My Father is angry all the time.

[makessense]

Hi everyone,

My father is angry all the time.

He complains about all the things that happen TO him ( he has a "it's their fault" mentality). He was brought up in a filipino household in the philippines where his Dad was probably mentally and physically abusive. My dad is extremely narrow-minded about mostly everything and doesn't take anyone's constructive criticism/ comments / questions very seriously. I'm really trying to figure him out, and at age 22, I've tried and tried to like him, but I just don't like him as a person because he is a person I do not want to be. I question his actions when it comes to money as well. He spends it on things that won't help the family, but feeds his worth. He's overly sensitive about every topic and is very egocentric, along with being manipulative. He somehow manages to put a negative twist on everything and it's just annoying. Nothing seems to ever be good enough. I can see my brothers are extremely affected by his demeanor. I know I am as well. I think his sensitivity and being too critical about everything has lead us to become that way as well. I was doing just fine when I lived away from home (2 yrs.) and lived near my college. When I come home to visit, everything starts changing. He argues about things that are just plain dumb, "why is there a toothbrush in this bathroom?!" "You need to clean the house every day!" "All you guys do is give me problems". And my dad wonders why he has extremely High Blood Pressure. I know my brothers will be fine once they move out, but for now, they are resentful in everything our father does or says.

When he tries to be nice, he's toooo nice, and it doesn't come off as genuine. He doesn't know how to just BE nice. He needs to realize he doesn't need to do favors to be nice. Even when he is nice, I just know that he can blow up at any time. I'm glad that he has improved in his anger, but it just feels like a ticking-time-bomb every day. There are too many underlying problems to discuss what exactly is going on. He's too closed-minded to say any of his problems and has an ego that won't lead him to any form of help. He has the "I know everything" type attitude. I feel I have that attitude sometimes, too, and I check myself every time I get that feeling. I've removed "I know" and "No" (unless required) from my vocabulary because those are just negative words.

Now that I think about it, I get flashbacks from my father abusing my mother and I am probably most resentful for that. I just don't believe anything my dad says. I feel like he's just trying to manipulate. And most of the time he is! He even says that he HAS to say this or that because it's the ONLY way to do it! My brothers or Mom don't deserve this type of treatment. He puts them down when they do poorly on something and never brings them up. I am the only person in this family that believes my brothers can achieve anything they want to!

I feel badly for my younger brother who doesn't have much self-confidence. He is improving, though .He has gained a lot ever since I've been talking to him and saying that, "if you put as much effort as you do in dancing, and focus that energy IN SCHOOL, You can achieve ANY grade imaginable! You get out of life what you put in. If you don't study, you won't do well. Those geniuses out there make it look easy because thinking has become a habit to them." ... I've given these little talks to him and my other brothers, and it has a positive impact on them. I can see that they believe in themselves just a little bit more when somebody says these types of things. We never had it when we were kids. My dad wants us to talk to him about 'problems', but when we do, he takes it as attacking his 'fatherhood' and we should respect him. If we don't agree with him, he feels disrespected. After that, there's no stopping a 15-30 min. lecture on why we should agree w/ him and respect his every word.

I do take some of his words into consideration, but the majority just doesn't make ANY sense. When I do research it and ask professional advice, it's my dad that's blatently wrong.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it feels good to just let some of it out. I like this community and I feel it has helped me a great deal. Thank you for listening.

[Joely]

What I'm going to say might sound very weird. I've grown up with a father who had a flash temper, and I can only offer what helped me deal with it and leave it behind.

Your father is a deeply insecure and frightened man, and he deals with it by being angry, abusive and aggressive. His whole make-up is based around a deep insecurity that he doesn't even realise he has. People who feel fear in this way push it out onto the world and make other people feel fearful and small, because that's how they get power and feel safe and secure. When I realised that was why my father behaved the way he did, I simply saw it as an extension of his fear and I could leave it. This is a man who deep down is utterly, utterly terrified and small. He feels worthless and hopeless. He covers it up with all the behaviours that you've demonstrated there.

I can really, really understand how it feels never to know when he's going to explode at you again. And what's worse, as you've said, is that you are so frightened of becoming like him that you do it without even realising it. But don't bottle up your anger or try desperately not to be him or you'll become him - I expect he was trying not to be his father, and yet look at him, he's transformed himself into his own father with his verbal abuse and random attacks.

