Just had a huge fight with my father. Just to give a brief background we're essentially estranged, despite the fact I live in his and my mother's household. We've disagreed too much, and too painfully, to talk anymore unless it's hello or goodbye.

Nevertheless I've wanted to reach out to him for years, hoping against hope that maybe at some point we could agree on something. He's very, very abysmally bad at showing or discussing emotion or any theme that brings on emotion of any kind.

Today I started to discuss a recent report by independent (i.e. non-government) scientists that hit the newspapers just this morning, that suggested women, children and youths should avoid eating farmed salmon. My dad is a marine biologist, so I thought we might actually discuss this civilly. It's something he knows a lot about, so I could even defer to his expertise and bow to his superior knowledge, it was perfect as an ouverture.

That is, until he spent the latter half of our conversation attacking me for being overweight.

I know he even does it because he's worried, I nurse no illusions that he doesn't love me, but that just makes it so much worse... We also don't agree about low carb. He basically thinks I'm deluded.

I'm crying my eyes out as I type this... He's such a know-it-all, and I still love him to bits, and it just hurts so very, very much...

**hugs**

I'm so sorry. I know that must hurt like hell. You may not find it possible to ever have a good relationship with him. If it isn't your weight, it might be something else. Maybe if you are able to get out from under the same roof things will improve. I know my relationship with my parents did.

Anyway, this is where we come in handy. You can discuss salmon at great length with us!

I tend to keep people that make me feel bad at arms length. After a while I just give up trying to communicate with them. Yes, it sucks, especially when they're family, but it is necessary sometimes.

(((((((((((((((((((((((Hugs))))))))))))))))))))


I know it is hard, extremely hard.

When I was at my heaviest and saw my parents for the first time in several years. The first words out of my mom's mouth was "Angel how big you have gotten". Not "I am so glad to see you" or "Come here and give me a hug".

Anyway, I let it wash over, couple of hours later I sat my mom down. And told her, firmly/directly, I am an adult and my weight is my issue. Not hers. It is up to me to resolve the problem not her. And I would appreciate her not talking about it. She understood what I was saying.

But since, she tries to indirectly guide me, like oh so and so lost a lot of weight they did x,y,z and it just came off. Or when going out to eat, she will qualify what she is going to eat and why like that will help me to understand the concept of eating.

My older sister has also reminded her when I come visit no weight comments.

They are 16 hours away from me.

Either way I know it comes from a loving place, as well as, obsessive place of how one looks. She has done a couple of mean passive aggressive things to me when I was younger about my looks and weight. That you wonder how could someone call that love.

But I agree with Nancy, getting out from under their roof would be good and ease tensions.

Some of issues maybe because you are living at home. Meaning he is harping on your weight more so than normal because you are at home and he doesn't want to say get out.

But I also would start putting your foot down. And if it is brought up tell him. While you appreciate his caring about you, this is something you need to conquer on your own. And that the weight and the low carb diet is not up for discussion.

And when he talks about it. Just remind him, say I know you love me and care about me, but I don't wish to discuss this with you, and if he continues give him a hug say I love you and walk away.

Eventually he will get the point on that.

If he is worrying about you, he is loving you in his own way.

I wish you luck

The way I handle such things is to remind myself how much they suffer, trampling on their feelings the way they do.

After all, look how much YOU suffer; and you are trying NOT to do that.

Then, I feel sorry for them.

The two quotes above tell me that one day this is going to resolve well, but it may be you that has to take on the role of the grown up, not him.

I had a difficult relationship with my adoring but critical mother until I realized that although there was a lot of love between us (like you and your dad) our personalities were so far apart that we would never be the "friends" that I wanted us to be. To her, we would always be parent and child, even though I was a married woman with responsibilities. Ironically I think that was the day I became the grown up and started acting like it around her by refusing to be drawn into a conflict and always defusing the possibility of one with a kind or loving comment for her. Think about it....it's almost impossible to disparage someone who just admitted you might have a point, then changed the subject, and somehow managed to make you feel good about yourself along the way.

Once the arguing and mutual disappointment in each other stopped being expressed, there was a little bit of room to awkwardly express the love we felt. Over time that became easier for each of us until kind and loving dialogue became the norm. To my absolute amazement, after a while my mum started to show signs of actually respecting some of my opinions - a very big deal for her. She's gone now and I miss her so much every single day. I thank God we got this solved instead of letting it make us embittered and estranged for the rest of her life.

