Dad making me feel really bad

Hello, I just need a bit of an input on the situation at home.

A little background to my family, I’m very close with my parents, me and my mum especially have a really good relationship. My mum got pregnant with my dad when she was around 19 which kind of helped my mum and dad stay together.

Anyway, there is a lot of issues with my dad like his anger issues (he never ever hit me, it’s more verbal and starting fights over everything) he is very unreasonable, but I want to focus on what happened today and see what other people think.

So tomorrow is my birthday, I’m having a small house party and my parents both decided they wanted to buy all the stuff like alcohol and food and just generally host it. So today they went shopping for stuff for my birthday and I stayed home to clean like my room, the bathroom etc (it usually takes me a while as my room is basically always a mess so I had to properly clean it out). Anyway, my parents were away for about 2 and a half hours, in that time I managed to perfectly clean out my entire room and basically finished the bathroom but I didn’t have the time to get downstairs yet to tidy up a bit in the kitchen and living room. While I was cleaning my cousin (who lives in another country and I barely speak to) called me to discuss the plan for my birthday and her present for me as we were planning to go somewhere together, ofcourse I couldn’t just hang up as we barely get to talk anyway so we talked maybe for half an hour and then I got straight back to the cleaning. Then when my parents got back home I got bombarded by questions “did you feed the dogs?” “Why is the kitchen a mess?” Etc by my dad so I explained telling him that I’m only finishing the bathroom and didn’t get downstairs yet and that I had to speak to my cousin also. He went into full rage mode, saying how it’s completely outrageous, how they’re out there running around the town buying stuff for my birthday and I can’t even do as much as tidy the house and just a lot of other stuff making me feel really bad about myself. When my mum told him to calm down and stop putting me down because it’s not fair, he shut up but started just clenching his jaw and throwing stuff around the kitchen as if he was cleaning so my mum told him to stop and that I’ll tidy up once I finish the bathroom but he replied angrily saying “aye by her dads hands as always” and continued angrily cleaning the kitchen. I stood shocked and picked up a few things to help him so he started his rants again asking how it’s taking me so long to clean, how I never do anything In the house (although I feel like I do so much, I clean, I do loundry, he works nights shifts so when I’m off school I get up earlier and clean so the house is tidy before he gets up etc) and he just doesn’t appreciate it, my mum told him to stop and start seeing the good things I do but he started shouting saying “WHAT THINGS??”... :( I just think the whole situation was completely unreasonable, we weren’t in a rush and I could have easily finished cleaning while they were home and I just don’t understand the need for the whole fight.

Things like this often happen, once things don’t go his way I’m automatically the worst and don’t ever do anything and to him I just sit on my phone. I even overheard him tell my mum once that when he’s old and sick he’d rather be in a home than be taken care of by me. Which was really hurtful but he doesn’t know I heard that. I sometimes feel really bad about myself becauee of him, a few nights before my prom in December I went on to try my dress to see how it looks like again and showed myself to my mum and dad and he told me I should lay off pizza because the dress already looks smaller than it did when we bought it, so that just completely knocked down my confidence for prom. Then on the night of prom my dad had to leave early for work so I walked down stairs all dressed up to at least show him what I looked like and he didn’t even say anything at all, just looked at me as if I was wearing leggings and left for work saying bye. I was broken, I thought I’d atleast get a “you look beautiful” from my dad on my special night but I barely got a look from him, I literally felt stupid so I picked something up and pretended I’m doing something when I got downstairs to not show him I only came down for him. Or sometimes when I’m telling him something he’d just give me a thumbs up without even looking at me, but when he’s telling me a story I’m supposed to sit and listen through 20 minutes of him telling me how work went. Also, I work about 15 minutes away from home and sometimes need a lift to work which he agreed to do, but when we argue he brings it up each time saying how he doesn’t need to do any of that for me or how he doesn’t need to give me all the money that he does and basically makes me feel bad for doing things for me that he previously OFFERED to do, so then I just feel bad even asking him for stuff because then he always brings it up making me feel bad.

But when he’s not in this rage mode we do talk, we laugh sometimes, we joke about etc and he would sometimes tell me he loves me or that he’s proud of me. But things like this are hard to understand or believe when he treats me like that at other times.

I just dont really know what to do, I love him a lot, and I understand that I was his first daughter and I was brought into the world at a very young age for him and that it may have been though but sometimes I feel like he regrets it (although my mum has NEVER made me feel like she regretted me). I have a 7 year old brother and I feel like he loves him much more than he loves me.

I want to know if I was in the wrong for being upset about how he reacted tonight about the cleaning? And talking to him is out of option, he believes he’s the one always in the right. Thankyou so much everyone for any help!

Your dad is abusing both you and your mom. Pure and simple. His outbursts are a way to control and manipulate you. When he starts raging, you and your mom try to placate him. You back away and let him his own way. So many men do this, it's a common pattern. I watched my own father argue with my mother whenever she wanted to go out or do something he didn't want to do. She was meant to feel stupid and worthless. She wasn't sure he loved her anymore. I just stayed out of his way. If he said no, then the answer was no. I didn't argue. My mother figured out to do the same. But it wasn't until my father retired that he softened up. Certainly working and being exhausted has a lot to do with being angry, but he didn't have a father to see a different way to handle a family relationship either.

In any event, I would tell you not to take anything he says personally. For example, with your prom dress, show him your dress but don't expect him to say anything. 30 years from now he might comment on your prom dress. Think of it as feeding information in but having to wait a long time before getting a response. Don't bother to argue. Learn how to get yourself to work. Ignore any promises he makes and just do things for yourself. Tell yourself your father loves you, but he doesn't know how to express that love. The more independent you are, the less he can hurt your feelings. And, of course, think about moving out when you can.

My father was and is like this as well (though no prom dress, being a guy! Haha). It's always over the smallest things, isn't it? I found more respect when I took initiative to move out and move on. Showing myself and them I don't need them at all is what, ironically, made the respect grow so that I no longer have to experience that abuse.