I want to say "Get away from him" but you might not be in a position to do that. What you can do - and this is where it gets weird - is accept him the way he is. What he does isn't "right" because it's abusive, but what's most important is how you deal with it, because that can change the course of your life. I remember being bellowed at by my father for a lot of trivial things, and the solution was to agree with him. I just agreed, and then he relaxed. Of course, if he was telling me not to do something and I knew I was going to do it, I went ahead and did it anyway.

I'm going to link you to a video which might help. I've only recently discovered this whole thing, but the moment I read your post I thought about it and it might just give you a head-start.

By the way, I think the support your giving your brothers is wonderful. The video might give you some help in learning to shield yourself from your father's behaviour. Remember that it's your father attacking himself when he tries to attack you, but you don't have to let it hurt you.

The Work of Byron Katie

[mej023]

My advice is to focus on something that makes you feel good.

The most important thing is to just feel good.

You are tuned into your father's vibration and making it your vibration.

Focus your attention on something that makes you feel good and it will raise your vibration.

Then, you will not be a match for your dad's negative vibration and it will cease to be a part of your reality.

[makessense]

Originally Posted by Joely

What I'm going to say might sound very weird. I've grown up with a father who had a flash temper, and I can only offer what helped me deal with it and leave it behind.

Your father is a deeply insecure and frightened man, and he deals with it by being angry, abusive and aggressive. His whole make-up is based around a deep insecurity that he doesn't even realise he has. People who feel fear in this way push it out onto the world and make other people feel fearful and small, because that's how they get power and feel safe and secure. When I realised that was why my father behaved the way he did, I simply saw it as an extension of his fear and I could leave it. This is a man who deep down is utterly, utterly terrified and small. He feels worthless and hopeless. He covers it up with all the behaviours that you've demonstrated there.

I can really, really understand how it feels never to know when he's going to explode at you again. And what's worse, as you've said, is that you are so frightened of becoming like him that you do it without even realising it. But don't bottle up your anger or try desperately not to be him or you'll become him - I expect he was trying not to be his father, and yet look at him, he's transformed himself into his own father with his verbal abuse and random attacks.

I want to say "Get away from him" but you might not be in a position to do that. What you can do - and this is where it gets weird - is accept him the way he is. What he does isn't "right" because it's abusive, but what's most important is how you deal with it, because that can change the course of your life. I remember being bellowed at by my father for a lot of trivial things, and the solution was to agree with him. I just agreed, and then he relaxed. Of course, if he was telling me not to do something and I knew I was going to do it, I went ahead and did it anyway.

I'm going to link you to a video which might help. I've only recently discovered this whole thing, but the moment I read your post I thought about it and it might just give you a head-start.

By the way, I think the support your giving your brothers is wonderful. The video might give you some help in learning to shield yourself from your father's behaviour. Remember that it's your father attacking himself when he tries to attack you, but you don't have to let it hurt you.

The Work of Byron Katie

I didn't really know what to think when admitting all this on a forum, but it has already been worth it with your support and knowledge. What you said really mirrors what is happening and it makes sense. I am tearing a little to hear that somebody has the same experiences and can give this kind of advice. I've always told myself to express my feelings, but it is until now that I've learned not to let anything burn inside. This will only make me become who my father is. I am action-oriented when it comes to menial tasks, hobbies, and personal development, but when it comes to thinking about my father, something just freezes in me. The video is absolutely eye-opening and positive. I love the last quote she said.

I appreciate and thank you so much.

[xyz]

Joely, excellent suggestions. Makesense, you are such a levelheaded person. As Joely has already said what you can try with your father. You can do one more thing, if you want. Tell your brothers to act as a group who understand one another and give positive feedback and emotional strength whenever one of them is feeling down and out. They should start spending more and more time together and study together and when need help their younger sibling in studies too.

[Joely]

I'm really glad I could help you. Try to remember, as well, that he doesn't do this because he wants to hurt you. He wants to love you and he's trying to love you, but his examples of what love is, and how it's expressed, are all warped. And he's desperate to be loved, because he doesn't feel loved.