Equinox, it's worth you continuing to reach out and put in every effort, no matter what it takes, to improve your relationship with your dad while you still have him.

Yeah, Whofan, I know... That's one of the things I fear, that some day, "some day" will become "too late". Dad didn't have a close relationship with his parents, either. I would have had no idea that this bothered him, except that one of the very few times I've seen him cry (always only because of a death) was when his father died.

I would love to get our relationship on a more adult footing. It's made more difficult by the fact that, living at home I'm automatically put back in the "child box". Now, even my brother is temporarily living back home, meaning there are four adults all over 30 living in one *tiny* appartment. Oh joy!

Thank you all for your kind comments. It's been easing my heart to know that at least my ranting is understood. Actually, Mum is more or less on my page, let's just say that in order for their marriage to work, she may just have had to swallow a few camels, too. Bro doesn't want to get in the middle. He never has, and I wish I could get out from under the spotlight, too!

Actually, I had calmed down considerably after my initial blowout, until today. It was nothing to do with low carb or even weight in general, so a bit off-topic for this site, but today we were all having dinner and chatting, and something on TV made Dad make an observation that some of the richest men in Norway may just have a few skeletons in the closet, say, having hired nazis to burn their buildings or boats in insurance scams, for instance.

So Dad, who always has to have that last word, said something like, "Well, maybe there's no real point to envy them, they might not have much of a foundation to stand on." So I lightly remarked, "Sure. But of course you also can't choose "pay by morals" in the store." Just making conversation. Dad. Got. Mad. at me. Go figure. Here I am pissing myself with fear of getting something wrong in a conversation, and when for the first time in a week I dare to try to make conversation, he gets mad. What he actually said, after an ominous pause, was something like, "Well, obviously you can pay with your SOUL."

I happen to think that you can't live in this modern world without a smidgen of rational cynicism (not much, obviously, I'm definitely not collecting blood diamonds in my spare time!). So. Make conversation and get shot down, or stay silent and choke on unsaid words... Maybe sooner or later my poor brother will be forced to try to mediate, and then it'll really become unliveable in this house...

I'm sorry to say this but your dad sounds like an angry bully to me. He says mean things to you because he knows that he'll get away with it.

That's the way I see this....hopefully I'm wrong.
I'm sorry that you have to deal with this at all. But, IMO, until you stand up to him, he'll just keep doing it.

Your comment at dinner was nothing to get angry over...and yet he jumped down your throat.

If you can't change your living situation, and you can't control your dad from attacking, it might be fun to see if you can just shape your interaction with him. What is there to lose if you can't win, after all.

I had a friend once who completely turned around her ancient bitter angry mother to quit doing stuff like that. It took her about 6 months.

What the daughter would do, was to respond emotionally only to positive and interesting talk from the parent. Daughter would light up and engage at that kind of talk. If, instead, the parent was negative, mean, whiny, or attack-ish, the daughter would say nothing with a neutral face; closed down and gave it no energy. Did not engage. And this mom was like Olivia Soprano if that gives you an idea. Over time it became much easier for them to be together.

In reinforcement terms, it is reinforcement by adding the "appetitive stimulus" (feel good reward) to the behavior you want more of.

More on this kind of training is in Karen Pryor's book about using reinforcement, "Don't Shoot the Dog."

Maybe try clicker training! Give your dad a treat and click the clicker. Soon he'll come to learn that the clicker means a treat is coming soon. When he performs the good behavior, reinforce it with a click.

Hey... it worked on my cats!

J/K -- Seejay's idea is really good.

ha ha, it really works too. I got it from a breastfeeding mom's group if you can believe it.

The nice thing is I never have to attack anyone elses behavior, which I don't like to do. I just give it nothing. Also, I can still be present with the other person just in case something positive comes up - which shows that I'm still open to some kind of relationship.

Works with kids too. I would wish I could get into heads and change that - but I couldn't and if they won't talk, then whatever. But behavior is out there and something that can be responded to. Almost fun !

