I think my dad might leave or do something drastic..

Over the past few years I've become less and less happy at home, mainly because our house is always just filled with arguments. It used to be mainly between my dad and my older sister, but recently I've found myself getting on worse with him than ever before. The problem is that he's kind of.. dominant I suppose, always expecting us to accommodate his needs and put him first.

What gets to me most is the way he forces our mum to make him every meal, clean up after him all of the time, and he just expects her to take time off work to be with him and to put off everything she needs to do. Sometimes I just wish she'd stick up for herself and tell him that she doesn't have the time to go out, because she's a teacher and always ends up saying to me afterwards that she's really short on time to do her work because of havig to go out. He sometimes tries similar things with us on a smaller scale: expecting us to stop whatever we're doing to accommodate him, i.e. if I'm watching a revision programme he'll just walk into the room and wordlessly change the channel. I often tell him that I was watching it, but he just says something like: "I own all of this; without me you'd have nothing, so you should be grateful" and so on.

I really don't like arguments, so mostly I just let it go but let it bother me internally; however, my sister has no qualms about speaking her mind and they often have arguments which culminate in her swearing at him and vice versa, then him making some form of empty threat. I say empty, because when he says it, it sounds pretty threatening, but he never follows through apart from once when he shoved me after thinking I'd deliberately lost something of his.

Recently the arguments between him and my sister have got even worse, such as tonight when my mum works late and he just walked out for 3 hours, and finally when he returned I asked him if he was okay, and where he'd been and he just said: "What's it to you?" and swore at me. :frown:

He keeps making references to how he doesn't know why he "puts up with this" and he mutters things which sound like he's talking about leaving which he then won't repeat.

I really don't know what to do. :frown:

The longer this goes on, the more I feel the gap between us growing. I hate being at home because of the way he treats us, but mainly my mum, and the way she won't stick up for herself because she claims he's doing nothing wrong. Aughhh I'm sorry, this is so rambly, but is there anything I can conceivably do?

Reply 1

username47781

Your dad needs help, his treatment is so wrong. It ain't the 1950's no more.

Reply 2

Insignificant B

Have a serious talk with your mum... perhaps she knows more about the situation than she is telling you. I think you all as a family need to talk about things.

Mike.

Reply 3

brokenangel

Talk to your mam seriously my dad was like this and it wast till after he left that I found out the reason mam wouldn't stand up to him was because he was hitting her and she was to scared to stand up to him in case he hurt her.

He had also threatined to hit us if mam did anything which she obviously didnt want to happen.

Empty threats may appear empty but they often arent dad did eventualy hit me and it was only then that mam got up the courage to kick him out.

You need to talk to your mam and reassure her ull support her in standing up to him.

I ain't saying your dads like mine but sometimes people are more scared of what might happen and need reassurance to get up the courage to say something.

If this is similar to your situation and you want to talk just PM me.

vicky

Reply 4

Toy Soldier

Sounds like he's more trouble than he's worth. Let him leave :s-smilie:

Reply 5

Anonymous #2

Your post really interests me because that's basically exactly the same as my house; apart from I'm the older sister, lol. I'm the one that's always speaking my mind and paying for it, and whilst my sister usually stayed quiet and didn't do much, the older she gets the more she gets this.
I'd suggest talking to your older sister about what she thinks should happen. If you can't get your mum to acknowledge that anything's wrong, then try with your sister and the two of you work out what you think would be best. I know that with some people (my dad included!) there's just no reasoning with them, but try and explain how stuff makes you and her feel - if the two of you present a united front to stuff then they're more likely to sit up and take note - be that the two of you going to your mum, or actually directly saying stuff to your dad.

I know what it's like, for some reason as much as you might hate the way he does things, you don't want him to leave, after all, he is your dad... I don't know what to say, apart from remember that he is an adult, and all of the decisions he makes are his and his alone; you are not responsible and you do not 'push' him into doing anything.

Don't feel guilty when he chooses to act like a spoilt child that doesn't get his own way. Additionally, the things your mum does are her own actions, and whilst you can make it clear to her that you don't think what he's asking of her is fair, what she does is up to her.

Essentially, there's not that much you can do, but I think staying quiet and just ignoring his silly attempts to get attention and have people jump to his orders & massage his ego are best - I know it's not always possible (trust me, I know!! :p:

!) but don't think 'MAYBE he'll hear my point of view if I argue it at him' - he won't, you know this, so don't try and make him see your point of view, it just ends in arguments. Just look forward to not having to live there forever!!
Feel free to PM me if you like, or just want someone to moan to :smile:

Hope it gets a bit better, and remember stuff seems better in the morning!

Reply 6

Aline

I've seen very reasonable posts here: that is a good idea talking to your sister and talking to your mother, maybe she's more aware of what is actually going on.
Your father's behaviour is not normal, maybe he's having some kind of problem (personal, in his job...). Does he have drinking problems?

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