I need to help my dad

I need to help my dad

morelos

New Registrant
I'm a 28 year old man working hard to overcome my upbringing and maintain a healthy marriage with a new child. It's not impossible to do, but every day you have to consciously decide to stifle an unhealthy behavior pattern programmed into you since before you could decide what was right or wrong.

I have worked hard to understand these things in myself, examined my past relationships and tried to find individual event mistakes and misguided trends. You never stop looking inward if you care to get it right on the outside.

But still I come to you for help. I don't know what I can do to help my father, locked into this by whatever forces came about even before my birth. I've heard one version of the story. I've even heard a simplified version of the same story, heavily moderated in realtime, come from the other parent's mouth. He's locked there inside somewhere, and though I know they both have contributed to it, there is no balance of power between them. What they have left is sick.

He says, "I love you." She responds, "OK." She demands to hear a full report about his every day. He must have "made some mistake" during that time every day, such as looking at a female colleague or being nice to pretty much anyone. If he hasn't, he's a liar and the fight lasts three days. If he has, he's trying and made a mistake and he'll only be punished for the day. He usually either deliberately makes the "mistake" or tries to weave it into his story of the day regardless of whether it actually occurred.

You see, she rigs the test so he must fail. It's part of her addiction to rage.

I have bottled audio recordings of hours of this, but since I've always been in their presence wearing the recording device when it's happened, I'm certain not even I know the worst of it. I swear it's textbook battered man.

I will thoroughly elaborate but my six month old daughter just woke from her nap and her needs must be addressed now. bbs to finish.

~ dan ~
 
So I forgot to say that yes there is some sort of history, an accurate account of which I may never know (and don't care to know), but I worked to get more of it from family members who were willing to share. It helped with some of the motives, but not a lot. An uncle told me that my mother was like this before my dad ever "did anything to hurt her."

This means: after getting together aged 16, he dumped her for another girl when they were 18, and somehow he wound up with my mother anyway. Sadly, the girl later married (and ultimately divorced) my uncle!

Now, for whatever reason, he has long been forbidden from looking out the front window, directing his own telephone calls, having any friend or seeing any family (other than me, the only child, and my wife and daughter) outside work, and numerous other things that are starting to hurt me to describe.

Why haven't I tried to help him reach out before? Why did I ever assume, when he told me it was OK or that he would rather have it, that he really wasn't ready to move on? Why do I still fear that no matter how I do it, with finesse or invasively, he will not sieze any assistance, purely out of fear?

I told them she abused him once. It was probably a mistake. Now he won't even consider when I offer to buy him a pre-paid SIM card he can slip into his phone just to CALL HIS OWN SON.

I love my parents. I know that the healthy person somewhere in each of them is dying and in desperate need. And I know that help is the right thing for them. Help to grow apart. Help to learn how to live independently rather than codependently. But my father is the abused party, my mother is the abuser. It's economic, social, emotional, and even a little physical. It's atrocious and they both deserve better. What can I do? Where can I go? They reject the idea of therapy for either or both of them in any combination, because ("obviously") my dad will just "snow over" the therapist. And then my mom privately admits to me that she's "terrified a therapist would advise them to divorce."

Why would anyone be terrified of advice they already knew was obvious?

I'm happy to answer any questions to anyone who sympathizes or has any idea what I can do for them. Maybe also for myself.

~ dan ~
 
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Scroll down to Histrionic Personality disorder

http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Histrionic-personality-disorder.html

While you might get a response or two to your post, I fear, unfortunately, that you are on the wrong site to get the right info for your particular circumstance.

MaleSurvivor is a support site for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and the forum that you posted in is for these men as well. Your father is not a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of hiw wife.

The above link just may give you some insight into the personality disorder of your mother and thereby offer you some clue as to how to about resloving your familly situation.

Also, you may want do to a Google search for Spousal Abuse - you'll find that it takes many forms and by what you describe in your post, your father may well be a victim. I know also that Yahoo Groups offers a support group for pretty much any topic.

Are you yourself a victim of childhood sexual abuse?
 
Meds for the mom, definitely some need for good meds. She might like, hell they all might like the real person the meds uncover. Definitely HPD. Good call.
 
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