Difficult Father - Cut Contact

LegacyUser

Sorry if this is a long one, its quite complex and goes back year.

I didn't grow up with any contact with my father, I met him when I was 19 and I am 32 now. This was OK as my I am lucky enough to have an excellent mum who has a good extended family that supported her in bringing me up alone. I wont say things were easy because we werent very well off but my mum made many sacrifices and did a good job.

What happened was that my mum fell preganant by someone she had been seeing for only a short while, she decided to have me. My father was young, stupid and couldn't take responsibilty. He accused my mother of having an affair and denied the baby was his (this was totally unfounded, to say the least). When I was born my mum said to him that he could see me and invited him to sign the birth cert - he didn't turn up, stood her up in fact at the registry office. He never attempted to contact her after that and my mum being a very strong person resolved that she would have to bring me up alone. Which she did, she never sort finacial assistance from him and was never offered any, as he was not on my birth cert the CSA coudn't go after him either. My mother says she always felt that she would have allowed him to see me if he had ever popped up, and she half expected he would one day, but no, nothing. I don't want this to sound like a sob story because my mum did a great job and I was fine, I just had one less parent then everyone else, I didnt even mind, I didn't miss him because I never knew him. My mum still lives in the house that she lived in when I was born, she is in the phone book and on the electoral role so she was perfectly findable, they even knew a few of the same people but he never contacted her and she never tried again.

Anyway roll on 19 year and via a very strange coincidence I descover I have a half sister. We enroll on the same college course and get to know each other, we got on great and still do. She infrmred his that she had made the discovery and it turns out that none of his family knew of my exsistance. She informed them and they were all very angry with him for having kept this from them. I met them all and they are great people, I still meet with all of them regularly and get on excellently with my half sister in particular. 13 years down the line we still all get on great, they all accept me as a family member and are lovely people.

With my father it's a different story. I learned from my sister that our father had always been a troubled character, a drifter and something of a black sheep of his family. He had struggles with alcoholism on and off, never been able to hold down a job for longer then a few months to a year here and there, spending many years uneployed/on disabiltiy benefit (despite no one being able to fatham what disabiltiy he was supposed to actually have) She had only had sparodic contact with him over the years herself, her mother had thrown him out when she was 4 after he had come back drunk and been abusive one too many times. Since then he has turned up at their house when he liked, leeched financially off her mother and never been anything of a father to her either. He never provided for them finacially, even when he was working, because despite his inabilty to stay in a job for long when he did work he earned good money as he is actually skilled trademan! They never saw any of this money though. My sister spent 4 years in her mid teens not speaking to him at all as she came to an age where she was aware of the damage he had done to them as a family. I don't want this to sound like she was bad mouthing him to me because she was actually in contact with him again at this point and was hoping to give the relationshyip another go, she never called him Dad however, and neither would I.

I actually found a lot of this information out long after we had first met, she didnt just dump it on me in the early stages, it was only really when things had started to go downhill with him that she started to let info out about the past. I think more to make me aware that it was the same for her then to drag up the past.

Anyway for a few years after we first met things were OK. I was too old and he had missed too much for us ever to have a normal father-daughter relationship. But I was prearred to think of him like a long lost uncle or something and wanted to get to know him and his family. I was preparred to let the past go and never mentioned his abondonment of my mum to him as I was preparred to let by-gones be by-gones.

I was at uni at the time and he would take me down there when the term began in his car, we would speak on the phone now and then and I even remeber that he gave me a bit of money on occasion, to help me at uni. I am talking E50-E100 as a gift maybe 2 or 3 times and I never asked for it, it was a gift. He was off the drink at the time but not working. He always seemed quite a strange character, a misfit, and there were a few things that made me a bit uneasy about him, but I put that down to it being an odd situation. It was sometimes like, he thought he was going to be a normal father to me staright away and I wasn't really comfortable with that. But all in all we got on great, me and him and his other daughter. I was delighted I had met them all.

