That’s right Pucky - there’s NOTHING WRONG with a father being an inconsiderate prick to his adult daughter just to ‘show her who’s boss’. Right?
Whatever. I hope you don’t have kids. 
Yeah, yeah, mean old daddy. He just doesn’t want me to have any fun. He does this just to show me who’s boss. etc., etc.
If she’s whining about having a father involved in her life, she should try having a father who doesn’t care or isn’t alive.
She’s lucky. She should shut up.
I have both a father and a stepfather involved in mine, Pucky. I rant exponentially sometimes. Doesn’t mean I don’t love them both.
Just so you know: in complaining about either of them, you will always seem, to some people, like a girl complaining that she’s fat and expects sympathy from someone starving in Bangladesh.
This is what gets me:
She admits that she pushed him away and bitches him out for not being more involved. She bitches him out for insisting she grow up.
Y’know what? I think she should grow up.
She was a child. IN a healthy relaitonshipo, a child dosen’t hav the power to “push away” an adult. That’s what unconditional love means.
Your insinuating that you’ve lost your father, eith to death or abandonment. If that’s so, I am truly sorry. Life sucks. But life is this huge rich complicated thing that cannot be simplyfied down to “yeah, well, some people have it worse than you, so shut up.”
My god, somewhere out there there is a little girl who’s getting raped by her daddy every night and he’s selling pictures of it on the internet. She’d give anything to be you, to have a dead daddy or a daddy who abandoned her. Does her exisitence make your pain less real, less valid?
Yeah. The first anniversary of my father’s death is on Monday.
You were saying?
Her entire whine is based on her desire that he not be so involved. Then she tells him “fuck you” for not being involved!
Perhaps she should have a serious grievance before going so far as to say to her father “fuck you.” She can have a grievance, in proportion to the offense. Until she puts it in proportion, she remains a snot-nose whiner.
Pucky, you’re continuing to behave like a whiny little snotty wanker. Does it help you resolve your personal issues? Doubt it somehow.
Piss off, there’s a good chap.
So now you’ve played The Guilt Card and all further debate is forfeit.
You’re the one who brought dead parents into it, me bucko.
You just happened to be talking to the wrong person at the time
Thread killing assmunch
Pucky Schumer, quit being a jerk. Final warning.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
Pucky: Yes I am being a bit whiny? Why not? I have every right to be as whiny as anyone else does. Sorry that you happened to take offence to it but oh well.
Yes I am pissed he pretty much abandoned me… 9 years ago. I was left trying to deal with my own problems at school and home by myself. We lived in an assmunch small town where I was trying to deal with being the complete outcast, attempting to support my mother who was doing the best she could and not be an added strain to her by helping with the housework and looking after my younger brother. Who was much more vocal in his displeasure at daddy being gone (ie we kicked the shit out of each other a lot, him in anger at my being the new parent and me in self defense and anger at him getting to stay the baby.)
I needed a father, instead I ended up being the adult because Mom was too tired working a graveyard shift at 7-11 to deal with a high strung 7 year old who often needed a good smack upside the head. Most of our phone calls lasted a total of 5 minutes each and ended up with a list of what I was doing wrong. If I tried to tell him about my brother I was told that the divorce was hard on him so be nice. If I tried to talk about my problems at school I was told to suck it up and play by their rules. Which would have meant getting beat up day after day.
After every visit I was relieved to get away, because somehow we always ended up talking about the divorce and exactly what Mom had done wrong and how much she had problems. Well we all had problems then.
I know exactly what I am complaining about right now. I love having my father in my life. We go to movies, camping etc and have fun. At this point in my life I don’t need the father I needed 9 years ago, which is what he is attempting to be. Rather I need someone who will support me in my decisions, give advice and just be there. I do not need him taking so active a place in my life as to be waking me up for school/work, pay for my bills and doing every little thing for me.
It’s taken years for us just to get to have some kind of relationship. I was, and still am sometimes, extremely bitter over what happened between us and how my life changed so drastically. He was angry at Mom and a lot of that fell onto me as well because I am alike my mom in both looks (except height/weight) and several personality traits that he sees as being not good. But any personality trait can be bad in excess.
It has only been in the past year where I can start to have a normal conversation with him. One that doesn’t degenerate into him getting angry at something I have done, or how I feel or how I differ in my views from him and leaving me so angry right after that I can barely see straight. Only to then cry my eyes out and get a blinding headache.