Whenever you feel anger just let yourself feel it and then let it go. You know you don't need to lash out, but you can take your anger to a safe space and release it without it harming you in the way his anger harms him. He isn't actually angry at you, he's just angry at his sense of powerlessness and hurt.

I'm sure that you'll find a way to grow from this. One day you can tell somebody else who describes their father the way you did to me, how to deal with it.

[makessense]

Thank you, xyz. Excellent suggestion. It will definitely help.

Joely,
It really is becoming clearer by the second. All those moments I expressed anger towards my father is less threatening now. I always thought myself to be a reasonable person up until I think about my father, now I can think about my father with reason. It's a great feeling to know I can do this.

[PerDev]

Originally Posted by mej023

My advice is to focus on something that makes you feel good.

The most important thing is to just feel good.

You are tuned into your father's vibration and making it your vibration.

Focus your attention on something that makes you feel good and it will raise your vibration.

Then, you will not be a match for your dad's negative vibration and it will cease to be a part of your reality.

Really useful advice .. so we can make new environment for ourself

[vince2323]

I can't believe there are people out there who are suffering like me and my 2 brothers and sister, and Mom. We are all in our 30's now (siblings and I), my dad is 69 and his anger is getting worse. He is always mumbling, always negative, b1tching about absolutely anything you can imagine. He is the most negative person on earth. He puts an act on for my parent's friends when they come over, acting nice and very charming, but then when they leave he turns into the mean S.O.B. that he is; driving the family nuts with his mean, negative, condescending demeanor. I mean it is incredible how someone can be so negative 100% of the day. When does such a person say "Phew man, I gotta relax, I gotta stop being so mean." ??? I just don't get it.

I love my Dad, and I will actually come to tears when I think about losing him, but he has to stop this (much easier said than done), and when I think about trying to come up with a solution, I think to myself, its impossible. You can't change this guy. There is no way he will change and be the happy-go-lucky guy we want him to be. He has 4 beautiful kids (give myself a pat on the back ). I thought it was the success of his kids that has had him worried and so negative about life, but we just proved that that is not it. How? I just got my masters degree and I am now an engineer, my brother just got his great job as a programmer/analyst, my sister is a well paid administrative assistant with 2 beautiful babies, and my other brother is a cook. He made us think he has always been mad because we are not successful but that is a crock of sh!t., and we all proved that by being successful, despite the ridiculous childhood he created for us.

For instance, he threw a big soup bone at my brother (I am youngest) when he was like 9 because he didn't want to finish his pasta. The bone nailed him in the head and busted open his scalp. He needed stitches. When we were on the way to the hospital we were told to say he fell down. When we get in arguments about how he treated us, I say to him now, "Dad, if what you did to us was so right, why didn't you tell the doctor's the truth that one time you threw the soup bone at him? Huh, why? It was ok, you were right, then why was it ok? You were smart enough to come up with that excuse weren't you, but not smart enough to refrain from that kind of abuse, huh?"

My poor bro sustained the most abuse from him. Had a broom stick busted over his back at like 9 or 10 years old. I was punched in the nose at 16, had blood all over my little league jersey when I was begging him to take me to my little league game, but he wouldn't. I told my coach and teammates I had a bloody nose. I got yelled at by my varsity track coach for being late for our track meet, barely making my race at the big nationally known university where our races were held. I cried so much, "Dad! Dad! Please, I am going to miss my race!". He didn't care, finally giving in at the last minute. If he waited another 5 minutes I woulda missed my race. I had no time to warm up for my 4X400m race. I went right to the starting blocks.

My sister had her wrist broken when she was like 19, cuz "she came home too late". He kicked her. One time when I was like 10, he didn't want me to go to the park, tracked me down, angrily forcing me to turn around, following me closely with his, car, nailing my back tire, destroying the bike tire. I balled like a baby down the street carrying my bike. I can go into so many more stories about us getting our as#es kicked with that great leather belt he had. Oh how many times we got whipped with that thing. One time, when I was like probably 8 or 9, I was riding my bike home. This neighborhood bully went after my brother and I. He trapped me in a drainage ditch. As I fell into it I scrapped my bike on the underwater metal pipe which was exposed at the ditch opening. It cut my back open. The bully made us late in getting home.