Things started to take a downwards turn towards the end of the time I was at uni. He started calling me up drunk occasionally. He didn't really call me the rest of the time at all, if I did meet with him it was on my organising and he never seemed to be overly interested in my and would talk entirely about himself. This stage carried on for many years, i accepted that this is how he was and that he was proobabaly on his best behaviour at the begginning. I never really mentioned it to him and still made an effort with him when I could. During this faze he did a few bad things, he was caught drink driving and banned, he started several jobs and lost them, fell out with a few diffirent people and was even involved in a couple of fights. Not all of this was down to alcohol, he was sober some of the time and still behalved badly. I tried to help him once or twice but he wouldnt listen it and I wasn't really sure it was my place. Through out all of this he had unbelievable support from his extended family, his mother is a saint, she did everything for him all of his life (i think this might be part of the problems actually but done with the best of intentions) years previously his parents had bought him a house to live in and his sister used to take him on holiday with her own family as he didn't have partner most of the time (and didnt see him kids!). During this time I became so greatful to my mother for having protected me from him as a child, for having the sense not to persue him on my behalf for anything and for bringing me up alone, my half sister got a much worse deal them I did having to witness this when she was a child.

Anyway things took a worse turn a few years ago, I don't know what happened but he started falling out with more or less everyone, in quite spectacular style. Fits to go were a few of his friends who he had known for years, I dont know what that was all about but they stopped being friends with him. Then he fell out with my sister and her mother (her mother has been good to him for years despite everything) this happened when he started behaving strangely towards her and telling lies about ehr to people, some of these lies were absolutely incredible and had no bearing on reality at all. It culiminated in his screaming at her in the street one night when drunk and makiing some absolutely astouding accusations. Shje was very upset aas was her mother, who was there too, she decided that she could not deal with him anymore and didn't want to speak to him again. I didn't blame her because she had seen him like his several times before but told her that I was going to stay in the loose conat that we had fallen into because I felt sorry for him. In his typical style he never conatcged her again after that, she didn't tell him she didn't want to see him he just let it go and so did he. I think he did call her up no and again after that on her borthday and she was civil to him but that was it.

Next to go was his family, his family had been so good to him over the years. He started making stage accusations to them and telling lies about them to people they knew. No one could belevele what he was saying, it was crazy. But he said soem VERY VERY unpleasnt things about them, pretty much the wprste kind of things you can say about anyone. At one point he accused his mother of murdering her own son! His brother who committed suicide many years ago. He became obsessed with this idea and was telling it to all on sundry. It broke his mothers heart to hear her son who she loved dearly (the favourite in many respects) talking about her like this. Now many people thought he had becme mentally ill at this point and I agreed with them. The family conatcted his Dr on several occaions but nothing came of it, it seems that he managed to convince the dr that they were out to get him! in the end the Dr asked them to stop contacting him because i had been 'dealt with'. There was little they could do at this point. They tried to hear him out, talk to him, reasdon with him all to no avail. He started harrassing the family, contacting their frineds and family even business associates with lies! he tunred up at the church his mother attneded and shouted abuse at her, she was terrified and the police were called. In the end they had to get an injunction out against him. His poor mother was devastated but all they could do was cut all contact and hope he got better. Now throughout this time I kept on seeing him, I hope to be a bridge between him and the family at first, or hope I could help. But he would accpet it, wouldnt listen to reason, in the end I daid that he shoulfd not talk to me about his family at all, that I didn't want to hear it. He has pretty much accepted this and we remained in occassional contact. This has been very hard because h always want to bad mouth his family and he has beome a very difficult man.

I would like to say he is mentally ill and he probabaly is, but there is part of me that doubt this. He has always had a nasty streak, always been stobburn and unreasonable. Always been paranoid. sometimes he seems fine and very able to handle himself. He is not even on the drink right now.

Anyway, a while a ago my mum invited him to her 60s birthday party. She isnt friends with him but has spoken to him now and again since I have been in contact and she thourght it might do him good to come along with me. all was OK but he was ina weird mood, but then he is a weird man. 1 week later, he turns up at her house, asking if he can 'stay for a while' as he hasn't got anywhere else to go. He had had a fight with a man he was living with (who this man is to him is anyones guess but that's another story) and had to get out of town. I don't live nearby so he couldnt some to me and he has alienated himsel from all of his friends and family. My mumw asnt well at the time herslf because unfortunately her health is quite poor these days but she gave him a chance, for a while he was OK, he helped her out around the house. But he overstayed his welcome, thankfully, and with my help an hers, he has got somewhere else to go now and it;s only a matter of time. but since he has had the othe rplace lined up, his attitude to her and me changed, he didnt need us anymore and has been very rude to us both at time. I have just come back from a Christmas which was a nightmare, he made it all about him one way or another. He has no social graces and I can see know what my sister an d her mum wen through all of those years ago. I can't say he has been abusing but very very rude.

Anyway I don't think Iw ant him in my life now, but I feelvery soprry for him because he has become some one who cannot cope with life. He is incapable of doing to most basic things, partly because his mother did everyhting for him until he turned against her. But whenever you try to help him he gets angry and very rude.

I really want to cut him out of my life when he leaves but to cut hik out is to cut him adrift in world that he cant cope him. I know he is not my responibilty, but I dont want this on my concience. I also don't want him in my life, I just dont like him and worry for my mum around him to be honest. Sorry for the rediculously long post but I couldn't stop once I started!

LegacyUser

Op there's only so much help people can give before they have to pull the plug. It sounds like your dad has been given a lot of life lines by a lot of people and he has blown all his chances. There's only so much people can put up with. I'm very surprised your own mother allowed him to move in when he was stuck for help after all he left her in the lurch with a baby to mind and bring up solo by herself. If you hadn't met your half sister on your college course is there a chance you would know him at all? I think you both need to cut him out of your lives - he is not doing you any favours. You've a great mom who seems to have done an amazing job raising you alone and if she is not in the best of health the last thing she needs is somebody like your dad around.

LegacyUser

Yes, it is amazing that my mother took him in after all that he did to her all those years ago. But she is a nice woman who doesn't like to see anyone in a tight spot and he was fortunate that my mother was at a particulalrly low ebb health wise at the time and didnt quite have the strength to send him away. He pretty much railroaded his way in, I was going to go down to her and throw him out but due to another coincidence he was allowed to stay and it was alright for a while, he made himself useful. But since he has has somewhere else lined up he has changed back to his normal self again, coming back drunk, expecting people to look after him, being rude and argumentative, generally putting a bad vibe on the house with his selfishness. You would think he would be greatful for being given somewhere to stay wheh he needed it, but it just goes to show that the way he was behaving in the early days was an act because he was worrid about being thrwon out. It';s such a shame because I was starting to think he was making progress.

I goes to show how he has alienated everyone in his life that he had to turn up on the doorstop of his unwell ex girlfriend from 30 odd years previously, who he isnt even really friends with!

I feel like the right thing to do is too cut him out of my life, I mean he has never done anything for me. Quite the opposite in fact, he has been nothing but trouble. There is just something in the back of my mind that is saying this is bad thing too do. Whether or not he is mentally ill or just a complete bastard, I dont know, but he is vulnerable and totally incapable of looking after himself. If he goes totally off the rails and ends up in hospial, prison or worse am I going to feel bad about this? I don't like to abandone someone, even someone like him.

gline

He just sounds like a user. Never learnt to take care of himself and now has nobody else to do it for him.

From all you have said about him, i would not have been happy letting him stay with your mother, especially the way he treated your sister and her mother when he basically pushed them out of his life.

Only a professional would be able to help him, but he has refused that help too, lying to his doctor. So you will not be able to help him. Help yourself and your mother by cutting contact. Just my 2c.