Actually, yeah, it IS a great idea... Considering we will casually discuss and disagree about things as diverse and complicated as marine biology, nutritional theory, politics/economics (whoa what a minefield), philosophy (in the sense of disagreeing within the field, not discussing philosophers), oh, and entertainment, that's another minefield; we avoid religion and computers because a) I'm the only religious person in the nuclear family and he does respect that, and b) I can build, repair and disassemble/reassemble a PC and he wouldn't know where to even open the case; he's a bit too sharp on the uptake to take much conditioning lying down, as it were, but maybe something deceptively simple...

Hmmm... definitely bears thinking about, especially as we're heading into the first actual family vacation in years (two whole weeks, in the region he even grew up. Sometimes I just want to run and HIDE!)...

This works! My daughter has schizoaffective disorder, which in her case means a combination of bipolar and mild schizophrenia. Before she was diagnosed we had no idea what was wrong, just that she could be absolutely horrible to the people closest to her. She seemed to have the biggest fights with my husband, who would lose his temper when she was mean or nasty to him. Finally, one day, I had a talk with him and we agreed that she had a problem. We didn't know what it was, but she definitely was not behaving like a normal adult (she was probably 21 at the time). And her outbursts were the outward manifestation of whatever it was that was wrong. We agreed that if her problem were something physical, like muscular dystrophy, we wouldn't get angry and yell at her for wearing leg braces or using a wheelchair (the outward manifestation of the illness), so why did we get angry and fight with her when her problem manifested itself as out-of-control behavior and temper tantrums.

We decided to do exactly what Seejay described, above. When she would get angry over seemingly nothing, as she often did, we would not engage with her in it. We decided to look at her angry outbursts the same way we would view leg braces, and to try to show her more love at those times, not less.

It was like a miracle. The episodes would blow over quickly, where they would once have ruined an entire day. It was life-changing for all of us.

Equinox, this is a pretty good example of the point I was trying to make earlier. As a grown up, you would look at it from his point of view: the first time in a week you make conversation with him it is to take a stance that negates something he just said. Reverse the situation: how would you feel if the first time he spoke to you in a week it was to disagree with you? This could have been a perfect opportunity to build a little bridge by just agreeing with him and leaving the qualifier "pay by morals" part in your head. After all, it seems you do agree with him, you said "Sure". It's not like he was saying rich Norwegians who hired Nazi criminals should be envied.

We all need to feel that somebody loves us unconditionally. He's no exception. You have a long road ahead of you to gain his trust on that, but when you do he might be like my mum and start respecting your opinions even if they are contrary to his own - because he'll feel that you've been respecting his. I wish you every success, it will be well worth it in the end.

Wow, actually, Whofan, and everyone else too, you make quite a few very good points, that I haven't thought about in quite that fashion before... That is one thing I absolutely ADORE about this site... All the very bright people and the great discussions!

Yes, I probably do retreat a bit readily, and choose (and it definitely is a choice if I'm honest) to not confront him in the everyday pursuit of family peace and quiet rather than "teenage"-like opposition. I think the suggestion to put myself rather more in his place is a valid one. I am quite aware that some, probably about half, of our failure to communicate may appropriately be put at my door (within his house as it may be).

I know gaining trust is a long road. Actually, in line with my comment about not being totally cynical above, I am training to be a nurse. That involves, among other things, building relations to my patients that are just the right mix of trust and professionalism and personal feeling to work optimally without getting bogged down either in a too-personal or too-clinical place. I think about this in a professional (or, soon-to-be, anyway) way, so maybe I can use some of my skills with my family, too?

Definitely have some food for thought now.



In other news, this is one of the places we'll be visiting:

http://www.google.no/imgres?q=rambe...30&tx=128&ty=92

Unfortunately the water is ICY.

I didnt get on with my dad either. He had alcohol problems and disgusted me, he also wanted a boy when I was born, and resented me. When I hit my teenage years he didnt approve of anything I did. I learned to live with it, afterall we cant like everyone and you dont choose your family. But we used to fight horrendously and we never spoke civilly to one another

We eventually made friends when he became terminally ill with bowel cancer - he needed me then and he became humbled by my forgiveness of him and that I looked after him. He used to say, I dont know why you're still here when I treated you so badly. He also used to say that he could see alot of himself in me and that not only annoyed him, but gave him someone to spar with.

That said and although we made friends, I didnt shed a tear when he died. Most importantly, he made me a strong character!

Jo xxx