Dear Prudence,
My father and I have never had what you would call a “conventional” relationship. We’ve smoked weed together, and he often likes to tell me about his sex life. He’s successfully ostracized everyone else in our family, and I think I stick around out of a sense of responsibility, even though I don’t like the way he treats me. He’s married to a younger woman (he’s 65, she’s 40) whom I’ve known since I was 14. I’m 37 now. It’s a long story.
He wrote me an email a few days ago detailing how he and his wife had been discussing the idea of her having sex with “one of their friends”—and then told me that friend was me! He asked me what I thought about the idea and that he’d be interested in watching. It was very enthusiastic and not at all joking. I was horrified and responded that he needed to see a therapist and that it would take me a very long time to be able to speak to either of them again. He then claimed that he’d just been joking and that it was clear I had “never loved him.” So that’s where we are now. I know I’ve been gaslit by my father for most of my life (he’s really good at it), and I know it’s happening now. I’m not crazy, right? What he wrote me is wrong, right? Was my response out of line?
—Inappropriate Father