Parenting my Dad 101, any tips?

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I live with my Dad, and it's not going to change anytime soon. I'm working through the trauma of things, and now that I've dispelled the notion that my Dad has intentionally dismantled me, just because he hates me, or is some sociopath, I'm gonna be realistic here. He's more like a petty, spoiled, 5 year old, with anger issues, who tries to buy me things to get out of trouble, who crosses my boundaries, who manipulates me (in quite sophisticated ways), and sows doubt in my mind to evade responsibility and get what he wants. So, if I'm going to have to work with my Dad, and if I want any relationship with him (which I do, because this house is rather lonely if we're just separated all the time, and I do see some good in him)

Step 1: Acceptance, since now I realize who he is, I have to accept that he doesn't have the sense of self or agency of an adult, he can't handle the responsibility of an adult, he can't be rational like an adult, he can't be fair like an adult. I can't have the relationship with him, that I wanted.

Step 2: Trust/Boundaries, I talked with him and told him I need my boundaries respected, and am working through a lot of anger and hurt towards him right now. That he can't do anything to make me be around him, because I can't be around him if it's bad for me. I talked about boundaries with him, and how he's lost a lot of my trust. I can't give him trust that he doesn't deserve. The most important aspect of trust is not causing severe harm to me, through neglect, abandonment, and cruelty. He can't buy me things anymore, or manipulate me to regain my trust, so he's gonna have to earn it the hard way.

Step 3: Parenting

A child needs:

A firm hand
A fair hand
A compassionate/kind hand
The freedom to develop their personality, and do what they like, and make their own mistakes

I think the most important thing here is to firmly set my expectations and follow through with enforcing them, but at the same time have some compassion too. I can't expect him to do things he can't, or to act rationally often, so when he acts irrational, tries to manipulate, tries to evade responsibility, tries to get what he wants in unhealthy ways. I will call it out for what it is, but I have to give him breathing room to feel his feelings, and be upset.

Also, consequences are in order. The main consequences for me will be, walking away from him when he's acting poorly, or not making unreasonable compromises, that hurt me. And the other consequence is that the more he proves he can't be trusted, by being dishonest, or cruel, or neglectful, the less of me he's going to get. This is actually mostly to protect myself, but it's also a reasonable consequence for his behavior. I'm sure others will pop up, but these are the main ones.

At the end of the day, we need to be less enmeshed, and need to focus on ourselves more. I don't mind encouraging him to make his own choices, to do good for himself or something, but I'm not gonna get as involved as I used to be. Our relationship is going to have limited capacity, especially at first. And most importantly, I need to work through the trauma of things before I can do much with/for him at all. I've worked through a lot of childhood trauma, but the more recent stuff (last 7 years) is tough to unwind. It sucks not having the Dad you wanted, but I've got the Dad I've got, and I'm stuck with him.

So it's time to get parenting! Any tips?

[NarcsEverywhere]

I live with my Dad, and it's not going to change anytime soon. I'm working through the trauma of things, and now that I've dispelled the notion that my Dad has intentionally dismantled me, just because he hates me, or is some sociopath, I'm gonna be realistic here. He's more like a petty, spoiled, 5 year old, with anger issues, who tries to buy me things to get out of trouble, who crosses my boundaries, who manipulates me (in quite sophisticated ways), and sows doubt in my mind to evade responsibility and get what he wants. So, if I'm going to have to work with my Dad, and if I want any relationship with him (which I do, because this house is rather lonely if we're just separated all the time, and I do see some good in him)

Step 1: Acceptance, since now I realize who he is, I have to accept that he doesn't have the sense of self or agency of an adult, he can't handle the responsibility of an adult, he can't be rational like an adult, he can't be fair like an adult. I can't have the relationship with him, that I wanted.

Step 2: Trust/Boundaries, I talked with him and told him I need my boundaries respected, and am working through a lot of anger and hurt towards him right now. That he can't do anything to make me be around him, because I can't be around him if it's bad for me. I talked about boundaries with him, and how he's lost a lot of my trust. I can't give him trust that he doesn't deserve. The most important aspect of trust is not causing severe harm to me, through neglect, abandonment, and cruelty. He can't buy me things anymore, or manipulate me to regain my trust, so he's gonna have to earn it the hard way.

