Gents, what’s your relationship like with your father?

38 comments

1. My dad is a high ranking member of a religious cult and voluntarily ceased all contact with me when I had the courage to leave the cult at 19. He refuses to make amends and has chosen to not even meet his grandchildren, so…can’t get much worse than that lol.

2. I grew up with my dad. But he was and wasn’t an asshole. When he was he was a major asshole. When he wasn’t, I wanted to be like him. In my teen years it got worse. He immigrated to the U.S. so he didn’t understand the U.S. school system well or the culture I was growing up in. So we butted heads hard. I joined the Marines right out of high school and like you, we speak on the phone and see each other maybe once a year.

   Like you I too questioned my relationship once I had kids. He changed some and now we have a great relationship. Now I’m filled with some regret at the years lost. I’m 42 and he is 74 now. We don’t have much time together left. So if you can, and you’re in a proper place emotionally with your dad, Work on spending more time together, you’ll regret the times missed, you won’t regret trying.

3. Never met mine. I’m 31, I have a very special relationship with my 2 kids. I could never willingly let them feel the way I did as a kid. I’m not sure how it would be had he been around for my life, but I know what not to do as a parent.

4. Very good for me

5. Me and dad changed out a holed radiator in my car last weekend.

6. Nonexistent.

   Growing up I was told that being an adult meant NEVER coming to them for help. (*wanting* help was something they would think about, but they made sure to tell me that if I ever NEEDED help, I was on my own).

   *Principles* were more important than anything (including me) Then he apparently did a 180 on everything that he said was more important than me. When I asked him about it, summarily dismissed me, denied his own facebook history, and demanded that we “agree to disagree with mutual respect.”

   That was 10 years ago. I’ve spent more time writing this post than I have spent with him since.

7. I dont think my dad is that great overall but check in on him every once in a while. Wasn’t the worst dad but never taught me anything in life.

   He wasnt lazy but was kindof a bunp on a log. Has no drive to become a good person, like doesnt care about poverty or politics or anythin like that. Just talks about the weather and soup.

   He did a lot of shitty things to my siblings and as far as I know has never attempted to atone for anything.

   I just dont respect people like that.

   I dont know how my relationship with my own kids will be when Im older but im a MUCH better father than he ever was. I dont fault him for it. I feel bad he just wants to be a bump on a log.

8. My father and I have a great relationship now, but we just could not communicate when I was younger.

   Reflecting back it’s because he and I grew up so VASTLY different that it was hard for us to find common ground. Where he grew up dirt poor, due to his hard work I didnt grow up that way at all. He had a job starting at 13, I didnt have a real job until I enlisted.

   It wasn’t until.I was older and we were more able yo talk about things has stuff improved. Now, we don’t talk often, but that’s just our personalities. We talk when we have something to talk about. I see him more now, but he is 79 so Im trying to get as much as time as I can with what is remaining.

9. Never met him. But a blank canvas is better than trauma, I think.

10. My relationship with my dad is as strong as it gets. He did all the things that great dads do- he was always present, always supportive, always made time for me, etc.- but on top of that, he has always been a great role model. Kids learn by example more than anything. I can’t remember many occasions where my dad sat me down and lectured me or verbally taught me a lesson, but I always looked up to the way he handled himself and lived his life.

11. My father was a manipulative, gaslighting, alcoholic whom I grew up idolizing because I didn’t know any better.

    Then as an adult I started to see/ remember just how poorly he acted towards my mother.

    I eventually went no contact with him and he took his life in 2022.

    My take from being raised by him is that I had a father that taught me what not to be like in life.

    I also tell my wife everyday that I love her.
    I also remember her birthday and our anniversary.

    Ugh, even just being reminded of it, tightens the chest.

12. My dad is a good man. Cool as a cucumber. Smart. Generous. Oozes integrity. If I were ever in a crisis and needed someone to just show up and help, I know he’d be there in a second and would do what needs to be done.

    Our relationship, however, has been dictated by his faults more than his strengths. He’s gruff and cranky when he’s tired. He’s self centered and loves the sound of his own voice. He’s got a very sexist tendency to talk over women and to get offended when they don’t grant him the floor. His emotional intelligence is non-existent… I’ve been trying for 20 years to have a serious conversation about our relationship, and he just isn’t capable of starting down that path.