The past few months I’ve actually been able to tell him stuff, without him flipping out on me completely. We are heading in the right direction and I like the way it is heading. I don’t want a relationship like I saw my Dad and Grandfather have.
The other day was not a step in the direction we were going, but rather a step back. I wrote that rant in my angry phase… usually I just think things and never put them down. After I finished typing I fell into my bed and cried like I used to. I haven’t cried like that in awhile. But believe me, if I had written those thoughts down I’d have a binder full of paper in shaky, sharp handwriting and dotted with tears.
Obsidian, I appreciated your answer to my post and it clairified a lot of things. Without getting too personal why exactly did they get divorced? It seems to have impacted everyone pretty traumatically. What were the reasons or dynamics involved.
It was pretty traumatic. For myself I don’t recall this, but the day he left I apparently clung to him like crazy and didn’t want him to go. He pretty much packed up his truck with camping gear, his stereo and his clothes and left. I don’t even remember most of the time around then I’ve blocked it out so much.
It’s really hard to say why they got divorced… when I sift through my mind past all the fingerpointing from him and his family and past my mother’s family pointing fingers back and her refusal to tell me all the details so as not to burden me (which I appreciate, though she burdened me in other ways without intending to) all I really pick up is a few things. I know they had disagreements with how money was spent. Most trips we took went back to Nova Scotia because that’s where Mom’s family was and she hardly ever saw them. Dad is still angry that he couldn’t get some of the things he wanted and couldn’t take us some of the places he wanted to take us to because of this.
Other things include them being exact polar opposites. Dad was very dominating. He expected Mom to be a stay-at-home mom and keep everything immaculate, us kids perfectly disciplined etc. Mom liked that, but she never kept the place as clean as he liked it and I wasn’t as perfect a child as he wanted me to be. (I’ll admit it, looking back there were times when I would’ve smacked myself upside the head too). They just disagreed on a lot of key points… how to spend the money… how to discipline us kids and such.
It didn’t help that my Grandma (Dad’s mom) is also a very dominating woman. She doesn’t like having another woman in my Dad’s life. My Mom is, I’ll admit, a pushover. Partly I suspect because she never stood up for herself or really did what she wanted to do. She was the oldest of 9 kids and Nanna is dominating as well (very much the matriarch) which meant she looked after her younger siblings most of her life, and lived under Nanna’s thumb. She also never lived up to Grandma’s standards (I know this because I lived with Grandma for 2.5 years, and anytime I did something wrong I heard about my Mother and how I am like her in being wrong/doing stuff wrong etc) My Dad has a common-law wife right now, and she is much different from Mom in that she will not take the shit my Mom put up with.
So much crap happened in their marriage, and a lot of it came from their parents. My Mom came from an upper middle-class Catholic family on the East coast and my Dad from a blue-collar Protestant (I think, not sure though) one from the Prairies. Mom’s mother at least (Granddad was always a bit distant) saw this as a step down for her eldest child. Dad’s Mom saw her as being too… ugh how shall I put this… too indolent I suppose. And just from her reactions to Dad’s new love I think she thinks no one is good enough for her son. This created resentment in both of them and just caused everyone tons of grief.
I am bitter about Dad taking off like that, but I see how the whole family is much better then it was. Though sadly my Mom’s family acts like my Dad and assorted family do not exist. My brother and I came about through immaculate conception apparently. At least with them I do not have to put up with the constant denigration of the other side from them (my Dad no longer does this at least for the most part, but Grandma often did and does still tell me all my Mom’s faults)
A lot of it comes down to them being from two different family environments, with lots of subtle digs from the assorted inlaws. Most of how I have dealt with this is by disassociating myself. I find my family relationships, for the most part, are best dealt by not living in the same house and not letting them rule me. I was miserable because until about a year ago I let them walk all over me. The new misery came from trying to do what I needed to do on my own terms, but they refused to let me do that instead wanting me to do things exactly how they percieved I should.
I’ve spent years talking to assorted counsellors, psychiatrists and such trying to sort all this out in my mind. I probably won’t but it didn’t help when the psych’s were essentially telling me to let them walk over me. My life may not be perfect now, but I am much happier when I avoid that.
Wow.
My early history sounds similar. Someone told me a long time ago that my parents made their decisions in life, my grandparents made their decisions in life…that were right for them, and it’s my responsibility (at adulthood) to do the same. That was directed more towards my living within the guidelines set down my parents (as in: trying to care equally about both of them at all times, andtheir very different expectations, and not me goofing off or asking “what have they done for me lately.”) And for some reason that was 250 pounds off of my shoulders. I ran with that, enjoyed myself some, worked hard, got to where I wanted to be and came out fine overall…I have the life I want with all the old relationships intact. I wish you the same.