As expected my Dad was going nuts cuz we didn't make his mid-afternoon, post-school curfew. And despite trying to explain to him what happened with the bully, I got my ass kicked by my loving father. Oh what a great day that was. He ended up taking us to the kid's house, and we told his parents. Who knows what they did to him. It didn't matter to me, since I had gotten my ass kicked twice.
Those are just some of the stories. My Dad has been angry his whole life. He is an immigrant from Sicily. He disrespects my mom. Tries to dictate where she goes, and when she can go. Recently, while away at grad school, I get a phone call from my brother and it was a chaotic scene at the house. My Dad was attacking my Mom, and my brother was like, "he is going nuts, going after Mom for no reason. He was outside doing yard work while we were inside (my Dad's excuse) then he came inside b|tching about doing it all by himself, and he keeps trying to get her." My brother, while saying to this me, was feverishly pulling my Dad away from my Mom. I was coming to tears, fearing my Dad was done, kaput, had lost it. I told my brother to put Dad on the phone. I said "Dad, what is going on? What are you doing?" And he starts crying, I don't want this no more, I hate this, I hate my life, I wanna be alone, blaaa blaaaa".

My mom said he hadn't taken his anti-anxiety meds around that time. He actually cut her face a little with his nail when he took a swipe at her. There is no doubt he had a nervous breakdown that night. Nothing has happened since. He has been physical with us our whole lives until we hit our 20's. Now it is just incredible emotional abuse. I have never seen anybody who is so friggin negative. He is always mumbling negative things to himself, says "Oh my God" all the time, finds stupid things to b|tch about (like the newspaper isn't put away, or there are some papers on the counter top, or there are dishes out, or i didn't wash my face, or, or, or, .......), has a negative look on his face, etc, etc. It is just unbelievable. He would call my sis's or my cell phone and talk about stuff and be nice, but then when we get to the house, he is mean, and negative, and, well, you get the picture.

I've told my Dad, and my siblings too that he should have been in jail many times for the things he's done, and he knows it, but he's insanely convinced himself that it was for our own good, and that what he did was ok. But deep down, he knows what he did to us was wrong, he just can't admit it. He did on one occasion, apologize, but he said in the same apology that "I did a lot of those things because I want you guys to be good".

He tries to cite the fact that he is "The Father" and he can do whatever he wants. He can treat people disrespectfully and act as he does because, he is "The Father". According to him, once you become a father, you can do whatever you want because you are the head of the family, and that you become an all mighty guru for everything. We always say to him, when my parent's italian friends are on the way over, that your real family is coming over. Those are the people who make you happy Dad, not us. I say to him, it is going to be too late when you realize that the way you act is making life horrible for this family. He doesn't have a constructive response to that. I don't know how to stop this. I am thinking about calling the doctor he goes to see for his anxiety, and telling him what is going on so that he can maybe recommend a psychiatrist or something. I don't know what else to do. He is making my Mom's life miserable. She is awesome, also an Italian immigrant. We love spending time with my Mom, especially when my sis comes over with the babies. We are having fun, joking around and stuff, then my Dad walks in, and the fun is over. I look at his face, and you can see the sheer anger, the sheer joyless person who lives behind those eyes. How do you get someone like that to realize what life is about? To enjoy your 4 beautiful kids and wife, and so far, 2 beautiful grand kids? How the hell do you do that?
I am glad (not really GLAD, you know what I mean) to see there are other people who are going through this. How do we stop our Dad's from acting like this?

[NightSpirit]

There are two things I think might help you if you try them. First is, no son as kind and thoughtful as you seem to be could have come from a father that was completely negative. Please try and write as long a post about the goodness in your dad and the way you have been blessed by having him as a father. Then for the rest of your life, honor the goodness in him and let him know you appreciate it. Keep trying to look beyond the way he says what he does into the truth and motivation of what he is saying.

The other thing is, know that we learn from the examples of others in life, that the negatives in your dad have been lessons to you on what you don't want to be and have therefore worked for your good. Parents are not always given children to be their teachers, children are sometimes sent to parents to teach them. Maybe you are exactly where you are meant to be and sent to the person you can help the most. Show your dad the right way to respect others by respecting them yourself and especially by finding ways to respect him. Try to be a mirror to him of all that is good in him and all the good he placed into you, if you can find anything good in step one. Then show him how to step away of the negative by seeking the positive for yourself.