Step 3: Parenting

A child needs:

A firm hand
A fair hand
A compassionate/kind hand
The freedom to develop their personality, and do what they like, and make their own mistakes

I think the most important thing here is to firmly set my expectations and follow through with enforcing them, but at the same time have some compassion too. I can't expect him to do things he can't, or to act rationally often, so when he acts irrational, tries to manipulate, tries to evade responsibility, tries to get what he wants in unhealthy ways. I will call it out for what it is, but I have to give him breathing room to feel his feelings, and be upset.

Also, consequences are in order. The main consequences for me will be, walking away from him when he's acting poorly, or not making unreasonable compromises, that hurt me. And the other consequence is that the more he proves he can't be trusted, by being dishonest, or cruel, or neglectful, the less of me he's going to get. This is actually mostly to protect myself, but it's also a reasonable consequence for his behavior. I'm sure others will pop up, but these are the main ones.

At the end of the day, we need to be less enmeshed, and need to focus on ourselves more. I don't mind encouraging him to make his own choices, to do good for himself or something, but I'm not gonna get as involved as I used to be. Our relationship is going to have limited capacity, especially at first. And most importantly, I need to work through the trauma of things before I can do much with/for him at all. I've worked through a lot of childhood trauma, but the more recent stuff (last 7 years) is tough to unwind. It sucks not having the Dad you wanted, but I've got the Dad I've got, and I'm stuck with him.

So it's time to get parenting! Any tips?

[Turkish]

NE,

It might benefit you to look at the Survivor's Guide ( pop-up points
and then download at the end). Survivor to thriver program

You said in your other thread:

I can't force people to do the right thing for themselves or others. And I can be way overbearing about it, like I want to enforce those things on people. I wasn't always the person I am now, I used to be much more selfish and screwed up, and I didn't get to where I am, by someone enforcing it on me, I got there of my own volition.

I can be quite controlling, like it's with good intentions, but sometimes my anxiety kicks up so high that I over react to things, and become controlling.

It sounds like you have good introspection.

Do you think that viewing your father as a child is helpful, even if you feel that way and we here can relate? I certainly can, and the feeling amped up the winter I took my mom to live with me and the kids. Simple things, to me, were met with, "you think you know everything!"

Well, yes in this instance, supported by logic, etc... it seems the obvious thing to solve the problem of your own making. I kept that to myself. I thought my mom defaulting to the orphaned little girl who lost her mom at 12, her father at 14 and emancipated herself at 16. in retrospect,n she'd been playing that script her whole life and made for my own colorful childhood.

The problem is that it wasn't helpful to think of her like that and bred more resentment in me. Realistically from the outside, she was just an elderly person in need of support. Both views were true. Reconciling them is what's hard.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Hey Turkish,

Thanks for your response, and the compliment, I think I do introspect well, sometimes too well. Yeah, I see what you're saying, I think I could take it too far. He's kind of like a combination of an adult and a kid. I guess it's more about treating him emotionally like a kid. He needs time to process things, that most people wouldn't. He might respond really irresponsibly, be irrational or act petty. He might do manipulation tactics to evade responsibility, or get his way.

So like, I have to have expectations that he can actually follow, not ones for a normal father or adult. I have to hold him responsible, and protect myself, without being antagonistic, but while still allowing myself to be upset. I really don't want to raise him or something, just deal with him in an effective way. This whole time, I've been having too high of expectations of him, and a lot of his manipulations flew by the radar, so I only knew a part of what was happening.

At the end of the day, it's about accepting who he is, and what is possible, instead of piling on all these expectations I had of him, as a father. I think, you know, when I was doing better, he hated when I tried to raise him, like I'd give him high fives and such, and tried to instill all these positive attitudes into him, I think he felt patronized. It was an uncomfortable role reversal. I need a more hands off approach.

But I can tell you what, he's not getting trust he doesn't deserve, he's gonna have to respect my boundaries, and I'm calling out his manipulations and lies, and walking away a lot more, instead of dealing with someone who can't be dealt with. I do think I had a blind spot for having compassion for him, because I expected him to be better than he actually was, because he is my father.

