Hi Lavalamp - you probably only know me from the other thread we were posting on, but hopefully you can see beyond that lol. I'm very sorry you and your brother suffered physical and emotional abuse. I never suffered abuse of any kind luckily, but my family still had some dysfunction and as a result I've experienced some alienation of family at different points in my life. I've been thinking about your post and how to respond.

First I'll say - there are circumstances, especially if a person has suffered sexual abuse or physical abuse, where it becomes necessary to completely isolate the abuser, in order to preserve the persons well being and sanity. Some of the family alienation was a choice on my part and the other instance it was forced on me because my brother had bipolar disorder and he needed to be alone. I tried many times to reach out, to no avail unfortunately.

I admire your courage in standing up for yourself. Whether your decision is the right one, is for you and your therapist to think about. The only way I think you could maintain a relationship with your dad, is if you could maintain firm boundaries and if it was healthy for you emotionally. The one important question a person needs to ask themselves is - "would I be okay if the person passed and I didn't see them or make some kind of connection"? It's also perfectly okay if the answer is "yes". For example my husband reached a point where he was alienated from his mother - its a long story but she was very manipulating. She was ill and several times I encouraged him to visit her. I even point blank asked him "if she were to pass, would you be at peace" and his answer was "yes". So she did pass and even told other family members not to notify him until after the funeral - it was her way of twisting the knife one more time".

If you did change your mind and still wanted to continue some contact - then it would have to be on your terms...and hopefully your dad would agree/respect those boundaries(ideally speaking). If that did happen, then you could both approach the process as, just two men interacting on a basic level...rather than, as father and son. You would be interacting out of basic empathy and he would respect you as a man - tomen sharing time. In order to get to this point, you would need to grow into this mindset and let go of the dysfunctional father/son relationship, the good childhood you never had and reckon with the past. It doesn't mean you HAVE to forgive...it just means you won't have to carry around the resentment and pain anymore. This is the ideal situation to be in, when someones faced with dealing with their abuser parent and only works if both parent and adult child are cooperative. If you don't think your dad could ever be capable of this kind of basic relationship, which requires respect and boundaries, then you need to give yourself full permission to detach as much as you need to. The detachment can be varied from complete alienation to whatever is comfortable for you. I wish you peace and confidence in your decision.