From the Bible, resist not evil but overcome evil with good. Easy? No, but worth it? To become the Gandhi of your family and help them past this and into peace? Definitely worth it. You are already on the right track.

[NightSpirit]

Don't let your dad hit anyone else in your family again. You are not helping him by allowing this. Peace doesn't come from submitting to abuse. It also doesn't come from fighting it back with more abuse.

Your dad seems to be on the verge of having an epiphany, looking back at the total of his life. He is getting glimpses of what he did from the past and seeing it for the abuse it really was. Sometimes it's hard to face it when all you see is a monster and it is you.

What your dad is seeking and what your whole family needs, I think, and I am not a therapist, is a healthy dose of forgiveness, for your dad of the past and for your dad for himself. What I hear you saying is "It was wrong, dad, and hurt me in ways you can never fully know. I will never treat my kids the way you did. But you are my dad and I love you so much and want to be close to you so much that it hurts to think of losing you. I have faith in your ability to treat people well because I have seen how well you treat your friends. Dad, we want to be your friends and be treated like your friends too."

You might want to think of doing some type of intervention meeting like they do on reality shows. On those shows, you can feel the love for the addict from their family and I can read your love and your mother's love for your dad in your post and I know he must know it also.

You may want to do it as a family, something similar, to what they do, write down all the ways you love your dad and all the pain his addiction to power and anger is causing your family. Try to do it with as much and respect and dignity as the father you want him to be and hope he will become would deserve, keeping your thoughts centered on the fact that you can't change the past but together you all can make a better now that will add up to a better future. Let Him know you don't buy into the right he thinks he has to verbally and mentally abuse everyone and draw a line on what will be tolerated.

Hitting someone will never be tolerated again without the appropriate legal recourse. You and your family have done nothing wrong and will no longer enable your father by hiding the abuse and protecting his reputation. Give him a choice on how he handles it, on his own or with therapy but mean what you say as a family.

If your dad had already changed and he seemed close to doing that in the call with you on the phone, I would say just let him know you forgive him for the past and move on to a new relationship. But since he is still being mean, you have to find a way to help him separate himself from his past. Sometimes pride won't let us change because to change requires that we admit that we were wrong or will lose face if we do and that is hard for some people.

If your dad won't seek a therapist, maybe you and your mom should go to one and then invite your dad to join later. Again, the point is not to shame or condemn your dad, he is already ashamed of himself in some ways. The point is to help your dad move into the man he wants to be seen as, to leave him with some respect for everything he did right so he will have something firm to build on.

(I hope that didn't seem judgmental toward your family. My granddad was a similar good man with a problem and he didn't completely stop until he got into the church. However, when one of his kids told him, when another ran away from one of his fits," If you go after her, I'm calling the sheriff" his bad deeds lost their cover and that was the beginning of his change. It is so easy to by into that power trip ourselves and I have been far enough down that road to know what I would have become if I had let that reign in me. So I feel nothing but mercy for you dad mixed with the hope that his family can reach him.) There will be joy in your family and in the presence of God as your father comes to repentance about this issue.

[vince2323]

I know what you are saying, every bit of it, but it is very difficult to communicate with him. It is even painful for me to speak like that to him. By "like that", I mean saying "I love you", or anything that sounds sincere, or emotional. Our family does not communicate in such a passionate manner. There is so much resentment going on by my siblings and I towards my Dad. We just can't speak to him like everything is ok, because we hold so much hurt, and hatred, not really towards him so much, but towards what he did and still does to us.

It's hard for me to help him when he asks me for my help. I find myself thinking about why I don't want to help him program the new TV remote, or fill out some insurance papers or something. I realize its because I just can't stand the thought of him thinking that after all the sh*t he has done, that the person who has endured that will simply help him as if nothing has happened. I understand forgiveness. I understand the importance of forgiveness in salvaging relationships.

You know, I get really jealous when I see other people who have great relationships with their Dads. My bros and sis and I talk about how it is great to be a 100% Italian family, but we wonder why is our Dad like this? All the Italian families we know are so loving, caring, and their Dad's are so cool, nice, and fun, yet my Dad is this wicked mean guy. Italians are not like that. Why is my Dad like that? My friends's Dad is from Sicily too, yet he is so nice. He loves his kids and shows it. He never laid a hand on them. He is so opposite of my Dad.

