No. My father is an abusive, disgusting asshole. I at one time rekindled a relationship with him after not speaking for a few years. He showed his true colors, of course, and I re-severed him from my life completely. That was 10 years ago, and he has no relationship with any of my children, either.
How do I feel about that?
It’s unfortunate, yes, but I don’t feel guilty about it. It’s a simple fact that he is extremely dysfunctional and if I interacted with him, it would force me to behave in a dysfunctional way just to relate to him. I choose not to live my life like that.
Do you have a better relationship with your mother?
Yes. She visits roughly once a year, sees her grandchildren, and we make a lot of small talk. She’s very disassociated from her emotions, and continues to be abused by my father even though both of them are in their 60’s. We don’t dare speak of my childhood, or of him and his problems. We smile and pretend there’s not this big huge elephant in the room. I don’t call her at home, in case he were to answer the phone.
Yes. It’s different than the relationship I have with my mom, but that’s because they are different people. I know I’m lucky to have a good relationship with both my parents.
1) Do you have a good relationship with your dad?
It’s much better than it used to be, but I’d call it “ok” instead of “good.” It’s not close, and never has been. Over the years we’ve sort of come to an understanding with each other.
2) If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
Sometimes, when I see friends who are close with their fathers, I wonder what I’m missing. On the whole, though, things could be (and have been) worse, so I don’t spend much time worrying about it.
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
Not really; in some ways, my relationship with my mom is worse. She and I are closer, though.
I love both of my parents, but don’t particularly like either of them (likewise with my brother). I’ve come to terms with it, but it’s a very weird emotional place to be in.
I had a terrible relationship with my father my whole life. We just couldn’t understand each other and it was hard. He wanted me to be confident and independent and everything and I couldn’t be, and what’s evil is that half of why I couldn’t be was that he never gave me any kind of approval. Finally I hated him so much that I didn’t give a shit any more, then I started to be confident and then I started to completely understand his point of view and what he’d been going through and what he’d wanted for me. So we forgave each other and now we are close. I feel like he’s probably the one person in the world that truly understands me and accepts me completely, and I admire him and respect him more than anyone. It bothered me very very much when we didn’t get along. I love my mom and we get along but she’s a bit nuts. I am female.
My relationship with my mom has never been as much of a challenge. I love and accept her and she loves and accepts me, but holy crow I hate to spend very much time with her.
Do you have a good relationship with your dad?
No.
If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
Conflicted. On the one hand, he’s a martinet who completely lacks empathy and has had an affair for most of my life; on the other, he is brilliant and funny and loves me. I mostly wish he just go away.
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
Yes.
1) Do you have a good relationship with your dad?
Yes, when I was a little Catholic schoolgirl, my mom tried to compare God’s love for me to my father’s, saying God loved me even more than Daddy did. ( What’choo talking about, Willis?) I clarified this was only true in that God never fell asleep and Daddy sometimes did. He never told me I was talking too much and I knew I was his pride and joy. He told me I was the most beautiful girl in the world and I knew that wasn’t true—I was a big, clumsy nerdy kid with riotously curly hair and glasses, but I also knew it was true and still is.
2) If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
N/A
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
I always felt my mother loved me more conditionally than my father. I could never do anything that would make him stop loving me or dissapprove of me and my mother’s big gun threat was that I was going to disappoint Daddy.
If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
It bothers me a lot and always has because he lied all the time when we were growing up, making promises he wouldn’t keep, disappearing for years, never sending even court-ordered child support. And we were really poor despite the long hours my mom worked.
After my brother and I reached adulthood he sought us out and the lies and disappearances just kept on coming. I never hear from him now but my brother does, occasionally…like when he needs money or a place to stay. Brother always gives in.
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
My mudda was a saint, God rest her soul.
She was my best friend.
My father died when I was 15, so I’ll answer the questions in past-tense:
Did you have a good relationship with your dad?
No.
2) If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
It used to bother me tremendously. It still does to an extent, but it’s something that (to the degree I’m reasonably able) I wrote off a long time ago as "there’s not gonna be closure, so c’est la vie. I understand him a lot better now than I did then which helps (though I still say objectively “Not to have been sexually or physically abusive he was a bad father”, but I’d never challenge anybody to a pissing contest over it as I’ve known many who were incomparably worse.)
