Why won’t my dad respect my bouwith my weight issues?

My dad has never respected my boundaries most of my life. Especially since I gained weight over 20 years ago. He is a narcissist. My history: I used to be bullimic in my 20’s to my 30’s.

I stopped on my own. Him & my mom nagged me to death about my weight despite knowing that I was bullimic. They both called me fat. My dad then became sneaky by saying he’s concerned about my health & that he doesn’t want me to get diabetes.

He wouldn’t shut up with the unsolicited diet advice. I told him to please not give me unsolicited advice, but he ignored me & disrespected my boundaries.

Him & my mom didn’t mention my weight for awhile since I yelled at them & threatened to stop seeing them if they didn’t behave.

That worked for awhile. Now my dad won’t shut up about it again. So I gave him a set of rules with severe punishments. I told him that he’s cut off from email & the phone for a month.

So he he weirdo sent me a letter nagging me about my weight again under the guise of ‘concern’. I don’t have diabetes or any health issues btw. I tokd him to never wver mention my weight as it’s triggering. I even said that I started throwing up again.

He obviously didn’t care. He said nothing about that. I was so pissed that I screamed at him on the phone. He told me in the letter that maybe I calmed down now. On the phone he said that I’m being childish’, then he hung up on me! Wth?

I told him that he violated my boundaries & is banned from seeing my husband & I for the holidays. He is a monster! My husband won’t stick up for me. I told him to talk to my dad as he won’t listen to me. He said he did before & that’s just the way that he is.

So basically my husband thinks that i should tolerate his abuse! No! Hell no! Why won’t he respect my boundaries & why is he obsessed with my weight?

He is fat & has always been fat. I feel like my dad thinks that I have nothing going for me but my looks now.

Goodness. Your relationship with your father sounds incredibly difficult and painful. You may certainly need to create some boundaries with him, not as punishment for him, but as healthy living for yourself. The most difficult aspect is to hold your boundary without further engaging with him as the continual response to him is boundary weakening and appears to only create more distress. Hopefully you can also find a good therapist to help you figure out these issues with the relationships in your life. It sounds very stressful for you.

I have very problematic dad myself. In different ways, my dad is much more passive aggressive and less in your face but it doesn’t make it easier and is a problem nonetheless. “Grey rock” is the only thing that works for me. Arguing never works

I’d not be asking your husband talking to your dad about it. That doesn’t seem like an appropriate tactic to me.

The whole thing explains why you are with your husband, sadly knowing that your dad is abusive explains why you gravitate towards same kind of men.

I’d think therapy would be very helpful. It helped me to break the cycle and not gravitate towards men like my dad. It also taught me to work on my boundaries. Some people manage it themselves but I needed a little push.

You may need to disconnect yourself from your dad for good. I don't know what happened to some men in the 80s but I have noticed an inordinate amount of toxic families out there... with men, not respecting boundaries. My brother was this way and I dropped him. It just wasn't worth it and he hadn't changed in 50+ years.

Oh man, can I relate. In my 30s and 40s I put on a lot of weight. My father never said anything to me directly about it but he'd make general comments (for anyone to hear) like "To lose weight, you need to eat healthy." or "Diet and exercise are key." Things like that. I'm not stupid. That was his indirect way of fat shaming me. Okay. Whatever. My father and I were never close and he died a few years ago.

Fast forward a few years and COVID hit. I made a vow to change my life. I was sick of looking and feeling like hell so I decided to do something about it (actually the entire story is in another thread I posted so I won't regurgitate it here). Long story short, I completely changed my diet and I started walking up a hill (literally) in town then finally got back into running (I ran a lot in my 20s). I started seeing results and have lost 70 pounds (with more to go). I feel better and wear clothes I haven't tried on in years. I'm starting to sound like a Jenny Craig commercial so I'll close in a sec.

My point is YOU have the power to make changes in your life. Is it easy? Nope!! I'm hungry quite often but when I step on the scale and see a lower number, it is rewarding and makes me literally more hungry to keep pressing. And not to sound mean but I'd love my father to see me now. It would be the biggest middle finger I could give him without saying a word. If I sound angry I apologize but there are some things that you just don't forget. Three benefits of weight loss.... the first is better physical health. The second is better emotional health. The third is shutting your father up.

