Personally i have to admit i feel drained every time i speak to him, it doesnt take more than 5 mins-record time! He reminds me what i should do or in my view what he wants me to do and i have different plans. I get so much negativity from him that i feel weak,sad and lost at the same time. He is a good family man though and worked hard in his life and i appreciate what he has done for his family. The thing is that he exhausts me emotionally since i can remember myself..age 5 maybe... dont remember many times i felt in ease being around him but there are a few i keep in my mind as good memories.
I already feel guilty for being away , i miss everyone from my family and they miss me too; being away though gave me time to find myself and also accept my sexuality which we havent discussed in depth and is not an issue that can cause dispute at least not yet.... 
I haven't been visiting home often because i cannot have any confrontation with him and although this is good as we wont have any arguments or bad feelings keeping a 'safety distance' i miss home and feel alone (definitely this have effected my personality too). I feel i cant resolve this so i avoid it but what worries me is doing so at some point will come to haunt me. I hope and try not to mistreat him or disrespect him and try to be fair. It is really hard to have a conversation with him...i just have to be silent let him say what he has to say and then try to find a way either to do what i believe is best for me without upsetting him or make him feel i am going against him...takes a skill. Not sure if i have the right approach to our relationship. Very difficult relationship.
Anyone has a similar experience?
What is the relationship with your father?
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spotysocks Wrote:Personally i have to admit i feel drained every time i speak to him, it doesnt take more than 5 mins-record time! He reminds me what i should do or in my view what he wants me to do and i have different plans. I get so much negativity from him that i feel weak,sad and lost at the same time. He is a good family man though and worked hard in his life and i appreciate what he has done for his family. The thing is that he exhausts me emotionally since i can remember myself..age 5 maybe... dont remember many times i felt in ease being around him but there are a few i keep in my mind as good memories.
I already feel guilty for being away , i miss everyone from my family and they miss me too; being away though gave me time to find myself and also accept my sexuality which we havent discussed in depth and is not an issue that can cause dispute at least not yet....
I haven't been visiting home often because i cannot have any confrontation with him and although this is good as we wont have any arguments or bad feelings keeping a 'safety distance' i miss home and feel alone (definitely this have effected my personality too). I feel i cant resolve this so i avoid it but what worries me is doing so at some point will come to haunt me. I hope and try not to mistreat him or disrespect him and try to be fair. It is really hard to have a conversation with him...i just have to be silent let him say what he has to say and then try to find a way either to do what i believe is best for me without upsetting him or make him feel i am going against him...takes a skill. Not sure if i have the right approach to our relationship. Very difficult relationship.
Anyone has a similar experience?
What is the relationship with your father?
Oh yes, I love my father dearly and have come to appreciate his many qualities and the quality of his 'unspoken' love for each of his children just by becoming an adult myself. Sometimes though, he still treats me (at almost 50) like a child and asks me to remember to... or beware of... etc as if I didn't have a clue what he was talking about or wouldn't have thought about it myself. That's funny. I guess in their minds we are still children. However, I know all the respect he has for me, just from hearing what other people say he says about me and my brothers. It's encouraging to know that he feels that way, when, often, dealing just with him, I might feel less than adequate in his eyes. For example I'm rather hopeless with cars and couldn't care less about cars, but he's a good mechanic so that, I'm sure, would be cause for his irritation. However, I think he believes my artistic skills are much better than his and he is quite happy to make a good comment about my cooking, my sewing, my dancing etc... things that he's maybe not so good at (not talking about cooking, at which he excels  ). I do love my dad, he's a great person and although it's really hard to have a good heart to heart with him about emotional issues, I know he's a practical giver and can only express his love in deeds. You've got to read in between the lines with dads, sometimes.
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Two things you've said struck me PA, so I wanted to quote you on them ...
princealbertofb Wrote:I guess in their minds we are still children.
I would actually say that we will always be their children, and so they cannot help themselves but try and parent us, at any age ... which is both heartwarming and endearing, challenging and frustrating all at the same time, in different quantities ...
... and you also said ...
princealbertofb Wrote:You've got to read in between the lines with dads, sometimes.
... which I think is spot-on. I don't know what it is about fathers - taking mine as a prime example - that means they just have such a hard time showing their emotions ...
My dad loves me - I know he does. He provides tirelessly for me and the rest of my family, and I enjoy a FANTASTIC quality of life thanks almost ENTIRELY to his hard efforts (in a professional sense), and God knows I love him to pieces ... but we've never had an extremely close relationship, because he just isn't very good with emotional things ...
... he's a planner, a go-getter, a doer. He thinks heavy, and silently, and then acts ... and his temper is FEARSOME to behold ... REALLY terrifying stuff.
... but in spite of his faults (and we all have faults don't we), I love him and couldn't really ask for a better father. If I could change one thing, it would be that I'd really like for him to give me the signal that it's ok for me to speak openly with him about my sexuality, because at the moment we've got this thing going on where he snorts and makes outspoken anti-gay comments that I view as an attempt to keep me from bringing this news to him ...
