Self Esteem
How To Deal With An Abusive Father
I just got this question about dealing with an abusive father from my article about How To Recover From a Critical Parent:
I have a 50 year old father who has always been over-controlling, mean, critical, manipulative, judgmental and border-line abusive. These traits are becoming more pronounced as he ages (except the abusive part) and he has tried to use psychological tactics to separate me from my girlfriend and to make me feel guilty for not spending time with him. I just want to move out but Sydney housing is the most over-inflated in the world at the moment. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. I think the reason behind his issues is he never knew his father but it’s ridiculously unfair to burden your son with this cr@p. He has a girlfriend of 7 years who you can tell isn’t compatible with him. They fight all the time and she’s depressed. She’s cheated before as a form of escapism but he manipulated her to stay with him (probably because he feels lonely). The whole situation is so pathetic. Because of his emotional and physical abuse as a kid, I live with anxiety and depression. Do you have any advice?
Sounds like your father is a real challenge to live with, and you’re still carrying the emotional scars from how he treated you as a kid. The really important thing when you have a father who is emotionally and/or physically abusive is good boundaries. That’s hard to do while you’re still dependent on him for your physical needs such as housing, so the first thing to do is to start working towards getting out of there and into a place where you’re living with sane, reasonable people. I get that Sydney is a nightmare housing-wise, which is why I did share accommodation for a long time when I first moved out of home.
