I thought that men over 30 could help bc you might be a dad or might sympathize w my dad’s perspective in this case.
How do I make my dad understand that I have a bad relationship with my mom because she was violent/threatening to me when she was drunk when I was a kid? It wasn’t straightforward physical abuse like hitting and it wasn’t an everyday thing. When she was drunk, say once every 1-2 weeks but became more consistent, there was a lot of pushing/trying to drown once/chasing/threatening to kill me/some biting/lots of verbal abuse.
Even when she was sober she still said bad stuff to me. It gave me an ED, depression, and I planned to off myself when I was 14. My dad ignored it and said I was being a baby when I was a kid and then we never talked about it and he doesn’t understand that that’s why I have a bad relationship with her. She wasn’t drunk all of the time and it became more sporadic than anything, but my dad swept it under the rug and it feels like they all forgot it happened. (I also have a twin brother, but my mom protected him/babied him when she was drunk and sober and never touched him).
Now I’m going off to college and my dad’s disappointed that I don’t have a good relationship with her, and she’s always crying that we never talk. I just don’t feel safe around her to share vulnerable things even when I know what she did to me happened a long time ago, but her words and actions still hurt me. