How to deal with guilt over not seeing my father on Father's Day?
June 21, 2015 10:51 AM Subscribe
I've been having issues lately with my father, who has Borderline Personality Disorder. A few months ago he said some very hurtful things and I cut off contact; it's Father's Day, though, and I'm feeling a lot of guilt - even though it's probably not in my best interest at the moment to rekindle our relationship. How do I cope?
My father is on disability and is currently living in poverty due to a lifetime's worth of ill choices. For as long as I've known him, he's given no thought as to how his words and actions affect other people; I honestly think that part of his brain is broken. He also very rarely takes responsibility for his own actions, and considers himself to be the unluckiest man in the world. (He's not to blame for being unemployed and poor, it's everybody and everything else that's the problem!)
He is constantly searching for a way out of his predicament that doesn't involve hard work, like spending his disability checks on lottery tickets, etc.
This time around, during a minor squabble he said out of the blue that he wished I hadn't wrecked his marriage; he also insinuated that he wasn't able to pursue his dreams because he was taking care of me.
His ex-wife - my Stepmother, who is now passed - divorced him decades ago, mainly due to his verbal abuse. I was a child at the time. I had nothing to do with the divorce besides listening to their shouting matches most mornings. I have no idea how he deluded himself into blaming me.
I think it is despicable and the height of cowardice for a father to blame a child for his own past mistakes, particularly those concerning a divorce in which the child is involved. His words opened up old wounds, as he has said this sort of thing before years ago. I went off on him, and said I won't be speaking to him for a while.
But for all of his faults, he's my father and I do have my share of good memories with him: We went on nice vacations, he spoiled me on Christmases and birthdays, things like that. I know he loves me; he just doesn't know how to show it. And I know it's faint praise, but he never physically abused me or anyone else I love. I get the sense that he's still emotionally a child and responds as a child would. He desperately wants someone to coddle him and free him from any and all responsibility.
In past estrangements, I've always held out the hope that he would work on his issues, which I think he has. I know he's in therapy and is on medication, which he used to be dead-set against. I can also say that aside from this fight he has been working on his issues and our relationship had been getting better. For example, he had been actively trying to change his behavior rather than fall back on his tried-and-true 'unconditional love' spiel. He's learned to say he's sorry and sound like he meant it. He also opened up to me for the first time in his life, telling me of his struggles in relating to people; he almost never discusses his own faults so that was huge for me.
But he's getting up there in age, and I'm not sure how much more time he will have to improve his mental health. He doesn't really have anyone else in his life, which makes it harder for me to just stop talking to him. It's difficult for me to say, but I can tell that other family members invite him to events out of pity (I've overheard him get called a "whirlpool of despair' by another family member).
He's sent letters pleading with me to not cut off contact, and I'm feeling wishy-washy to say the least. I've come close to calling him, but thought I would get some outside advice before deciding on anything. It's so hard to just turn my back on him when he has no one else.
What should I try in order to cope? Would a small gesture - say a friendly email or call - be a mistake? Despite how he's acted, I'm not sure how many Fathers Days I will have left to celebrate with him. Looking forward to advice, particularly from those that have had parents with BPD.
My father is on disability and is currently living in poverty due to a lifetime's worth of ill choices. For as long as I've known him, he's given no thought as to how his words and actions affect other people; I honestly think that part of his brain is broken. He also very rarely takes responsibility for his own actions, and considers himself to be the unluckiest man in the world. (He's not to blame for being unemployed and poor, it's everybody and everything else that's the problem!)
He is constantly searching for a way out of his predicament that doesn't involve hard work, like spending his disability checks on lottery tickets, etc.
This time around, during a minor squabble he said out of the blue that he wished I hadn't wrecked his marriage; he also insinuated that he wasn't able to pursue his dreams because he was taking care of me.
His ex-wife - my Stepmother, who is now passed - divorced him decades ago, mainly due to his verbal abuse. I was a child at the time. I had nothing to do with the divorce besides listening to their shouting matches most mornings. I have no idea how he deluded himself into blaming me.
I think it is despicable and the height of cowardice for a father to blame a child for his own past mistakes, particularly those concerning a divorce in which the child is involved. His words opened up old wounds, as he has said this sort of thing before years ago. I went off on him, and said I won't be speaking to him for a while.
But for all of his faults, he's my father and I do have my share of good memories with him: We went on nice vacations, he spoiled me on Christmases and birthdays, things like that. I know he loves me; he just doesn't know how to show it. And I know it's faint praise, but he never physically abused me or anyone else I love. I get the sense that he's still emotionally a child and responds as a child would. He desperately wants someone to coddle him and free him from any and all responsibility.
In past estrangements, I've always held out the hope that he would work on his issues, which I think he has. I know he's in therapy and is on medication, which he used to be dead-set against. I can also say that aside from this fight he has been working on his issues and our relationship had been getting better. For example, he had been actively trying to change his behavior rather than fall back on his tried-and-true 'unconditional love' spiel. He's learned to say he's sorry and sound like he meant it. He also opened up to me for the first time in his life, telling me of his struggles in relating to people; he almost never discusses his own faults so that was huge for me.
But he's getting up there in age, and I'm not sure how much more time he will have to improve his mental health. He doesn't really have anyone else in his life, which makes it harder for me to just stop talking to him. It's difficult for me to say, but I can tell that other family members invite him to events out of pity (I've overheard him get called a "whirlpool of despair' by another family member).
He's sent letters pleading with me to not cut off contact, and I'm feeling wishy-washy to say the least. I've come close to calling him, but thought I would get some outside advice before deciding on anything. It's so hard to just turn my back on him when he has no one else.
What should I try in order to cope? Would a small gesture - say a friendly email or call - be a mistake? Despite how he's acted, I'm not sure how many Fathers Days I will have left to celebrate with him. Looking forward to advice, particularly from those that have had parents with BPD.
If anything, make it an email (or even snail-mail) rather than a phone call, and only accept emails (or snail-mails) in response. The reason for this is to make it easier for you to compartmentalize him: you can read or send emails at your leisure, and it's way harder for him to back you into some sort of fight. With a phone call, conversations require immediate responses; with emails there's a sort of built-in cooling-off delay time, plus you could ignore things he writes much easier than things he says.
posted by easily confused at 11:25 AM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by easily confused at 11:25 AM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
You sound like you want to call him. You said you wouldn't be speaking to him for a while, and you've stuck to your word. A very short phone call on father's day won't be inconsistent with keeping your boundaries.
On preview, I agree with Postroad that emails are actually trickier. I just had a perfunctory call to my stepfather... "hello, happy father's day, hope you have a good day/evening, ok, must run, bye". It was less than a minute. I avoid him as much as possible so even this amount of attention from me is lavishing it on.
posted by zennie at 11:42 AM on June 21, 2015
On preview, I agree with Postroad that emails are actually trickier. I just had a perfunctory call to my stepfather... "hello, happy father's day, hope you have a good day/evening, ok, must run, bye". It was less than a minute. I avoid him as much as possible so even this amount of attention from me is lavishing it on.
posted by zennie at 11:42 AM on June 21, 2015
This time around, during a minor squabble he said out of the blue that he wished I hadn't wrecked his marriage; he also insinuated that he wasn't able to pursue his dreams because he was taking care of me.
If it helps with your considerations I would read these spiteful and, yes, cowardly comments as coming from a place of great fear. With the help of therapy, your father has come to a belated realisation that he has no-one and frankly not much to offer in any case. He is alone and it's his own doing. It sounds like a dreadful, hamfisted and selfish attempt to ask you to care for him in his declining years, from someone who doesn't have the emotional tools or intelligence to build a positive relationship in the first place.
I think you sound like a sensitive and caring person. I don't think he has any idea how lucky he is that you're even thinking about restoring contact. If it were me, I think I would re-establish some limited communication for now because it would help me feel less anxious. If you felt like sending a short best wishes - type message, that's what I'd do.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 12:20 PM on June 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
If it helps with your considerations I would read these spiteful and, yes, cowardly comments as coming from a place of great fear. With the help of therapy, your father has come to a belated realisation that he has no-one and frankly not much to offer in any case. He is alone and it's his own doing. It sounds like a dreadful, hamfisted and selfish attempt to ask you to care for him in his declining years, from someone who doesn't have the emotional tools or intelligence to build a positive relationship in the first place.
I think you sound like a sensitive and caring person. I don't think he has any idea how lucky he is that you're even thinking about restoring contact. If it were me, I think I would re-establish some limited communication for now because it would help me feel less anxious. If you felt like sending a short best wishes - type message, that's what I'd do.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 12:20 PM on June 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Gosh, you could be describing my father... for the last 10 years we have only had communication by email, because that is the only way I can deal with him. It's exactly as easily confused puts it: with email you don't have to react immediately or at all. My father once sent an email to me and one of my siblings (the only two who were communicating at all with him at the time) that we were useless, disappointing people. My sibling wrote asking me how to respond to something like that and I said you don't.
It's not possible to have a quick phone call with my father.
I am still guilty about it. I don't think that is how the world should work (cutting off communication with a parent), but every time someone tries to help him he tries to pull them down.
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:31 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's not possible to have a quick phone call with my father.
I am still guilty about it. I don't think that is how the world should work (cutting off communication with a parent), but every time someone tries to help him he tries to pull them down.
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:31 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's really okay if you would just like to call it a day with your dad. Honestly.
I have one of these. He's a nightmare. Every e-mail is 1000 words, minimum. Every telephone call is an hour or two, mostly him yammering on about something nobody cares about. No gesture isn't dissected or critiqued. It's just exhausting. I can't even consign him to Facebook because I refuse to have his logorrhea clogging up my virtual life, and I can't bear the thought of having to endure what I know would be e-mail screed after screed based on stuff he read in my timeline.
Your dad's realizing he made a hash of his life, he's going to die, and he's scared. This isn't your fault and you don't have to hold his hand if you don't want to. You really don't. You can if you want to. You can if you really feel that he's starting to understand that relationships are give and take, that he is responsible for his inability to foster and maintain a peer relationship with his children. Either of these is fine. But, in my experience, guilt is the little homing device narcissists plant in your brain. The minute you set healthy boundaries? PING PING PING MUST FEEL SORRY FOR [PARENT] PING PING PING.
For me, finally becoming an adult meant finally separating from my abusive father. It's really difficult for people to understand but you don't owe "people" or him a thing. You don't have to sign up for sainthood in his twilight years. You gave at the office, okay?
The last time I talked to my dad, he told me he didn't care about me or find me interesting, really. So he doesn't get cards and phone calls on Father's Day. That's reasonable, rational and fine.
I get where you're coming from and I give you permission to give as much or as little as you want to.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 12:51 PM on June 21, 2015 [13 favorites]
I have one of these. He's a nightmare. Every e-mail is 1000 words, minimum. Every telephone call is an hour or two, mostly him yammering on about something nobody cares about. No gesture isn't dissected or critiqued. It's just exhausting. I can't even consign him to Facebook because I refuse to have his logorrhea clogging up my virtual life, and I can't bear the thought of having to endure what I know would be e-mail screed after screed based on stuff he read in my timeline.
Your dad's realizing he made a hash of his life, he's going to die, and he's scared. This isn't your fault and you don't have to hold his hand if you don't want to. You really don't. You can if you want to. You can if you really feel that he's starting to understand that relationships are give and take, that he is responsible for his inability to foster and maintain a peer relationship with his children. Either of these is fine. But, in my experience, guilt is the little homing device narcissists plant in your brain. The minute you set healthy boundaries? PING PING PING MUST FEEL SORRY FOR [PARENT] PING PING PING.
For me, finally becoming an adult meant finally separating from my abusive father. It's really difficult for people to understand but you don't owe "people" or him a thing. You don't have to sign up for sainthood in his twilight years. You gave at the office, okay?
The last time I talked to my dad, he told me he didn't care about me or find me interesting, really. So he doesn't get cards and phone calls on Father's Day. That's reasonable, rational and fine.
I get where you're coming from and I give you permission to give as much or as little as you want to.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 12:51 PM on June 21, 2015 [13 favorites]
Society understands if you divorce an abusive spouse, but they don't (yet) apply the same support if you cut off an abusive parent. If you were to write this same post about a spouse who blames you for their own unemployment, verbally abuses everyone in their life, and makes you feel terrible in most interactions, everyone would say DTMFA. But since it's your parent, there are a number of replies saying "don't cut him off".
I don't think parents should be allowed to get away with despicable behavior that we wouldn't allow from a spouse, boss, stranger, coworker, or any other adult.
Cut off your dad and don't feel guilty.
posted by vienna at 8:59 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't think parents should be allowed to get away with despicable behavior that we wouldn't allow from a spouse, boss, stranger, coworker, or any other adult.
Cut off your dad and don't feel guilty.
posted by vienna at 8:59 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Postroad at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]