... and this has been going on for the past ooh ... 24 years ??
*sigh*
Good job I'm the patient one .
xx
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
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When in England I live with my father. He's been very supportive. Our relationship was not always good. I'm lucky to have had a second chance of building a relationship with my dad. Not many people get that.
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marshlander Wrote:When in England I live with my father. He's been very supportive. Our relationship was not always good. I'm lucky to have had a second chance of building a relationship with my dad. Not many people get that.
I find it very endearing that we can talk of our fathers in such positive terms, recognising that we love them and they love us when the outer signs are not always so obvious.
When I look at you, Marsh, with your children, I see exactly the sort of father I'd have liked mine to be, but it wasn't so and so I'm glad that some fathers are just like you, honey.
As I missed having my father during my childhood, after my parents' separation and divorce, I am glad to have got that second chance that adulthood has afforded me. A couple of times during my adolescence, I wrote some very hurtful letters to my dad because I just did not comprehend how he was acting. He wrote me back the most touching letters, which, because they have been so rare and so openly honest, I've always kept. Those letters must have cost him an arm and a leg (morally and emotionally) to write but they showed such passion as I'd never seen him express in his usual demeanour. Those letters were always greatly cathartic and cleared the air for a good while.
These days I don't have to write to him, I think we can talk more openly but occasions are rare. I've not had to mention my homosexuality to him, he's understood and has let me understand that he's understood. I am grateful to him not to have questioned my choice of a partner and to be so pleasant to Marshlander.
Having lost his third son, who died in his arms, I do not think he wants to have to go through anything like that sort of bereavement again. I will always remember how, after having 'held the fort' for two or three days, he burst out crying just before the funeral, and was saying he was silly and inadequate for crying... I never felt so close to him as when he eventually let his emotions loose like that. That was a bitter but wonderful moment for me to behold. What better proof could he have shown than those tears of sorrow and grief? Thank you, dad, for letting down that emotional barrier, once at least. I love you, dad. 
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marshlander Wrote:When in England I live with my father. He's been very supportive. Our relationship was not always good. I'm lucky to have had a second chance of building a relationship with my dad. Not many people get that.
Yeppers... grew up nearly hating the man, nearly. Said silent thanks to my mom for keeping the family together.
Many decades later Dad has been there for me, as he always was. Mom wasnt.
With the new house I am out from under their roof once again. Work with Dad or grocery shop so see him every other day. We chat like old friends.... Bush bashing is his usual passion.
It was really nice to hear him say that I was one of the hardest working humans he ever saw as well as my pasta sauce was better than his mothers (her being from Italy - that was really something).
also appreciate the second chance.
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My relationship with my dad has never been a very strong one. When I was younger he was always working and rarely used to play with me. We never really did anything as father and son together, so we never really bonded. Instead I bonded mostly with my mother - I used to sit on her lap twiddling her hair round my finger, she had a bad habit of biting her finger nails which I've inherited from her and still do :mad: etc. etc.
I feel sad saying that when my dad moved out... I didn't overly miss him. I felt guilty that I didn't miss him... and so for the first month I almost bullied myself into making myself miss him? But since then he has more than shown that I don't miss him at all. And I really do feel bad saying that... when he lived here, I saw him as a very unselfish man who did anything for his family? I.e. worked all the hours god sent to provide for them? Anything I asked him to do, he'd do etc. etc. However as soon as he started taking things out on me personally and wanted to use me as a vector for getting to my mum... and all the events that have followed i.e. the shouting and swearing at my 7 year old nephew (often using the vulgar C word!) I've lost what little respect I had for him and I can honestly say at the moment, I don't miss him one bit :redface:
Oh I just thought, I'm not sure if everyone knew, but my parents split up a year ago so my dad no longer lives here and the last time I saw him properly was February. I've since told him that I'm gay and I have a wonderful boyfriend - to which he overreacted and basically said he didn't know if he loved me anymore?? Which made me VERY irrate... but what can you do? And now he has apologised and said he overreacted and accepts it etc. but he has not contacted me for over a month...
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My dad left us when I was 7
Simple
No emotion, Nothing !!
Shadow Wrote:My dad loves me - I know he does.
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I have a very good relatinship with my dad and i respect him loads.
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Hiya,
My dad kinda abandoned us when i was a wee babe at 3 months old and my older brother was about a year and half because he met some other woman... When i was 13 he came back on the scene and hasnt had much to do with meeh so on the whole i tend to ignore the fella and wait till xmas when i get £50 off him which comes in use for a tank of petrol in the car for a week or i gamble it... Do something to annoy him tends to work with me  He knows im gay because when i was with my first boyfriend he asked where i was going and i told him there and then who the guy was and where we were going... He seemed a bit fifty fifty but seems ok with his son being gay.
Kindest Regards
Zeon
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