    I’m fortunate that I don’t have any deep trauma with him, but will always wish we could have had a richer emotional relationship. But at this point in our lives I’ve given up on it ever changing, and just try to enjoy the time we have left.

13. My dads dead, I hated him, but we mended our relationship. We went golfing once a week during the season. Sometimes we’d talk on the phone. Our relationship was a direct result of his actions. Just don’t be a piece of shit. Tell your kid you love them and you’re proud of them and it’ll be fine.

14. when I was 13 the courts finally listened and revoked his visitation right

    I never spoke to him again

    I saw him 3 times, the last time when I was 19 or 20.

    6 years later I found out the fucker died.

    Its never been better

15. He casts a very long shadow.

    We have a great relationship, and we’ve gotten a lot closer as I’ve aged, but he’s done things so well (family, profession, community, etc.) that the bar is really, really high.

16. Father? Never knew him. Real piece of shit, beat my mom up, hurt a lot of people physically, mentally, sexually. Convicted felon and rapist.

    Luckily, my mom was able to leave him after I was born and she re-married. My (step)dad isnt very affectionate and didnt teach me much about life or being a man. I’m fortunate that I had a father figure at all, but the lack of closeness always got to me. I’ll never know that bond and I feel like I missed out on a lot of lessons he could have shared. Advice. Guidance. Support. Probably only said he loved me a handful of times. I see fathers/sons doing stuff and I can’t help but feel envious. When a father visibly shows or tells his son hes proud of him, I cant help but tear up.

    It’s all I ever wanted to hear.

17. I’m very lucky to have such a loving father. I didnt see him much during like 19-24 because I was going through some stuff and drinking/smoking my feelings away but after that and mellowed out I make an effort to see him more.

    Sadly he went from like 300-350 miles away to 2,000 last year so I can’t visit as much. Before I would go for a two day to week long visit like 7-10 times a year.

    It’s a long story but last time I saw him he told me I’m the only child in his will now. (my whole family is nuts).

    I love my Dad. Here’s us years ago when I was small

    https://preview.redd.it/5ggz0cz7xd3h1.jpeg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4606cf2fbb37b05289ad89af03c5f2ba9f4d636e

18. I think part of becoming a man is seeing the flaws in your own father. He goes from being a superhero to a mortal man. It’s sad but it’s the way of things. I see the good and the bad in my father but I never ever doubted the love he held for me and my sister. Same as my mother.

    He has dementia now, but it’s the reason I go back once a week to see him and have the same conversation again and again. I do it because I love him. I love him because he was present always.

    The flaws are there but I can see beyond that. He was and is a good man. You sound like you are too. If you always keep that I would imagine you’d have the same outcome. It sounds like your Dad wasn’t present at an important time. You can right that wrong. That can be a flaw that you fix.

    But your son will see the flaws in you. Him seeing the flaws means he is becoming his own man.

    All the best on your journey.

19. It was nonexistent. He was a raging, abusive alcoholic. I cut ties when I enlisted at 18. I saw him twice in 30 yrs after that. He hadn’t changed.

    He taught me what NOT to do as a father.

20. He’s dead and I miss him everyday.

21. I didnt see alot of my old boy growing up. He was a shift worker, did some massive hours. So alot of my childhood he was at work, or asleep. Didn’t really know him that well. It took a pretty major life event for us to sit down and talk.

    He came from a broken home, his dad walked out on his family when dad was 10. Dad wanted me and my brothers to have a decent life, a stable home, to do what we wanted in life. That made more sense to me as an adult, than wondering why my friends dads were around and mine was working as a kid. He just wanted us to have the life he didnt get.

    My dad is retired now, him n mum are doing good. Im proud of my dad for giving us the life he didnt have. I love the man, hes a gentle soul in a stubborn old man’s body. Part of me wishes he could have been there for some big moments of my life, but I also understand why now alot better than I did then.

    He was always kept up to date with what us kids were doing, there were photos mum had taken of important events and stuff dad kept, motivation when he needed it. My one he kept on his desk was me in my goalkeeper gear, smiling with my mates because we had won an important game. He never understood the rules of field hockey, but that was his proud moment of me, to point out his boy doing what he loved.