I wish you all the best in your decisions but I hope you think about what I said. Rome wasn't built in a day as we all know.

Boundaries obviously don’t work for long with him. He is like a bratty child. He might stop for awhile longer if I make the punishments for violating my boundaries severe.

I already blocked his email for a month. And his calls. Emergency calls can be taken by my husband.

He was so nasty to me that I enforced my boundaries refusing to see him & my toxic fat shaming boundary violating mom for Thanksgiving & Christmas.

I do not want my holidays ruined & having him give me unsolicited diet & weight loss asvice then eespecially, lol. It’s like he NEEDS to control & upset me to make him feel better or in control and f life somehow, ugh!

I also am blocking him for 6 months on email & the phone. I told him his abusive letters will instantly be thrown in the recycling bin, lol 😆

I despise them. He is an abusive narcissist .He obviously doesn’t care that I started becoming bullimic again.

I made things extremely clear. I told him that if he violates my boundaries one more time, that I’m cutting them out of my life permanently!

I gave up on therapy btw. Most of them don’t care. Since nothing has changed in 30 years, then it never will.

Sorry to hear about your dad. Passive aggressive pare the worst. Therapy is a waste of time & money. Nothing has really helped much in over 20 years.

Most therapists are cold & uncaring. That’s great thar it helped you though.

I think that the only thing that works is ignoring him. Nothing works. It’s not possible to communicate with a narcissist.

They don’t care, literally. I banned him from the house,, refused to see him & my mom this Thanksgiving & Christmas & am now blocking his email & number for 6 months to severely punish him & to teach him that disrespecting me has extremely severe consequences, lol 😆

I made a list of words to never ever mention, fat, diet, weight, diabetes, health. Violation of my boundaries will result in me permanently cutting them out of my life. I didn’t do that yet because my husband forced me to interact with them.

I don’t understand why my husband expects me to just accept my dads abusive behavior.

Btw, most men suck! Most men are bad. They want to control & use women & not care about their feelings.

Sorry to hear about your dad. I know that you mean well, but this diet advice is very triggering. I mentioned that I started throwing up again.

Please do not give out sny unsolicited diet & weight loss advice again to anyone Especially to anyone with an eating or body image disorder m, thanks.

I don’t share an opinion about therapists not caring. Same as in every profession some do and some don’t. I am sorry you run into bad ones

Oh I don’t know if all men suck and use women. Plenty of men don’t suck and don’t use women at all.

Full estrangement isn’t always possible but you can try limiting your interactions and disengage

Well, I have had mostly bsd luck with therapists. I only really liked one. Surprisingly she was a student therapist. She was far superior to the experienced psychotherapists, psychiatrists & whar not And very compassionate & caring. I could only have her as a therapist for a year though. We both cried during my last session.

I knew that whe truly cated about me. She liked me, she understood me & she thought I was funny too. She was brilliant & only in her 20’s.

Most men I have known suck. I have had a lot of bad luck attracting perverts in the past & just nasty crazy weird people in general.

It’s a wonder that I didn’t completely give up on everyone a long time ago. I’m on the verge of doing so these days sometimes though. I really am.

I have severely limited my interactions with my toxic gamily. I only spent an hour with them the ladt gew years at Christmas instead of having them. come over for three days on the weekend. Now I banned my idiot stubborn dad for 6 months, lol 😆

My dad STILl doesn’t understand why I’m upset! Maybe he does, but he doesn’t care, idk. He is a mensa genius but he has the mental capacity of a mentally challenged child when it comes to empathy & emotional intelligence!

He see’s nothing wrong with harassing me about my weight since it’s done out if ‘concerrn’. I told him many times to stop, I don’t want to hear it anymore.

He only stopped for a few years up until now. I mentioned to him in an email about how my mom would harass me about my weight growing uo. She’d call me fat.

