Looking for advice concerning father who I think is emotionally/verbally abusive, please keep anon or delete. Very long but I feel this needs a lot of background. Hope it makes sense and is not too disjointed—feeling very freaked about the entire situation and would appreciate advice.
Background
I am a 26 year old, married and not currently residing in the country—I’m currently a bit nomadic. My husband and I live here until April earlier this year as his student visa expired (he was doing his masters). We left some stuff with my grandma as we intend to apply for a visa to return in a year or two.
I graduated two years ago with a first class degree from a good university. I’ve since been freelance working for several magazines—not earning much and it’s irregular income but I’m slowly building a name for myself. I’m really happy living with my husband and enjoying moderate success; things haven’t always been like this though.
As a teenager I suffered from anorexia. No one, including myself, could understand why at the time. My parents were very liberal about what I did or didn’t do—it didn’t seem I had a lack of control. Around the same time, my dad came out as having been sexually abused as a child by his teacher. I understand this was awful for him but he has made it such a big part of his life now (victimising himself, demanding a safe space etc) that I don’t think his issues are just about the recollection of trauma.
Looking back, it seems I did. My dad has always been very controlling, but in a manner I only noticed once I left university. He often accuses people of doing things they haven’t done, then forces them to apologise. He doesn’t care about forgiveness, any feelings of contempt which might be building up; he just cares about having full control. I’ve been doing this (apologising for things I haven’t done) all my life and noticed that my mental health takes a turn for the worse whenever I am around my dad. It has also got a lot worse now he know longer has my mum (they divorced) at home as a punchbag.
Five years ago there was a big scandal at home. My grandma came to visit during the time where my parents were having huge arguments. My mum had discovered that my dad was gay (he was writing gay erotica and having online affairs).
Meanwhile, my grandma told my ex-partner “what I think he (her son/my dad) needs is to get a job.” It was sound advice—he thrives on conflict and takes drugs—a downward spiral probably worsened because he has so much free time to dwell on things. Of course my ex-partner reported back to me what she’d said, casually. My dad that same day started ranting to me about how everyone hates my mum, how she doesn’t do any work (she was working night shifts nursing while he did nothing but insult her and control/make claim of their finances). I said calmly, “well I’m not sure about that, your mum told (my ex partner) that you should get a job”. He went absolutely livid and asked her whether she said it, she denied it—so everything came back to me—they were both calling me a liar so in tears I called my grandma a liar. I think in truth she was just scared of my dad as she knew how argumentative he can be, but still a horrible situation. We all had a huge fallout, my grandma and dad portrayed me as the black sheep of the family to their side of the family.
Looking back I think this was the beginning of my dad’s attempts to scapegoat me. He started projecting onto me everything that he isn’t doing right in life: accusing me of living ‘a fake life’, of being a dropout (I write for magazines and get paid, got a first class degree—not sure I’d call that being a dropout), saying I’m “money-obsessed” (he got given money by his mum to come visit me during Erasmus and instead decided to save it, he is cheating my mum out of the house they co-own, he used to have explosive arguments with my mum over £1 and I am as a consequence of this perhaps indifferent about money and material things). He also keeps telling my grandma and others that being around me he is always walking on eggshells when it’s the opposite. Everyone is coming to blame me when he is the one being abusive.
My mum and I got a bit closer after this as I came to realise everything she’d been through—as a child I think I was a bit manipulated by my dad into blaming her for everything—she had been an alcoholic but I now see that it was because of the way he emotionally abused her—insulting her, telling her she was ugly and that he never loved her, controlling their finances, forcing her to apologise all the time.
Anyhow, I broke up with my ex-partner years back (not because of this situation) and slowly fell back into being “friends” with my grandma and dad. My dad in the meanwhile has had numerous affairs and found a new partner—someone who had also been abused as a child.
Recent situation
I called my dad regularly during the summer to tell him how things were going. He wrote me very strange messages during that period saying stuff like “you know, I miss you. I wouldn’t care if you were unambitious and just wanted to move back to the west country and work as a waitress,” in the meanwhile he called my mum and said I seemed depressed. She told him I seemed the happiest I had been in ages. And I am, I have an amazing spouse, I’m doing well career-wise, married my best friend, and I’m finally coming out of the black hole I had as a child at home.
Despite him seemingly being keen on having my company, these past few years I’ve been treading on egg shells whenever I go to visit him, or whenever he comes to see me. I’ve been really upset, and come to the conclusion (from not being at home, and through perhaps more objective observation of ex-partner and my husband) that the way he treats me is emotionally abusive.