    We dont have deep conversations much, but we keep in each other’s lives. He knows how I feel, and I know hes proud of me turning out as a decent human. I guess thats all we can hope for, love and respect both ways. But I think my relationship with my old boy is pretty good these days, and I will long hope for him to have many happy years ahead of him, to enjoy peace and happiness.

    All I can offer for advice as that kid, let your children know they are loved, and that the sacrifices you make are for them. They might not understand when they are young, but they will learn. Embrace the little moments, laugh with them, take an interest in their interests.

22. If you’ve watched much of Leave it to Beaver (which was 1957-63), that’s basically how my relationship was with my dad when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. He was always present except when he was at work or traveling for work, always kind, calm, generous, a bit stern and serious, and us kids feared him (he never gave us a reason to fear him but we did anyway). He never beat us but we always thought he might, much like Beaver and Wally did. We didn’t have deep conversations. As I became an adult and went to college (which he paid for), it seems we just became more distant. He often said he was proud of me, but we had nothing to talk about. I never came out to him, but my mom later told me they both knew I was gay since I was a young kid. Then when I was a very immature 24, he suddenly died of a heart attack at 51.

23. I sort of feel like a lot of millennial dads that were present were largely also not that present.

    Super into work… super irritable… and didn’t want to be bothered when he was doing his leisurely activities like watching football. Didn’t like many questions or being bothered in general. I sort of felt like I had to walk on egg shells around my dad and just prayed I could go unnoticed while my mom was around.

    Also my dad was military/federal agent and for a short time worked at a federal penitentiary… so that might explain the irritable part. But I adored him as a kid because I thought it was cool he was tough and he would make my mom stop beating on me at times. She would hit me excessively when I was small and defenseless. As I got older she stopped but she was still incredibly angry and made life frustrating and painful.

    I mean he did take care of me from a financial standpoint… grew up middle… maybe upper middle class? Paid for and took me to hobbies like guitar and martial arts. Proud when I got A’s… the biggest dickhead in the world if I was ever bad at something. Gave me his old cars when I needed until I could do stuff like that on my own. He’s given me random financial gifts at various stages in life… appreciated but also not needed. For the most part I’ve been pretty self sustaining though since I joined the army at 18. But when I think back on my childhood I just barely remember having any conversations other than small talk like “how was school” or getting bitched at about stuff.

    Honestly, I feel like I didn’t have a real conversation with my dad until I was out of the army around 23. So attempting to do the father son thing as an adult has always been awkward. We’re just different people and I feel like I was more so raised and shaped by other influences of my environment. And honestly, these days I find myself very annoyed by him. Naturally just a super negative guy… like I feel like he has to put real effort into saying or doing anything supportive. Almost like he wants things to not work out so he can say he told me so.

    I dunno man… in short our relationship isn’t great… it could be worse… but any time I try to work on it a bit it usually doesn’t take long before I mostly just realize it’s never going to be that great and I’m not sure how great of a use of time it is.

24. He’s alive and I see him maybe once a year. Very cordial relationship when we do meet, but I can’t think of a single time he’s reached out to me and just asked me how I was doing or anything.

25. tough relationship with both my parents. Both had it hard with their own parents, and both were awful to me and my brother, more so me. My dad was just an angry asshole. Everything bothered him, especially me. I’ve repressed a lot of the verbal and physical abuse, because I still have to maintain a relationship with the guy. It’s fucked because he’s also capable of being a really supportive, generous and loving father, which further complicates things. But the man had no control of his temper and it really fucked up my life. If it were just me, I’d be in a totally different part of the world. But both of our (wife’s) family’s are here, so we’re here.

26. No relationship. Dad was a hard drug user which meant he was in prison for a lot of my childhood and even when he was about he wasn’t really. Would forget to pick me n my sister up from school, take us on drug runs with him. Was generally just a bit of a deadbeat. It wasn’t until I got older that realised that he was sick but unfortunately the damage was done by then.

    He passed away a few years ago and I never got to mend any of the broken bridges.

    I always promised myself that I’d be a better father than him. I don’t have children yet but I plan on keeping that promise.