They can kick my ass off the board for answering this. I really don’t much care. Ban away, Bodoni. baby.
Obsidian, your dad’s human. He’s not perfect, as some people on this thread evidently expect him to be. But he’s the only father you have. If there’s anything to heredity, you probably have a lot of traits in common with him, too. So maybe someday you can understand how he feels, but not if you shut him out. And maybe someday you will understand that having a child push you away, after a failed marriage, is not an easy thing, either.
The self-appointed do-gooders on this thread who encourage you to be alienated from him are jerks.
Nobody has said alienating yourself from your father is a good thing.
Boundaries and appropriate behaviour is a very fine thing between parents and grown up children. Ob’s dad sounds like he needs to learn about them. Just because he cares doesn’t mean he gets to act in whatever manner takes his whim.
I don’t expect him to be perfect. I do expect him to be human. I am not blocking him out of my life. I want him in my life. We just need a bit of a break right now. Like I said in about 2 weeks we will talk again and things will be forgotten.
I do have some of his personality traits. We both have the same temper, and like I said I see several similarities in my relationship with him that he had with his father.
I am just really tired with him standing on the outside of my life, and telling me how to live it. He hasn’t seen a lot of the stuff I went through, he had his own troubles to work through. It’s really frustrating to be told that you are such a smart girl and can be doing so well… and yet not be supported in what you really want to do. I am also often compared to my cousin (his sister’s daughter) who they hold up as the epitome of what I should be. She’s 19, in university working towards a business degree, living with her other Grandparents. She’s a complete teetolar, doesn’t date etc etc. Not to say she is geeky, she’s my favourite cousin, but I am compared to her like I should be her.
I am my own person. I have never done anything exactly how my Dad and his family wished me to. My mother’s family is the same but my Mom is not. From her perspective as long as I am not killing myself, and am getting somewhere, doing what I love and am happy that is what is important.
And know what? Overall I am. When not confronted by family telling me I should be like this, do this, wear this, cut my hair like that (and believe me my family does that a lot to me even though I have been buying my own clothes, paying for my own haircuts etc for years) I am happy. And that’s what is important.
I don’t need a lot of money. I don’t need a lot of things. All I need is enough money to pay needed bills, keep food in my belly, clothes on my back, a good book, the odd relaxation time and a few good drinking buddies. I also do not expect my family to provide this for me. I am doing this on my own, in my own way. Which is what every person should do.
I have changed so much in the past year it’s not even funny. If I hadn’t I honestly would have probably ended up as the 30 year old kid living in Mom’s basement. Dad is just catching up slowly on the fact that I am not the 11 year old who clung to him as he left, but that I am turning into a self sufficient young woman who has her own ideas on life.
It’s when these two things clash, that stuff like my original post was brought about. I’m easing him slowly into the idea that I’m an adult. Just like I slowly eased him to the idea of my having a tattoo (he found out almost a month ago, I’ve had the tattoo for almost 6 months). It’s taking time… but allow me to be pissy when he pulls the whole ‘I’m your father I know what’s best for you’ thing. He may have an idea about what is good for me. And he is trying to help. But he has always had trouble with his creative free spirit daughter not wanting to completely tread the straight and narrow.
I’m not sure we’re reading the same thread here, Pucky. Here we have a father who decided not to bother being either a father (not by divorcing and being away, but by giving stock answers and not even trying to listen when they did talk on the phone) or even an adult (adults don’t blame the divorce on the other parent, or on the kids), and has a list of “controlling jerk” symptoms as long as your arm.
Meanwhile, here we have Flutterby who is, at her own measured pace, taking ownership of her life. She’s got her HS diploma, she’s supporting herself, she’s taking further classes with an eye toward what she’d like to be doing next…and her father wakes her up in the middle of her ‘night’ to tell her how she’s doing it all wrong.
And all you can do is call her a whiner. Sheesh.
She’s made it clear repeatedly that she’s not shutting him out.
Having gone through some of the same territory with a father who was similar in a number of ways (but not this bad, really), I’d say she’s being far more considerate of him than I was, or would be if I was doing it again.
Pucky, I’ve liked most of what you’ve had to say (that I’ve seen, anyway) in your brief sojourn here. But you’ve changed my mind about you in a big hurry in this one thread.