[Brownian_Motion]

Hello everyone. I am a first time posters on this forum, 27 years old and male. If this should be in another forum please let me know.

I have some severe issues with my family right now and I would like to describe what is going on. When I was about 6 years old my parents separated because my dad cheated on my mom with his sister-in-law (my aunt). I chose to live with my mom because my dad really didn't care to talk to me very much and I didn't feel like I had a connection with him. About 5 months went by and my dad decided to move to Florida to live with my aunt. It was about two years until he called my sister and I to say hello. My mom always pushed us to keep in close contact with my dad and his side of the family. Things didn't work out so well with my cheating aunt. Turns out she was cheating on him. Anyways, I decided to go try living with my dad during fourth grade. I come from the Midwest and absolutely hated living down there. Also, my dad wasn't very supportive. I would ask him for help on my homework and he would just say that I would have learned this material already if I had been living in Florida with him. Everything was always my fault. It was always about looks and how much something costs and how my family wasn't the good family to live with. So I got sick of it and moved back in with my mom.

During this whole time I annually visited my dad's side of the family. There was another time when I went to live with my dad when I was little and the same thing happened. The most recent time I visited my dad was about 5 years ago. By this time I had been in college. I screwed up my first few semesters not having any motivation to do anything with my life so I went and lived with my dad and step mom having a clean slate which lasted all but a year and a half. I got my act together, I am now on my last semester in graduate school and happily married.

That about does it for the back story. What I need help with:
Over the years I have always had to contact my dad to talk to him (he has always lived at least 500+mi away). He or his side of the family has never once visited my sister or I yet my sister and I constantly get blamed for not visiting and living with a "loser"(paraphrased) family. My dad has always been, at one moment a very happy easy going guy - the other moment a pretentious jackass. Example: I came home from class one day and said I got a 99% on one of my exams. His reply: Why wasn't it a 100%? An hour later he is buying me a videogame. There have been other comments/actions just like this but that one seemed to stick out.

Currently I haven't spoken to him in over 9 months because I frankly got tired of calling him. It has always been me calling him or my grandparents to try and build a relationship with them. So my question here is: Is what I am doing wrong? He hasn't once called me, yet recently he will sick his crazy wife on me calling me once a week to see why I am mad at my father. My dad has done a lot for me financially but mentally I feel weak. I always self doubt myself. I don't know how to communicate very well with new people. I have always tried to make both sides of my family happy. I know that this is impossible but my dad's side of the family seem to have paved this one-way street "Their Way Blvd" and I just can't take it anymore. I need help with this. I am losing sleep, constantly obsessing about it and it's starting to effect my studies. I don't know what to do here.

If I haven't made something clear just let me know and I will gladly post back to clear things up. Thanks in advance!

[Gus1234U]

i don't know if this is the right forum either.... but i do know 'being jerked around' when i hear it. you will never please your father, except by rebelling and shutting him out. how sad is that ? it is your life, and you must do what you need to , to be a strong minded person. no one can do that for you, and no money can buy it. and without that, what do you really ever have ?

i hope you find the will to let go of wanting anything from your dad, especially his approval, and just let other people say what ever they will~ you will suffer much less if you focus on growing into the kind of man you would have wanted to have in a father, and you might someday have children who appreciate this in a father.

i know not everyone will agree with me, but this is what i had to do, and it served me well. my brother who sought our dad's approval ended up a mess. i hope you find your way around all the chaos and emotional upset, to a calm and safe place.

best wishes~
Gus

[gayleggg]

I have to agree with Gus. My daughter went through this with her father and just finally excepted she was not getting what she needed and let him go. He was very critical, also. After many years he did contact her on her birthday and holidays but not much other effort. She lets him be what he is and decided she did not want the drama in her life.

[Brownian_Motion]

Thank you for the kind and insightful responses! I think that concentrating more on my own well being is probably the best route, as both of you have stated. For a number of years I have always concentrated on trying to build a relationship with my dad, to only be pushed away. It's time for a change.