Then he suddenly decided to start nagging & critcizing me about that despite the fact that I made it clear that I’m insecure about my weight & that I had an eating disorder that is now resurfacing again.

Nothing was said abourt that. It’s almost like it’s fine if it’ll help me loose weight, lol 😆 It’s like he’s obsessed with my weight, it’s ridiculous! Why would he not respect my boundaries when I made everything so clear?

It appears you may have misunderstood my post. I did not give out one shred of "advice". I simply shared my story to basically tell you you're not alone on a SUPPORT forum.

I'm sorry you have an eating and body image disorder. Without being too advice-ish, I wish you well.

I feel the reason of why is because they don’t respect you as an individual apart from themselves. All you can do is firmly hold your boundaries. If they are way too toxic, especially triggering your eating disorder which is dangerous to your health, then no contact may be best for you to protect yourself.

Your father is disrespectful. If he is fat too, then maybe he should be the first one leading by example. Unfortunately, people like that won't change. Best thing you can do it protect yourself. Too bad your husband won't stick up for you - that is not cool either.

There are good men out there, but for some reason, some feel entitled to judge without taking a good look in the mirror.

Thanks. They have NI respect foe me. Everything is always about them, ugh. I banned them from the house finally & now 6 months for being disrespectful about my weight. And bith Thanksgiving & Christmas are out if the question this year too.

Before I barely tolerate ld being around them for an hour. I can now breathe a sigh of relief & not endure si much stres during the holidays this year, lol 😆

True, lol. It’s funny to hiw he deluded himself into thinking that he’s ‘thin’ now, lol. He’s at least 70 or mire pounds overweight, lol 😆

He chugs a gallon of milk each night, never excercuses & yet he is this diet ‘expert’, lol!!!!

I told him that I will relentlessly nag him about diet, health food & excercise the next time we talk, lol 😆

Then maybe he’ll start to realize how annoying he was being! lol 😆 If I see him eat something unhealthy, I’ll be like, do you want to get diabetes & get fatter?

How much salt, sugar, calories, fat, carbs are in one serving? Omg, you had more than one serving!

Did you know that you just consumed 2,999 calories & half of that is saturated fat? And that you shouldn’t be eating thar as, it’s high in carbs?

Diabetes, you know! DIABETES ! Did you get checked for diabetes yet? Uncle so and so had it! And he’s dead now! He had diabetes! lol 😆 Here, put down that fork & stop eating that bread & butter! Here’s a nice healthy & sodium free leaf of lettuce! lol 😆

I’m just SO concerned for your health, especially since you’re 79 pounds overweight & old, and you don’t ever do any kind if excercise ever, lol 😆

Don’t order dessert either as, diabetes, diabetes! Diabetes! You’ll get diabetes, lol 😆

I’m so bad, huh? lol 😆

Since he is fat himself, I wonder if a snarky remark about him needing to lose weight to prevent diabetes would shut him up. I am not able to come up with anything creative, but I wonder if giving him a taste of his own medicine might be all that is needed at this juncture. I do not know if you would be up for that, but mentioning that fatness is men correlates with low testosterone levels which in turn correlates with impotence might get a rise from him, no pun intended. Men: Is Obesity Affecting Your Sex Life? - Obesity Action Coalition.

I wonder if he isn’t projecting his own issues onto you.

I should have nagged & critcized him relentlessly about his weight too! I’ll start giving him unsolicited diet advice when the 6 month email ban I imposed for disrespecting me us over, lol!

I should have done this a long time ago! So far my more severe punishment is working, lol 😆

Maybe he is projecting his issues onto me. It’s also about control as he is a huge control freak. He also thinks that I have nothing to offer anyone but my look’s probably. He rarely compliments me on anything anymore.

He is also a sexist pig who thinks that women need to look a certain way. He thinks that wimen should wear dresses, no makeup, no nail polish except for clear nail polish, have no tattos, no colored hair or piercings, not dress in provocative clothing or anything grungy, etc…

He is an a$$hole. I can’t wait until he dies! Same with my insane mom & sister! I despise my whole family! They are all evil abusers!