[Rockchick26]

I am reading this book called Mindful Loving,its basically about how to heal yourself and realize YOU are creating your own problems with relationships,and not blaming it on the other person. Is anyone familiar with this book? So basically,according to this,you can either keep playing the victim or you can change the situation by realizing you're creating this. Thats where i get confused. I am in a situation right now,well,i guess i have been for years,with my dad...and this book is not helping,NOTHING seems to help. But now i'm wondering how it can be true that i'm bringing this on myself? My dad is very verbally abusive and negative,and he is this way with everyone,his girlfriend,my mom (they divorced,she left him cuz of how he is),he's like this with my brother,and people at work (we work at the same place). How can i be creating this,when he's like this with everyone? I TRULY feel (and no i dont think this is my ego talking) that we are all victims,its obviously not MY fault if he's like this with other people too. So according to this book,i cant fix this situation. I'll give a few examples. I can have a great mindset and be in a good mood when i go visit him,and i'll tell myself this is going to go well. I think positive thoughts,and look forward to a good time. Then,out of nowhere,he gets on my case for throwing the pickle and tomato off my burger. What the hell?! How could i have brought that on myself? He said "Why didnt you ask anyone if they wanted them? Of course you never think about anyone else ever". (??? ugh!) Another example...i dont even remember now what we were arguing about but he was telling me the "right" way to do something,about MY life (i'm 35 years old by the way!) and it was something that i do all the time and it works just fine,and as usual he was trying to tell me to do it his way. Then he turned to his girlfriend and said "This is why me and my kids aren't close!" Because we are adults and dont live our lives the way he thinks we should,thats why we're not close? We seem just fine until he gets mad about something stupid that isnt to his liking. I just dont get it. I dont get how any of this could be a result of me creating the situation. I've never raised my voice to him or talked back or done anything wrong,i'm a GREAT kid (my mom has no problems with me or my brother) yet according to my dad we cant do anything right. For his birthday we asked him what he wanted to do,where he wanted to eat. He said lets get pizza,so we got pizza. Then after it was over,he went off on us about how his brothers kids do this stuff for their dad,and these other people's kids do this,well,why not say that in the first place!? We asked him what he wanted to do! We are NEVER right no matter what! How can i live my own life the way i want without getting this abuse? If i am making myself be the victim how can he be this way with everyone else too? And how can i fix it? And dont say therapy,cuz he already did that for years and it made him worse.