I know he has been taking a lot of legal highs and other substances, not sure what. That probably doesn’t help.
He and his partner both use the traumatic experience of their pasts as an excuse for everything. I know trauma is horrible, but many people get through it without letting it ruin their lives/other peoples’ lives. Neither of them work; both keep victimising themselves to the point where they are competitive (His partner told me “(my dad) was not abused as much as I was” in an almost boastful tone) and both use it as a means of doing whatever they like, regardless of the consequences or hurt others around them will feel.
I love my grandma very much and obviously always have and will. The argument in the past with her was never really with her but with my dad. I know it’s hard not to stick up for your son regardless of his actions or the way he treats others, but sometimes I don’t think it does him any favours. I remember my granddad once told my mum something about how he always used to have the most vicious rows with my dad, and how grandma always stuck up for him whatever he did. That was the case with the argument five years ago.
I know now grandma has really become flexible with her principles in order to appease my dad, even growing weed in her house for him (according to my dad’s partner). Understandable that a mother acts like that toward her son, but I don’t think it’s helping him.
-I went up to visit my dad a few times a year since he moved back to the West Country. Both times I felt very bad—like I was falling back into mindset which started the anorexia I had as a teenager. —He was very controlling and always demanded an apology (for trivial things often/stuff I hadn’t done)—this is something he did when I was a child. I’ve thought a lot about this behavioural pattern, and read about it, and what I thought as a child was confirmed. This isn’t conflict resolution—it’s one person demanding a power trip over another person. No one gets personal resolution from an argument if the other forces their hand at saying “I’m sorry”, they only feel more and more contemptuous.
His partner even (in secret writing to me and my husband separately) has told us that my dad behaves like this with him too, and that he obviously has issues with controlling, abusive behaviour. He asked us to delete the conversation—we hadn’t but he has for fear that my dad will see it and go berserk.
-He has also been threatening me a lot in a controlling manner. I thought this was normal as a child, but it doesn’t seem normal now. My husband and I have been abroad this year, somewhat nomadic due to work. This visit to the UK was purely a medical and passport renewal visit. I needed complex surgery in the UK, my husband doesn’t have a UK residence visa yet so is here on a tourist visa. Our initial plan was to stay in Birmingham, where my surgery and consultation was. When I told dad I was coming to the UK he told me to come and stay with him—he kept saying that between he and my mum he would drive me around to all necessary appointments while my health is down. I reminded him that the distances were quite large but he was still adamant we come stay.
We did, and when I got there his friendly online attitude quickly changed. He often threatened my health appointments in order for me to behave as he wanted me to e.g. he said (three days before my appointment in Birmingham) “what is the exact address of the place where you’re having the consultation.” I was reading and said “hmm not sure, I’ll tell you tonight when I get on the computer. He responded quite aggressively “I’m not taking you unless you tell me right now!”. There were any more very trivial cases of this.
-He is extremely paranoid and seems to always think everyone is conspiring against him. I spoke to him all day for two days straight. The third day I said I better do some work now (I write freelance) and he got offended. He said in these words “no. I get it. I totally get it. You just don’t like me.” He wouldn’t let me work, read or do anything but listen to him. And I was really acting like I would with anyone and being nice and polite. And he was paranoid that anything I was doing other than talking to him (reading, socialising, working etc) was a personal slight.
When my husband arrived, we’d be talking and he’d interrupt with something completely irrelevant looking really spaced out/high on drugs and talk about it for 10 minutes non-stop. I eventually would give him a look, which he later described as an evil glare.
I had a friend come to visit, and he wouldn’t leave the room. He wanted to hang out with me and my friend as if he were another friend. He wouldn’t leave for an hour—it was supposed to be a private “girly” talk about her life. He always gets offended when he is unable to “hang out with the kids”, he has done this numerous times before e.g. wanting to come to my teenage parties, wanting to come to a Halloween party with me at university.
This is something which has been getting worse over the years, and I feel the worse it gets the more isolated I am from the family.
He told me and his partner (separately) “You have no respect for me because you are better educated, move in higher social circles and are now living in a totally different class financially.” This is obviously not true. I spoke with him a lot, called him a lot all summer and have come to visit as much as I can while living abroad.
-He gets set off by really trivial things. His partner told me explicitly “treat this flat like your own home, help yourself to anything in the fridge.” I used the oat milk (there were 10 cartons of it) to make hot chocolate one night, and my dad started receptively saying to me and my husband “try and use less oat milk”, “don’t use the oat milk”, “you’ve got to stop using the oat milk.” I can’t remember how many times he said it, but I found it a little embarrassing as it was the first real time my husband came around to visit, and I didn’t want him to think my dad was a bad host.
