Awesome idea.
FWIW, my mother’s youngest daughter is very much like your old man, minus the Jesus excuse. My mother’s oldest son is a waste of space. My father’s other son is a parasite, and one of my mother’s other daughters is a manipulative perpetual victim.
When my father died, two years after my mother, we all pledged to work at being closer as a family. That lasted all of about 3 months, when both the other sons and the perpetual victim daughter started working to scam the rest of us out of our shares of the modest inheritance.
I wrote them all off. The only one of my siblings I speak to anymore is the one sane sister. I wouldn’t know if the others were alive or dead if she didn’t occasionally give me updates.
It was hard the first year, but my life overall is much better for having disowned the rest of the lot.
You know, maybe you can turn this general suspicion of Alzheimer’s to your advantage if you play it right with your family. “Gosh, I’m really worried about Dad. He accused me of stealing his money, and then refused to back down when I helped him search for it and we found it in the house. I’m afraid he might be losing his memory. Do you think we should try to convince him to go to the doctor?” Not only does it establish you as a good guy who forgives offenses, it plants the seed that they shouldn’t trust what he says, and that you are on the team with them conspiring against him for his own good.
Good luck.
Family is overrated.
I got into a huge shouting match with a relative and we haven’t spoken since. I’m very happy. I do not subscribe to the notion that you should always try to keep family close. In this case, your dad’s wrong, so say “Fuck you dad, hope you die soon!” and never speak to him again. I did (to a different relative) for a much smaller offense and I feel much freer and happier than if I had to put up with her shit all the time.
Sure, my parents were upset, they said they’d take sides, but eventually they got over it. If your family is like that, then they’ll get over it. Its hard to stay mad at someone for months and months if you didn’t actually suffer first-hand experience. Tell your other relatives, the one you want to keep around, your side, and tell them that you won’t be apologizing. Stay firm. Show up to family events ignoring those who still dislike you and cheerfully tell them to go to hell if they try to make you apologize.
Age doesn’t confer wisdom. Old people deserve no unearned respect. If someone’s wrong, they should admit it or suffer the consequences, end of story.
I cut off my father from my life many years ago. I kept waiting to feel guilty about it but all I ever felt was relief at not having to deal with him any more.
YMMV.
Look… I’ve run into a similar situation. Here’s what I did.
I took a month off. I said, “I love you, Dad, but I’m not going to deal with you right now. I’ll see you in a month or two.”
It worked pretty well. To the rest of the family, it was “Look, I forgive him, but I don’t want to make things worse, so I’m just going to avoid him.” I told them I’d talk to the rents in a month. To the parents, I said ‘a month, maybe two, maybe more, I don’t know.’
It was torture to them.
Sadly, it coincided with my mom’s trip to Florida and a bad thunderstorm and Dad had a flashback and it all ended in blood, but, well, that’s how families work.
Take a month off. Let all the stress fall on your dad. It was good for our relationship, it’ll be good for yours. Scare him a bit.
Use all the biblical language you can, too.
And therein lies my problem. I don’t entirely believe that. I still love the old bastard. He was very good to my son, and a much better father to him while he was alive than I ever was; likewise my stepdaughter. Part of me thinks I owe him for that.
But I’m still stepping back from him for a while, if only to keep myself from having an anger stroke or a killing rage.
Return the key and don’t enter his house, just tell him it makes you uncomfortable for now.
If you do nothing else, do these two things.
yar, that was my suggestion.
People deal with guilt in different ways, and it’s possible that he feels a little guilty about accusing you, but won’t/can’t apologize. So to balance it out, he’s making a big deal about not apologizing so that you have something to be mad at HIM about. It’s a balance, of sorts.
Forgive him, in words if not in reality, and see what happens, if for no other reason than the reaction might be ‘I don’t NEED your forgiveness, whelp!’ and then, well…at least you ticked him off as much as he’s ticked YOU off. 
And you have my sympathies. When I go home to visit, it sucks because I never know who’s not talking to whom that year, or for what reason, and end up leaving before I can visit everyone individually <as there’s no way they’ll ever be in the same place at the same time>.
This. Preferably, a sane family member as witness.
And this is exactly what I was going to suggest from reading the OP. Turn over the key, in front of a sane family member. Suggest that he get a new lock, and give out keys to those who he feels won’t steal from him. Also, whether you love him or not, quit cooking for him. If he gets a stomach virus, his first thought will be that you’ve poisoned him.
You say that you still love him. I can understand that. However, he has decided that you are not trustworthy, and he feels free to accuse you (but nobody else) of betraying him. So don’t allow yourself to be in a position to be accused. Maybe it’s that you are not SAVED, maybe he’s developing Alzheimer’s, maybe it’s a combination. But he has a history of abusing you, and a history of demanding things. He doesn’t have the right to level baseless accusations at you, and you are not obligated to just accept those accusations.
I don’t think that you’re overreacting. I say, give him back the key, don’t cook for him any more, and severely limit contact with him. Don’t see him unless there’s a third party around as a witness. If nothing else, it’ll keep you from killing him.
