somewhere else, and given the emotional needs he never received but had the right to receive? If so, take the little boy somewhere and meet all of his emotional needs. Tell him he's right to feel the way he does toward his dad. Tell him that anyone would feel the way he does. Tell him that he deserves a developed parent to meet his emotional needs and to guide his emotional experience because that's what parents are for– guidance. It's important to do this and create resolve around the missing emotional experience within your being from the past– so it doesn't keep skipping within your being like a scratched C.D. 

Tip: when you are bringing up the feeling in your body, (the feeling where you really needed your dad and he wasn't emotionally there) it will most likely feel like rejection. Anytime you are on the receiving end of an emotionally unavailable or immature parent it feels like rejection. So the feeling of rejection within your body, here and now, is the little boy from the past. And so working with the feeling and creating resolve by meeting its needs (emotional needs) via the visualization will help you so you are not suffering in the void of emotionally missing experiences from the past. And from our unconscious emotionally unavailable parents who traumatized us  hehehe. 

 

Empathy, understanding, unconditional presence, and acceptance with you in your emotions are all emotional needs that we must get met in order to develop. Just like a seed has the need for water, sunlight, and fertile soil in order to grow, we have mental, emotional, and physical needs that must be met if we are to develop in these areas. When you are raised by a parent who is emotionally immature or unavailable, emotional needs obviously never get met. In fact, they get wounded. So we, ourselves, never grow in this area. That is, until we are adult and have to resource ourselves. Something our parents did not do before having us  

[Preety_India]

I have a similar situation but it's my mom. My dad is dead and her toxicity was responsible for it. And I have always had this conflict whether I should completely cut her off or not. 

You have to come a wise judgement. 

Important is your own well being. Often times it was hard for me because I was torn between showing compassion for my mother versus looking after my own well being. 

I guilted myself for years. 

Please don't guilt yourself for doing what is good for you. Empathy and compassion should not mean that you have to sacrifice your own well being. This was a hard earned lesson for me

[Butters]

Thank you all very much for your kind and constructive replies, I really appreciate it. 

[axiom]

16 hours ago, Nahm said:

Be in control of what you are in control of, and let the weight of what you aren’t go. Don’t flirt with the line.

Be forgiving & understanding of ignorance, and don’t adopt the suffering. Enjoy whatever he is while he is for just what he is. Don’t expect or attempt anything else. Let yourself off the hook for his behaviors & happiness, his alignment & discord therein. 

Great wisdom here.

[Arcangelo]

23 hours ago, Butters said:

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

23 hours ago, Butters said:

he's 69 years old and completely alone with no friends or social circle. We get along on a certain level, but whenever there's something I wanna tell him or I get my feelings hurt, he'll laugh at it, lie about something or blame something else. ANYTHING to change the subject. He has no ability or willingness to introspect and will immediately turn on me whenever I have feedback or criticism on his behavior. 

Looks like you are expecting too much from a baby-boomer.

Focus on you.

I know, I know...

Easier said than done.

[Arcangelo]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

As a good rule of thumb, let's say 5-10% of your time you can sacrifice to dealing with negative bullshit from friends and family. Consider that charity work. But if it goes over 5-10%, cut that person off.

Good advice.

[Ulax]

I'd walk away