As for his age being an issue, yes, I agree, that's something I need to be more considerate of too. I have been in the past, all his crazy stuff just screwed me up so bad, I've been pretty bitter towards him.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Well, I'm spending a lot more time in my room and with the pets, and walking more (with very minor success agoraphobia and all). I can't say things are going great, it's been such a struggle to try to rebuild a better routine, without being too rigid with myself, since I'm having a hard time. It's hard not to fall into codependency with the pets, it's hard to have more fun, since it's hard to keep my mind off of this stuff, although I am trying. I'm taking care of more of my responsibilities, and becoming capable of more.

I think my biggest strengths in all of this are my intelligence, my emotional maturity, and ability to not take out stuff on my Dad. Still, I'm coping poorly sometimes. There's just so many emotions and it's hard to process them all, especially because I fear my Dad sometimes. I guess because some of his behavior seems so deplorable, that I feel like he's a loose canon, and he's so cunning and manipulative, so duplicitous. I feel like his moral compass is so bad, that it's hard not to feel pretty horrified sometimes.

Despite all of this, I am finding a lot of courage, even with my Dad, here are the expectations I've put on him:

He needs to do the bare minimum to help keep me and the pets alive/cared for. That is, he needs to continue to buy food twice a month from Walmart pickup, and get the pet medicine, and he's doing a minor amount for the dog, like take him outside a bit, while my back is getting stronger (which it is, because I've been doing more). Other than that, I said, it's his life to do what he wants. I know some of these responsibilities I'm going to need to take on for myself, but that's going to take quite a bit of time.

I told him, I expect him to not mess with me when I am feeling a lot of feelings. That I can walk around the house, feeling any feeling, even some hardcore anger and disgust, and he's gonna have to deal, because I'm good at not taking it out on others.

He's passive aggressive as hell. So I keep being polite and asking for his time, and insisting that he asks me, and tell him he can say no, and that he can ask for what he wants. I'm trying to rebuild healthy boundaries, and I'm doing whatever it takes to get them. Worst case scenario is that I walk away, if he's not respecting them. It's hard to deal with him a lot of the time, because of all the anger, and disgust.

I also told him it's not okay to hurt me and the pets. Like, I know no ones perfect, but I'm not going to put up with abuse. But I made it clear that it's the consequences of his actions that matter, not his feelings. And it's not that his actions have to be perfect, just that he needs to not abuse us.

I don't know how this is all going to pan out, he seems to be giving up a bit on trying to win me over. I turned down his gifts, I try to get him not to over help, so he doesn't resent it. It's hard creating boundaries for two people, but it's necessary.

I also just wanted to vent here. I still feel quite alone, I know that's gonna take time to fix. I think that's part of what drove me to so many unhealthy people. I can actually deal with A LOT of emotions on my own, but it gets exhausting keeping it all to myself, all of the time, especially when life is harder. I feel pretty overwhelmed a lot, life has felt so incredibly hard lately. I'm trying to be nicer to myself, and slow down when I need to, but it's hard to balance everything, and meet the expectations of life. I'm being lazy today, because I need it. I find this whole thing so hard to reconcile in my mind.

I feel like my Dad has been intentionally tried to take me down, and feel like he has a big responsibility in the death of my mother. It's all so hard to understand, because it's like he seems to have a deep understanding of some healthy concepts, but then he acts so horrible? I don't really get it. I think, even with the deplorable stuff he's done, he's not all bad. It's just so confusing. I guess all of their delusions, and lack of empathy, really makes them not see what their doing 100%, or they just can't control it. Still, he seems fairly calculated, which confuses me even more.

I bought that book on Covert Narcissism, and could only make it through a small amount of pages. It told me: Basically that they don't care about you. I think this is true, that they don't care anywhere like a normal person does. It's a really warped kind of "love". Anyways that disturbed me a lot. But it also said a lot of people who have been hurt by Covert Narcissists, can be very strong, caring and smart people, and that made me feel a lot better, because I've been blaming myself so much for being fooled by people. Still hoping to become much more immune to manipulation tactics after this.

Anyways, I'm at a loss, because despite my best efforts, life feels so hard, and I feel like I'm gonna pop. Any suggestions would be very welcome.