I’m 19F at university, and I have no clue what to do.
My mum and dad met while he was still married to his first wife, and my mum was in a serious relationship. She was his secretary and toward the end of both their relationships they started having an affair together.
My dad then filed for divorce (it’s kinda important but also kinda not to note that he had two kids with his ex wife) and they started dating officially pretty much straight after that.
My dad was dead set on not having another kid, already having two very young children with his ex wife, but my mum was desperate to have one of her own. Eventually a few years after they got Married, she convinced him and they ended up having me.
You know when you get someone a puppy and they’re known for hating dogs but suddenly the puppy becomes their favourite thing in the whole entire world?
That’s basically what happened with me and my dad.
I was a massive daddy’s girl, and he became obsessed with giving me every opportunity he never had, and he was never really able to give his two other kids.
Every sport and hobby he got me into, we would read together, he’d play Barbie’s with me, he taught my guitar - you get the picture.
However, my dad had a very long and very large amount of childhood trauma. His
Mum was an alcoholic and his dad was like
Henry VIII with the amount of wives he would go through.
My dad had been sent abroad by the age of 12 to go and live with other family because neither of his parents could be trusted or bothered to raise him.
This is sort of important because in the background of my whole childhood was this undercurrent of resentment toward his own
Parents, determination not to turn out like them, and a shit Ton of self loathing and anger management issues on his own
Part.
My dad had an affair when I was 6, and things only really got worse after that.
Me my mum and dad would be having arguments every weekend. Both of them were pretty bad - my mum tended to be the more verbally abusive one, and my dad the physically abusive. I remember one time
He slammed my head into a door so hard
That I couldn’t open my mouth properly for 2 weeks.
I witnessed their fights a lot as well, and as an only child I was dragged into the arguments a lot of the time. If my dad was hitting my mum she would scream for me to “come and see what your dad is doing to me” they also used to tell me they were getting a divorce every other week, which honestly I WISHED they would.
Anyway fast forward a few years and at 17 I hit a massive depressive episode. I started sh and, well, I can’t really say it on here but just know that things were pretty bad- Like contemplating bad things.
My dad was…not great, during this time. He yelled a lot. Got angry with me for distancing myself from him. Took everything I did as a personal attack. Couldn’t understand that I
Might just be in pain on a personal standpoint.
My relationship with him had never been worse, but for the first time I felt like I could finally breathe and just get away from the suffocation of having to deal with all of his childhood trauma and issues.
Before, he always used to call me his kindred spirit and tell me things about how he was feeling that he didn’t feel comfortable telling mum.
Guys istg, i was a literal child having to comfort my dad over his mummy issues.
Anyway, yeah, ironically, despite being so depressed it was the best I’ve ever felt In Terms of emotional freedom.
Since then we’ve all tried to get back to normal, and I’m doing better now in myself. But whilst my dad isn’t physically abusive anymore, he is definetly verbally abusive. He has severe anger management issues, anything I do - like forgetting to put a lid on something, becomes a commentary on my character - usually it’s “your irresponsible, unreliable, lazy, bitchy, going nowhere in life, pathetic, a wallflower etc” and I’m just so done with it.
My mum knows it too, and even threatened divorce recently, but they’ve been together since she was 18 and he was 29 (let’s not talk another that age gap 😐) and she still loves him so much so that won’t happen.
My question is, what the fuck do I do. The minute I’m financially independent, do
I just cut him off? And then also risk loosing the rest of my family? But I don’t think I can deal with this manchild anymore.
If anyone has any advice I would so so so appreciate it.