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
Hmmm. I was extremely close to my mother growing up. We’re still extremely close. There is a lot more love between us than there ever was between me and my father (who I can’t honestly say I loved or that he loved me) but there’s also a lot more anger. I generally like her these days- she’s a sad old woman and there’s a LOT to genuinely respect and admire and love about her- but about once or twice a year she’ll make some comment or pull some stunt that will also make me hate her for a while. It’s a completely different relationship with my father as for him I had little if any love and a general contempt while for her the emotions are a whole lot hotter on both ends.
3) Gender.
Do you have a good relationship with your dad? Yes. I am a strong and content human being because of my incredible father and the relationship I had with him.
If my father were alive, he would be 100 years old. He was only 5’8’ but he was very strong and could carry 100 lbs of feed on his back with ease or move heavy equipment with one arm. He had wavy black hair that softened into gray and then white over his kind and merry brown eyes with lashes so thick they could hold up a pencil.
No one went hungry if my father knew about them. Yet he knew how to protect people’s pride. He was quiet about his good works. There were things that even my mother didn’t know about until after he was gone.
He pulled jokes on everyone – even in the hopital when he was hooked up to machines. We could make each other laugh until the last.
He said I would always have a Daddy. He was right.
If no, then:
a) How do you feel about that? (Do you care, does it bother you?)
b) Do you have a better relationship with your mom?
i got along great with my father until i was about 12 or 13. then it all went out the window. we fought (both verbally and physically) at most every opportunity from then until i was 19 - 20.
from then on we had a much better relationship; we still argued more than occasionally, but we came to an agreement that we would always respect each other as adults regardless of everything else.
things had just slowly been getting to better than ever between us over the last couple years (i’m in my late twenties now) until he passed away, almost a year ago now.
we had left some things unresolved (and it still bugs me every day that the time to resolve those things was taken away - somewhat by me, somewhat by him, and somewhat by just time… ) but my father was for sure also a good friend of mine when he passed.
i’ve always had, and to this day continue to have, a better relationship with my mother. though it was rocky for a couple of my teenage years, it was never close to being as harsh as with my father. my mom is one of my best friends. i don’t think there is a two week period in my whole life i’ve gone without talking to her; even if it’s just a “how was (my) hockey game the other night?” or “how was (her) curling match the other night?” phone call.
i’m a guy.
I do now. My Dad is an extremely smart man. PHD math with a 4.0. He is very sharp and I have never met anyone who can see the big picture so clearly and quickly while fully understanding the details. He also sucks at emotional stuff. A direct quote from my Dad during a conversation once was ‘I don’t do emotions.’. He meant that he will help in any way he can but he isn’t very good with emotional issues vs. other things, like money, carrer, etc. He wants to help with the emotional issues but really doesn’t know how.*
I am a recovering alcoholic and my Dad really did not get it. He didn’t understand the problem. He tried really hard but just didn’t get it. This caused a lot of distance in the relationship because I was doing dumbassed drunk things and he could not understand why. It also drove him nuts because he is the kind of guy who, when he sees a problem, just wants to fix it. He didn’t know how to fix my problem with alcohol and it drove him nuts. Even after he took part in my treatment he still doesn’t get it, though he tries really hard. On top of his not undertanding I had a bunch of anger directed at him (since I was a little kid) because we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. He looks at everything in a very logical mannor while I was always more emotional. Obviously we didn’t agree often. That caused a lot of anger on my part.
When I went to my parents asking for help to get sober he (and my Mom) did everything they could to help. Including being hard asses.
Now that I have been sober for almost 2 years (it’ll be two years in 12 days. Yay me!) we have a great relationship. I know where he is coming from and accept that he isn’t the person to go to for a shoulder to cry on. He is what he is, and he tries to help the best that he can. He IS the guy to go to once you stop crying and want to fix whatever the problem is in the first place. We have a good understanding of each other now and get along wonderfully.
Having written that I do want to mention that my Dad is a pretty funny guy. He has a great, but very dry, sense of humor. He also knows of his limitations and is working on showing more emotion to us kids. I think I have had more hugs from him in the past two years than I did in the 15 before that.
My Dad rocks.
2 b) I have a good relationship with my Mom though it is different than the one with my Dad. My Mom and I tend to deal more with emotional stuff, though not a huge amount of that.