27. It’s not the best but not the worst. I grew up and it was very tumultuous. My dad was dealing with getting a business off the ground and working 80 hour weeks while I was a kid. When I was a teenager, we butted heads quite a bit until I moved out. I grew up LDS and lost the faith and that caused major issues with my dad.

    Now? I have two grandkids that he loves dearly and loves to spend time with. He’s gotten therapy and is working on owning his shit. I’m working through my own therapy journey. I see him more often than I used to.

28. Complicated. Mental illness and alcoholism weren’t fun to deal with, but even for all his flaws, family was always his joy (even if his choices fucked it up at times).

    He lost his own father at 8 years old, my grandmother never remarried, and there wasn’t a permanent father figure in his life after that – which I think contributed to some of his own shortcomings. He was a very smart guy, very handy, but not very good at teaching his knowledge… So many things you think of “being taught by your dad” I had to learn on my own.

    As a teenager there was a time where we just started butting heads a lot, and I just kind of left home because I couldn’t live under the same roof as him. As I got into my twenties, I’d visit him often (as he lived a few blocks away) and we’d hang out and watch football, listen to music, work on vehicles, etc.

    Myself being a father now, the only parts of his parenting style I try to keep is the genuine love and the playfulness of his personality. But I am my own man, and I choose to do things better. I feel like I have a great relationship with my kid.

29. He’s a super rich plastic surgeon.

    Doesn’t care about me.

    Doesn’t care about the other 3 children he created, nor does he care about the other daughter he adopted through marriage.

    I’m getting married in a few weeks and he isn’t even invited.

    Doesn’t even try to reach out.

30. My is a complete piece of shit. Only calls me when he needs me to sign papers for land. I am so glad hes outta my life and I dont have to take care of him when he dies of sickness, just like when he abandons us where we were toddlers and my mom had to take care of thr family.

31. Well, he’s dead. I wanted a close relationship but it never worked out. He was deployed to some foreign country half my childhood. Then I was a teen and focused on establishing myself. Then he and my mom decided to adopt some kids instead of getting to know their grandchildren. Then he died because of Covid. I’m a little bitter about it. There were mistakes from both of us but it really upsets me because I feel like it has affected my ability to form close relationships with my own children. I still try but I feel like I’m missing something I should have learned as a child.

32. Also in my 30s, expecting a little girl in a few months

    Relationship with my dad isn’t great. It was ok at best as a teenager.

    We’ve always butted heads, but we got in a huge argument during Covid – he started liking Trump and since I’m not an idiot I don’t. The argument hit the fan when we got into it over Covid and vaccines, I basically told him we weren’t going to see them if they didn’t get vaccinated because my wife was having some health issues and needed to reduce exposure and her parents are older and needed to reduce exposure as well.

    He went on to tell me how the Covid vaccines don’t work and ivermectin would or HCQ would, despite me having degrees in biology and biochemistry, which ironically he helped pay for…

    He still can’t accept that there are topics where I know more than he does.

33. Fine I guess.

    Calls me once a month ish. A lot of reminiscing on his end. Glory days and all that. Surfing stories, fishing stories, etc. Planning surf trips we’ll never take. Asks me about my job occasionally (he was a framer, I work in construction management). He’s more like a buddy i catch up with periodically. Could be much, much worse.

34. Me and my dad have an odd relationship. He has always put me down and nothing I have done has been good enough. I have a sister who’s 39 and never had a job and she’s the best at everything. Going out to work in the pouring rain all day in construction and then coming home to be told she’s tired or she needs to rest made me quite resentful. I started working an apprenticeship at 16 and since then I’m quite proud of the fact I never asked for money again. I learned to drive ASAP so I could be in the house as little as possible, I moved out at 19. He rang me when he wanted to do manual labour of some variety, he got me to do shift jobs nobody else would do and then tell me I did it wrong and I was in thirties before I learned to tell him to fuck off. I joined the army reserve at 18 and I met good men, men I could actually go to with my problems for advice.
    I get what where you are though, I now have two kids and I’m terrified we’ll have a similar relationship. I’m trying to do the things with them that I wanted my dad to do with me and when their older I hope I’ll have a better balance of actually listening and discussing rather than barking.
    My dad isn’t a bad man, he kept a roof over our heads, fed us, and we never wanted for anything. He’s just a fucking bollox and at 71 he bored out of his mind with no idea why people don’t come and spend time with him. I keep telling him he has his amazing daughter to spend time with.

