What to do about my Dad?- long sorry...

[Vanishing Girl]

It's been a while since I posted anything. I'm going to try to summarize this the best I can.....first some background:

 

I'm 29 now and my parents split when I was 11. From the time they split (say ages 11-13) my visitations with my Dad stunk. He'd tell me horrible things about my mother (call her names, tell me he'd kill her, and told me I was just like her). During that whole time my mom was going to court to fight to keep him away from us. He paid his lawyer, who knew the judge, and got away with quite a bit during those years. The whole situation came to a close when he busted my lip open and I called the police. The courts ordered him to seek counseling or they would take away his visitation. He never went, so I stopped seeing him.

 

Throughout my teenage years he would contact me and act like he changed, and within weeks would start to demand that I go to the courthouse and say I lied about what happened (when he hit me in the face), so that it would clear his record (not even sure what he was charged with since i was young when it happened). Each time he asked this of me I would tell him I wasn't going to because it did happen and then I'd stop talking to him. He did this at ages 15, 16, and 18. Finally at 18 I told him to go to hell and to leave me alone. He moved to Italy after that and I thought that was the end of that. Thing is...it hurt alot since before him and my mom split i was closer to him than her.

 

Around the time I was 22 he moved back from Italy and wanted to start a relationship with my brother and I. My brother hadn't spoken to him in over 12 years (for his own reasons much like my own and because my father "disowned" him when he couldn't succeed in talking my mother into getting back with my father). He had a new wife and seemed like a new man. We took it very slowly, and over a few years started a relationship with him again. We never talked about the past. I feel now as though we should have, but we didn't.

 

Fast forward to last Friday. Keep in mind it's been 6 years since he came back and while the relationship is not close...it's there and we see him often. I called him because we're trying to get together on a time to see him for Christmas. The last few years we've celebrated on Christmas Eve because it works out better for my brother and I and our spouses (as well as all families involved). This year my Dad will be alone on Christmas because his 2nd marriage didn't work out either and he has no friends. I called him and my Dad started flipping out about how my mother named my brother after a man he thought she had an affair with when my brother was little (my brother is 40 years old). My mom never had an affair. My dad was so sick before (when i was young) he was put in a psych ward in a hospital and the way he was wigging out it seemed like we reverted back to that guy i knew back then. He told me she was a * * * * * and she has won, and bascially was talking in a way that created a huge emotional reaction in me. I started crying and becoming hysterical and told him i'd have to go as I didn't want to react and have him hear me. I feel i would have made the sitation worse. I did tell him "you sound paranoid, and i have to go".

 

So, now what does one do from here? If i shut him out of my life I feel like i will always hold resentment towards him and that it will grow in me and then i will have problems throughout my life because of it. If i try to talk to him about it i fear that i am putting myself in harm's way because in the past you could not talk sensibly to him. I feel guilt because he will be alone, but know that he cannot come around the family since my mom will be there.

 

What would you do?

[MollyElise]

ooohhh {{HUG}} I'm not sure what I would do but do feel confident that you have made good decisions so far and I believe you will come to the right conclusion.

 

I feel for you and your family, your dad sounds like he is very hurt and not well and it's affecting you.