Once you start beating your kids, you ruin them. You ruin the communication you have with them. You ruin their trust in you. Most importantly, you ruin the family. Our family is ruined. My 2 brothers have no self-esteem. My oldest brother is almost 40, and he has never had a girlfriend, and my other brother is 34, and he has only had 1. Their self-esteem's are demolished from being emotionally put down and made to feel worthless. Yes we have good jobs, and we are successful in that respect, but true success comes from blood; creating your own loving family. My brothers will never have that. My oldest brother for sure, my other brother... maybe he'll dig up the self-esteem to find a nice lady. I don't know. Who knows about me. I have had relationships, and all were good. I am just starting my career, so I am giving it time.

My Dad gets p|ssed when I suggest seeing a psychiatrist. He thinks I am making fun of him. He starts mocking those words, "Go see psychiatrist, go see psychiatrist". He goes to church every week. We say to him "Dad, you go to church, why? You don't listen to anything the priest says. You treat us like sh|t. What are you going to church for?" He doesn't have anything to say other than to call us names and act like we are making fun of him. Nighspirit, you have no idea what it is like to see someone get out of bed and start complaining about every friggin thing he sees as soon as he is out of bed, and until he is back in it at night. It is incredible.

He'll sit at the kitchen sink washing dishes, calling people names, mumbling to himself about anything and everything. Things that are so mundane you wouldn't believe it. He just doesn't stop. I'll say, "Man, you don't stop! What are you talking about all day long?! Enough is enough. Didn't you hear the priest say if you have nothing good to say, don't say it?" And he won't have a response for that. Sometimes he'll still say oh, this is wrong, or that is wrong to try and justify his constant blabbering. My mom blames herself for not having him take the night shift and her the day shift. This way she would have been with us at night after school, lessening the beatings, and having us grow up in a safer environment.

To me, he is a sadist. He loved to see us in pain. I have come to this conclusion after thinking about all the stuff he did. He came home from work already pissed off, throwing his car keys and lunch container on the counter top in a p|ssed off fashion. No "Hey kids, how was school? How was gym class? " Nothing. Instead, he would be all p|ssed off, cook dinner, and force us to eat everything on the plate, or suffer. Leaving him alone with us kids was like leaving a lion alone with four antelope. We ask my mom on occasion why she would do that. "You knew how he was, why did you do that?" She says she didn't know it was as bad now that we have told her all the stories. He was just a man out of control and lacking the ability to refrain from such horrible behavior. You have to control yourself. You have to realize that hitting someone, especially a child, is a horrible thing. It doesn't make kids listen. It only makes them rebel, and become mentally damaged in some way.

We are all mentally damaged in some way. We don't understand how he doesn't long to be a part of the family when he sees us gathered at the table (me, my sis, niece, nephew, mom, brothers) laughing. He'd rather go in the other room and be his own miserable self. I just don't get it. I know why.... it's because he knows what he did all these years was wrong, but he can't admit it, nor can he face us on a civil level. He communicates by being mean, and speaking to us in a mean way. He talks nice too, don't get me wrong, but once in a while.

He would lock me in the garage on cold winter nights because i came home minutes late, or some other trivial "offense". He would lay on the family room rug, nice and cozy, while I froze in the garage, waiting for my mom to come home from work at midnight. How cruel is that? I would sometimes sneak in the door past him while he slept. I can't believe people do that kind of thing to their kids. My sister won't lay a hand on her 2 kids. She doesn't want to go anywhere near any kind of abuse, and I never will if I have kids. I just don't understand how people can hit their kids. It is amazing to me. Amazing what goes on in this world.

I don't like the fact that I am sitting here analyzing my situation, or my Dad. I would like to think that he is my friend, a cool guy, and that he wants to be a part of the family, but he has made this impossible. It p|sses me off that other people have a normal Dad, but I am writing about mine on a self help site on the internet. You have no idea how mad at I am that this is where I am today. If only he had enough brains and foresight to know the effects that abusing his children would cause.