35. Haven’t talked to mine since I was 14 and have no interest in doing so. I plan on pissing on his grave when he finally passes away.

36. Well, OP,…. you certainly hit a nerve among those that had a bad relationship with their Fathers.

37. My father left when I was 7 and my sister 4, I have vivid memories of my mother and the 2 of us huddles together crying on the kitchen floor. My mum (rightfully) took him to the cleaners during the divorce, but he paid child support up til we were 18 and then kept paying to find our uni fees until we were 21. He’s always been quick with money but never his time, and so the relationship I have with him is fairly transactional in nature.

    Over the years I’ve come to realise how much he regrets what happened, he made various excuses about how he’d fallen out of love with my mum, the reality was he just wanted to shag the secretary at work and (quoted verbatim by my mother) “didn’t want to be burdened by the children’s trivia”. That’s why he never appeared at our school plays or sports days, work was always too important.

    He eventually remarried a women who already had 2 kids and they’re far more dysfunctional than my sister and I, the life he claimed he wanted out of became his reality to a worse degree while our mum piled everything she had into bringing us up and we’re now both married, successful and with kids of our own.

    After spending years keeping him (and his wife, whom I dislike) at arms length I relented eventually so my daughters could know they’re Grandad, and his relationship with them mirrors mine, he’s quick to send large amounts of money for birthdays or Christmas, but he never reaches out first, or offers to come see them, it’s all 1-way effort.

    What he did when I was 7 shaped me into the man I am now, I’m a hands-on father, faithful husband, I work my ass off to build a successful career but never miss a dance recital or football game. I make more money than he ever did and have all the trappings of his own success without the ego or greed to go hunting for more. He’s said he’s proud of me, but I don’t need his validation or his money, so it’s a relationship of equals more than father and son.

38. My dad doesn’t understand what it means to be the alpha of the pack. He literally said that if your kids don’t fear you, then you’re not a good parent.

    He was always angry and beat me up a lot for any reason he deemed necessary. I’ve recieved several concussions from him, a murder attempt, two suicide attempts where he stared at me and called me a coward, injected with drugs as a teen because he thought that me standing up for myself was the same as me being “dangerous, ballistic and uncontrollable,” had three of my teeth removed as a kid, made me bleed from my face after slamming me into a car seat multiple times, stepped on me, threw me into furniture and attempted for three years to have me locked in a psychiatric facility after he got reported to the authorities by my school, which he denied and claimed that I was schizophrenic, violent and in denial of my sexuality, though despite me saying repeatedly that none of it was true, everyone he hired constantly pushed me to change my mind and admit to it so that he couldn’t be guilty. All the while, he continued beating me up.

    Even in his 70s, he’s still willing to scream and punch me in the face and nearly get into road rage with people if he thinks someone will get in front of him. He was very present throughout my childhood, but it was because he didn’t want me to be around other people he didn’t approve of, including potential friends. He literally stalked me in my adult years from the places I worked to everyday errands just to walk up to anyone I talked to and explain how much of a proud, loving father he was. ALthough there’s no conclusive evidence, he may have tampered with my food on multiple occasions after my health and quality of life drastically decreased after being broke as an adult and having to rely on my parents for food, and they’d both get angry if I ate something besides what they wanted me to.

    I’ve tried forgiving him many times over the years, but he would beat me in an anger episode until I stopped making noise, apologize hours later and then immediately get angry again. I often remind him that I have trauma because of him and need to medicate, and that most of my memories of him are painful, which he doesn’t like to hear and will often blame me for. He also had cancer late this past year and beat it, and despite me willing to help him, the hardest thing for me to possibly do was tell him at any point that I loved him. He always stressed how much he provided for me and yeah, he’s always been a provider, but wasn’t much of a father growing up.

    I’ll never get a chance to have a kid, but if I did, I’d like to be present, respectful, accountable, and raise them with love and the proper kind of discipline, keeping my anger and personal issues away. I’d also prefer a small rural town where neighbors are neighbors, as anyone I went to for help as a child in suburbia either ignored me or didn’t want to get involved.