I miss my father. Gone over 20 years. Don’t let it get to you.
It’s obvious that you feel some love for the man—that’s not unnatural; and that’s a hard bond to break. My own grandfather was a frighteningly abusive drunk when my mother was growing up , but he wasn’t shut out of the family (with the caveat that he at least had gotten better, as years went by), and she was at his bedside when he died. Human beings aren’t just binary creatures—we can do odd things in the name of love, or attachment. Sometimes, it’s even not stupid.
But still, whatever good your father may have done, I don’t see that as obligating you to wear a hairshirt for his benefit. Being kind to him is not the same thing as allowing him be mean to you.
It seems to me that there are two definitions of “respect” floating around—you’ve got a handle on one: “consideration.” Honor where it’s earned, live-and-let-live, whatever. He’s demanding “respect” as in “awe and admiration.” Not the same thing. And I see no reason to flagellate yourself to satisfy him.
That’s the only other thing I can think of to agree with; you have a right to be angry, but if at all possible, you shouldn’t act when you’re angry if you can act while you’re not angry. Or at least less-angry.
But of course, the cold-hearted Machiavellian in me has to note the more pragmatic angle, thinking of the whole thing in terms of cost-benefit. If letting the whole thing “slide” until your father isn’t an issue anymore (that’s appropriately euphemistic, I think) would benefit you more (with family or social relations, financially, whatever) in the long term, there’s a vote for that. But on the other hand, being intolerably eaten up inside by anger and grief could be a valid “cost” to weigh against that, as well.
In any case, I don’t disregard your feelings in the least, but some things are mulled over better with a cool head.
I was going to suggest this possibility also. If the behavior change was fairly sudden, consider this if possible. However, your description makes it sound like your father won’t even consider going to a doctor, let alone be treated. But knowing that the cause is medical might take some of the sting out of the blows aimed at you.
Otherwise, I like the advice from several here to not engage him in his battles, and let it roll off your back. That’s easy for us to say, I know. We have a somewhat similar situation in my wife’s family, but to a much lesser degree.
Keep in mind that you only get one father, and your time with him may be short.
Take Lissener’s advice.
Well, sounds like he’s a real piece of work, as they say (though I agree that this could be a warning sign of health issues that should be checked out). But, to be honest, I think you’re still bringing some of your baggage into the house, too. I mean, sure, he should apologize for even hinting at the possibility that you might have borrowed some money without telling him, but you shouldn’t be asking for an apology, either, much less be insisting on it.
In the end, you do love him, and he has, in his way, been good to you, so don’t cut him off. Stay away for a couple weeks, and ask your sisters if they’ve noticed him being more forgetful/annoyed/distracted than usual, and share some info on Alzeimer’s with them. Try and get to a place where you can accept him, without feeling you need him to be any particular way (yeah, easier said than done, I know).
What? Why shouldn’t Skald ask for an apology?
This excerpt seems to be the heart of the problem to me. Having witnesses when you’re in the house does nothing to address the core of the problem. The insult lies in that dad didn’t bother to ask anybody else if they might have stolen the money, only Skald because he’s “not right with god”. I don’t see any way to change dad’s opinion.
It sounds like there’s enough other family around that Skald could take a break from cooking to get himself together and re-evaluate the relationship and his available choices.
Good luck.
My mother does batshit crazy stuff sans the Bible-thumping all the time. She nearly cut my fingers off with a steak knife when I was 14. I don’t mean that she missed… I mean that the fingers don’t work past the joint where they were cut, but she failed to hack them off completely. That was 20 years ago. I still haven’t gotten an apology.
You could fill a book with things that I felt I deserved apologies for and didn’t get from Mommy Dearest. Yet I still talk to her regularly. I’m just careful about establishing appropriate boundaries.
Don’t spite your father. He’s a flawed, broken man; just like you, just like me. He doesn’t think he owes you an apology so even if you were able to juice one out of him, it’d be unsatisfying. Kill him with kindness. Tell him how his questions felt accusatory and hurt your feelings and sensibilities. You’ll never get the apology, but you’ll know in the moments when he’s alone with his own thoughts, he’ll understand. The upshot is that if you’re consistent, he’ll stop (or at least reduce the frequency of) the things that drive you mad.
I’d understand if you tell me to fuck off, but I’m curious about the relationship. Why was your father taking care of your son? It seems “off” based on the whole belt-beatings you talked about in your own childhood. Also, how old was your son when he died? What made you such a terrible father?
I’m sorry if I’m prying too much.
Briefly: I knocked up my girlfriend when we were in our early 20s. She previously had a child with another guy; that’s the personI refer to as my stepdaughter. Both I and my gf’s other baby daddy were miserable fuckwits who refused to take responsibility for our children. My gf was dead broke, and my parents, being mensches, took her and the kids in. I got my act together a few years later; the other dad did not and is, in fact, still a miserable fuckwit.
My dad is not all bad. My stepdaughter loves him. My sisters and brothers love him. He’s just…I don’t know. The wrong dad for me.