[vince2323]

I made it very clear to him that if he ever touched my mom again I would call the cops. Nervous breakdown or not. My plan right now is to call the doctor that he sees through his medical provider. He goes there for anxiety pills and what not. I want to call the doctor and explain to him how my Dad is, and to see if he can have him see a psychiatrist.


When all of the family gangs up on him, but not loudly, just civilly, he starts shouting at the top of his lungs, defending himself in some way. He thinks he is right about EVERYTHING!!!

[niche]

My seven year old twin girls are going through a similar experience with their father. Their father and I have not been together now for 3 years. For the past year or two, they have been asking things about their father such as why does daddy get mad all the time over little things? Why does daddy only love us when he drinks beer? Why does daddy either ignore us or is really, really nice to us?

Originally Posted by Joely

Try to remember, as well, that he doesn't do this because he wants to hurt you. He wants to love you and he's trying to love you, but his examples of what love is, and how it's expressed, are all warped. And he's desperate to be loved, because he doesn't feel loved.

These words are very similar to what I try to tell them. I'm just concerned for their future. You'll have to let us all know how your situation turns out.

[vince2323]

Dad's who are like this want to know that we care about them. There is no doubt about it. The past is the past, I know that. After all the abuse, and their inability to control themselves, as grown kids we are now entering a period where our Dad's our dealing with the thought that we don't love them because of the things they did.

My Dad has said, at times, that nobody cares about him. That's obviously not true. I wouldn't be able to function if I lost him. I know he is a great guy deep down, and that he just couldn't control his anger. It is just almost impossible to bring myself to say I love him because it's just weird to even think about saying that to him. I go on vacations with him and my mom. I do lots of stuff with him. I forget the past in those situations. I don't know man. I just want my Dad to control himself and to stop complaining all the time. I am not mad about the past. he worked his @ss off in a factory for my family and I for 30+ years. He put me through school. I know he loves me, but he just has to stop acting so negatively, and combative all the time.

Sometimes people can't control their anger, I know this. I have forgiven him in my mind, but I just want the guy to stop being so negative all the time and to enjoy life while we are alive and healthy. I keep saying to him that life is too short to argue and complain all the time, but he just doesn't get it.

[NightSpirit]

Originally Posted by vince2323

I made it very clear to him that if he ever touched my mom again I would call the cops. Nervous breakdown or not. My plan right now is to call the doctor that he sees through his medical provider. He goes there for anxiety pills and what not. I want to call the doctor and explain to him how my Dad is, and to see if he can have him see a psychiatrist.


When all of the family gangs up on him, but not loudly, just civilly, he starts shouting at the top of his lungs, defending himself in some way. He thinks he is right about EVERYTHING!!!

If the physical abuse has stopped that's a step in the right direction. It's not necessary that your family talk to him together but you will be able to better move ahead as a family if you are all united in the direction you want to go.
If the situation does get physical again, the court can force your dad into anger management counseling and maybe a doctor there will assess him for physical causes.

I don't think you can influence his doctor without your father's consent; any treatment will depend on your father's decision unless you are ready to take the step of having him declared incompetent and making those decisions for him. If he doesn't see the need for a psychiatrist and want to change, it would be useless anyway.

There are no perfect families and don't think for a minute that they exist but what happened to your family was wrong, so wrong. Your father may not ever acknowledge it and say "I'm sorry."

Looks like you're doing it already but to be able to say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." takes the love of Jesus and not many of us have that. The degree to which you can forgive your father, even if not fully, is the same degree to which you will have peace. Any progress you continue to make in that direction will be worth the effort.

It is almost a selfish thing to do, to say to yourself that the past will have no power over you today.

There is a line from the "Raisin in the Sun" movie that changed my thinking, my life, really. You may not be to that point yet, but my resentments were forming me into someone I didn't want to be. In the movie, after someone had failed the family miserably and one in the family hated him, the mother said something like, "What do you think love is? When do you think people need your love? When they have done everything right and they please you? They don't need love then. They need it when they are wrong, when they have failed, when they don't even love themselves." I needed that Jesus kind of love she was talking about to move past some things that had happened to me. That easy way to love, to love those that love me and treated me well was all I ever had. Jesus said, "What have you done if you do this? Even sinners do this."

You want something higher for yourself than your father is and you don't want to stay trapped under the weight of all his past mistakes. You want to be a person who can love and respect their father, in spite of what he did or does now; you want to be the man he could not and cannot be.