-The next time my dad said that to me in the kitchen, I replied in a quiet voice “alright, don’t get so OCD.” At this he got absolutely livid, shouting at me that I was using ableist language and that he wouldn’t take me to my consultation in Birmingham the following day anymore (for which we had already paid) if I didn’t apologise. He kept going on about it and shouting at me, my husband in the other room said he was genuinely scared. He also threw loads of really hurtful language at me, called me evil and other things. Among other things, dad said when my husband was present “you do realise ableist language is a lot worse than racist language, don’t you?” I thought this was very offensive as my husband, who is from an ethnic minority, l has felt the brunt of racism all his life, but didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to further provoke things. I eventually had to apologise for using ableist language and offending him or he would not have brought us to the health consultation which I really needed to attend.
-He provokes through shouting hateful things like “everybody hates you, your cousins and aunty and uncle hate you,” and “I had a horoscope done before you were born and it said you would be evil, I didn’t want to believe it but now I know it’s true,” then goes quiet and records my response secretly—evidently me crying and retaliating. He has a library of recordings from arguments with his partner too and probably others. I know this does not help with conflict resolution, and is also illegal. When not recording he really shouts you down and does not listen. Obviously a 5 minute recording is hardly representative of an argument that goes on for hours or days.
-I keep getting harassed by him with hateful words. My dad keeps calling my mum on the pretence of talking about the house, but then slandering me. He has also sent her many emails. He has also since told my mum that he now dislikes my husband and that he is “devious”. He has been sending horrible messages to me through his partner’s account and doing petty things like setting my Netflix account to “for little kids only.” I asked him to please leave me alone as he keeps harassing me, but he still keeps demanding an apology.
-Since recalling his abuse he labels everyone else in his life as being abusive. He says this when he is the instigator of most, if not all arguments.
He obviously has some issues beyond being abused as a child. The drugs probably make it a lot worse.
-I wrote to my auntie a few weeks back with a plea for help, asking whether we could correspond in confidentiality (she agreed) and telling her about my dad’s behaviour. She said she resonated with a lot of what I said and wanted to help, but then went and told my grandma who told my dad.
I know my grandma wants us to be friends and reports back to him everything I am doing, but I really would prefer she wouldn’t as it always comes back to me. She does always make allowances for him, naturally, but I don’t think she understands the seriousness of his behaviour.
I’m 5 weeks on from surgery and we’re planning on leaving the country in December—we had planned on visiting my grandma for a few days as we won’t return to the country for a year. My dad called my mum to tell her that my grandma “is scared of me and so is everyone else in the family”, he emailed me the following—intent on seeming diplomatic, end it with “Think we should at least be talking - if not actual friends - before you visit your grandma. Otherwise I foresee difficulties.” It does feel like a silent threat—he also emailed my husband, again aiming for diplomacy saying stuff like “as a child she did not have these issues” and threatening that if I went to see my grandma I’d likely face “a hostile environment”. He says my auntie has “made up her own opinion based solely on the contents of my email”.
My grandma just wrote to me with the following:
I really hate doing this but I think it best to cancel or postpone your visit to me until you are at least conversing with your Dad. He is very upset as am I, it doesn't bode well for a happy visit. I don't want to be walking on eggshells afraid of you or me mentioning his name.
As I have said before I love you but cannot stand seeing (my son) so traumatised and unhappy. Let's hope it is soon it is resolved xxxI feel she has been manipulated into saying these things. Figured out I’m still the scapegoat and whatever I say will be used against me—a plea for help, silence, wanting to come visit my grandma.
I have decided based on the increasing abuse in these past years that I should sever ties with my family—that’s what these articles say too. I think he has something like a narcissistic personality type and lacks empathy—he’s also really good at manipulation. If I stay in touch with the family they will only bring down my self-esteem more, blame all their issues on me and act like I’m “the problem child” when if anything, I’m the only one in this side of the family who has got my life together.
My main fear now is that our stuff (mainly my husband’s) is at my grandma’s, and it seems my dad and grandma might use this as a bargaining chip to force me to make friends with my dad.
I’m not sure whether to tell my grandma we are coming to pick it up, to turn up unannounced (that might be too aggressive but would avoid issues) or whether to immediately seek advice from the police. If I wanted to I think I could do my dad on several counts. I’d prefer not to if possible:
-growing and selling cannabis
-malicious phone calls and emails (harassment)
-small claims for holding onto our things
-blackmail
If you’ve read this far thanks for reading. Any idea what I can do in this situation?