SO this is an intense vent. And I apologize if it gets long, I'm not sure how long it will get.
To put it lightly, my dad is kind of a jerk. Growing up he gave us everything we needed, but I never realized how much he was interested in his own interests until I left the house for college. He is a man of empty promises who refuses to think he has problems. Last fall he stole money from me. My grandma had set $2000 aside for each grandkid to have on their graduation. He had her write him the check so he could giev it to me.. and he didn't. I found out. He claimed he was going to give it back to me when I graduated. That was when I cut him off (aka stopped lending him money). This was also the time my mom got fed up and finally left him.
I tried to have a healthy talk with him about my concerns about him and how he has been treating us kids all along (he was never abusive but never hesitated to yell at us for practically nothing). Along with that and my concerns with money, how he has no responsibility with money and how I am sick of having to bail him out. This was fall of my senior year so I was anticipating eventually hitting the real world and needing this money back. At that point he owed me a total of $3000 (which included Grandma money). He didn't want to hear it. He accused me of being ungrateful and listed of EVERYTHING he has paid money for me to do. I will admit I have had some great opportunities that I have over and over again thanked my parents for. But now he's holding them over my head like that's an excuse for him being so emotionally unavailable to us. He more or less told me to "prove" my feelings.. which is hard to do since feelings are just feelings. We didn't talk for about two months.
Things got a little better for awhile, but now things are even worse. His newest thing is talking nonstop crap about my FI's family and how they are "controlling our lives" (which they are not). He just gets mad that when he tries to make plans with us, we already have plans with FI's family. When I try to make a counter offer on plans he's either hanging out with one of his girlfriends (yes plural) or has something else going on.
This past sunday, FI made plans with his family to do dinner at their place for Father's Day, so I called my dad asking him if we could do lunch. He happily agreed. He then texts me three days later saying my brother is at camp until 2 on Fathers Day and asked us to switch to dinner. I told him we can't because FI's brother works until 3. He freaked out and has been complaining to me and to others that we are being so unaccommodating and that it is the same difference each way. Dad agreed to the plans already?! Excuse me that his plans changed. At least he still gets to see us on Father's Day.
Graduation was 2 weeks ago. Still haven't gotten my money from Grandma that he took because he doesn't have the money to pay me back (every time I bring it up he give me a list of everything that is due for his bills). I had to use my graduation money from others to pay my security deposit for an apartment, so I'm flat out broke. Another empty promise. Let's not forget he just bought a 55" tv and bose system for the living room. He "needed" a new TV cuz his old one broke... He also went to Europe to visit my brother in January and threw himself a HUGE 50th birthday party in March.
In my Dad's eyes, Dad is #1. And it's getting so old. It's to the point where I dont' even want him to walk me down the aisle when I get married. I just want my mom to because she's been nothing but supportive. But I don't want the drama that is going to come along with him not walking me down the aisle. I want to fix this so badly but my dad is such a proud man that he refuses to think anything is wrong other than FI's parents "running our life". I can't fix it by myself and he sure as heck isn't going to help fix something that isn't broken in his eyes. We went to a wedding last weekend and I just sobbed watching the father-daughter dance knowing that I'll never haev that same affection with my dad as the bride did with hers.
Okay, vent over. I appreciate anyone who even got half-way through this haha.