Hahah I'm sorry I didn't read this post before I posted above. +1000. (Can I plus a thousand? I still don't quite know what it means...)
I feel exactly like this, but at the same time I can't ignore it. I'm having huge problems with my Dad right now, he is in a bad spot and he doesn't seem to be making progress, and I don't know what to do. He's been divorced three times, just went through his last one about two years ago when he was 51. He's been in a major depression cycle ever since and has taken using religion as a crutch to help him, which I don't really have a problem with, except that he's not really taking any other measures to get out of his situation.
He rambles about his ex-wife (my step-mother -- my real mother and him got divorced when I was 2 or 3, was too young to remember it), he always asks me if I know anything about her or what shes doing, rambles on "if only I had done this or that, blah blah." I understand at first that it was very hard for him but its going on about 2.5 years now and I think he just needs to forget about her, but he refuses to move on. Sometimes he mentions suicide, but says that he has god so he (probably) wont. I don't think he will -- I sort of just think he wants attention when he says that.
Not only that, but he tends to be abrasive, can be verbally abusive, doesn't thank or praise very much, expects a lot from other people, always talks a LOT but rarely listens. In most ways I am not surprised his wife left him, as guilty as I feel for saying that. He has mood swings and he insults me and my husband regularly, if he is in a bad mood he will rag on us for something, whether its not cleaning up his dishes or not working enough, or taking a philosophy degree, or looking at him the wrong way, really anything. I secretly think he hates that we don't work a lot because we are content with less, whereas he works all the time and buys like 3 big screen tv's. I also sort of think he wants our marriage to fail so it will make him feel better for having three failed marriages.
At one hand, I feel incredibly guilty for not wanting to be around him all the time, but it usually just puts me in a bad mood. If he is not rambling about his ex-wife he is insulting us or bragging about how much he can bench press (which is boring, but at least better than insults). On the other, I feel like him and my brother are two of the only people he has in his life who really love him, he has some friends but not enough so that he is still alone a lot of the time. I feel like I should just be stoic and stick it out through the insults and him trying to tell us we're "no good, lazy kids who are stupid and can't do anything right," just so that at least he will have someone around.
I have to come home to him crying or he will call me crying sometimes when I am back at home when he is alone and it just breaks my heart, and then I become inconsolable and depressed. I just want to help him make his life better, so that he can make friends and be happy and maybe even find a new girlfriend eventually, and finally be well-balanced, healthy, open-minded, and content with life. I'm so lost I don't know what to do. I don't want him to die alone and miserable.
I wish I could be more like you in regards to my father, but I can't. I'm not even sure I care enough anymore. I feel like I have grieved for my father already, so even though I know he is dying, I can't swallow my anger and go and see him, so that he doesn't die before we make up. (so everybody tells me, "you must make up with your father, he is dying, you will never forgive yourself").
How can we make up though? I don't care enough to pretend I'm a muslim again, and he doesn't care enough about me to accept me as a non muslim.
I wish I was more like you, and so many other ex muslims here, who play a part for the sake of their parents. Especially when I hear about how selfish and controlling some of those parents are.
I know for you, it's less playing a part, than it is just tolerating his behaviour towards you and your husband when he gets in his moods. It's difficult dealing with depressed people who lash out at others, you want to help them, but it is very hurtful to you to do so because you become the target of their anger.
I wouldn't know how to advise you right now, you care about your father, and you care for him too, it boils down to 2 choices, you stop doing that in order to stand up for what you see as your right to not be insulted, judged, and criticised all the time, or you keep going as you are in order to carry on caring for him. You won't be able to change him though, or fix him, or teach him a better way of seeing the world and the things that have happened to him. He is a parent, he is a grown up, and you can't teach an old dog new tricks as the saying goes.
I hope you find some way to strike a balance within yourself, but for me I would distance myself, my dad is a grown up, he should be smart enough to realise that I am rejecting him for his behaviour towards me, he is just as capable of making the choice to come to me, he doesn't, therefore I know he doesn't care, which makes staying away from him everyday, and feeling less guilt over him dying alone, that much easier.
Topic: Parents and children