God will judge your father one day, maybe even harshly for what he did. He is judging himself now for it and it's tormenting him. If you can forgive him and ask God to forgive him for what he did to the family, and it will take God in you to be able to do this, then you will be in a better place to help your father out of love. You can already see that, in the abuse, he was lacking something and was reacting to the pain and degradation he felt from life and maybe even of his own childhood.

That may be a place to start, by asking him about how he was raised, not to give him insight but to give you insight into the way he thinks or how he never dealt with his pain. My mom never could see that her dad was wrong in beating them so severely and even blamed her mom in some ways. To alter the pattern or choose to be different herself, she would have had to face the injustice of her own childhood, as you have, and she didn't have the emotional strength to do that. Most people like that avoid pain with stubborn thinking, never admitting they are wrong and never allowing themselves to admit what was done to them was wrong.

This power of abuse, to create abusers, is broken over your family, thank God for that. You can also break this power of his negativity in creating negativity within yourself, of being pulled into trying to prove to him he is wrong. You seem to be answering him and his negative thinking with the same, trying to shame him or using the church or criticism to teach him.

If you don't break this within yourself you will resort to these tools with others and your own children when you have them. This challenge, to love those who aren't showing you love at the moment or to be the love of God instead of talking about the what the priest says about the love of God, holds the potential to make you a better person and a better parent.

I used to argue a lot with my mom, we butted heads all the time, and I was always right, I thought, or I wouldn't have been arguing in the first place. One time, after an argument where she really got emotional, I just somehow saw her, (and I believe it was a vision from God of how he saw her), as someone's little girl that was hurting inside. And I saw that in those arguments, I had taken the position of the parent and I didn't like what I saw of myself, me as my mom's parent, judging and verbally abusing her for being wrong. I wanted to cry for her and for me, that we had both been wrong. I tried after that(and sometimes failed) to always speak to my mother from a place of love and respect. I am glad that happened before she died.

But please don't think I am judging you for sharing your pain and the past. This a good anonymous place to do it. You have every right to feel the pain and I admire your courage and faith in wanting something better for your family and the father you love.

If I told you all of my own story and my history of abusive relationships, and I hate it when people do that and try to one-up what someone else is going through, you might try to counsel me. I will just say that my grandmother on my dad's side, shot and killed her husband who was like your dad, and went to jail for it. Thank God you all didn't resort to that. And when I was in a similar situation with my ex-husband, I got to the point I would rather be dead than live my life under the dictatorship of someone else and I began to seek God for a peaceful way out. I chose to end it and get a divorce to create a better environment for my kids rather than keep trying to love or appease someone out of an anger problem. We don't hate him and help him if we can but I know letting him continue to abuse our family was not helping him.

No one should ever, ever hide abuse from the law or live a life giving into threats to keep the peace. That is not loving yourself and not what I mean by loving and forgiving someone else. As you know, accepting the abuse just gives the abuser more power and the abuse then escalates.

I understand feeling afraid and embarrassed, trying to fix things and wanting to make peace with silence and it makes me cry to think of you or any child with that kind of burden to bear. But none of that helped him to stop. From what you say though, the physical abuse has stopped and you still want him in the family but want to help him change his negative talk and thinking.

If it doesn't work and your family can't stand it anymore, there is always an option for your family,and really always was, to separate yourself from your dad in some way, move your mom out and leave him there muttering to himself. Or you could just ignore and invalidate him as part of the family, put him in a rest home or just meet at your sister's house for dinner and not invite him. No one would blame you if you did but your family doesn't seem ready for those extreme measures and still has hope and love for your father. So do I. Whatever way you decide to bring peace in your family, I am with you in your right to have that peace.

[Zwynd]

I have a lot of stories I could share about my own parents but I'll avoid 'one upping' another and say that I'm stuck in the very same cycle of being abused, hating it, and turning abuser.

I left my family some years back but a startling realization just came as I read over this thread. The realization is: Even without their influence in my present life, I too have begun turning into what I hate most.

A knot of pain is burning in my throat so strongly that I can barely swallow. I may return to try and add something constructive tomorrow. Right now I feel like I've been hit with a realization bat.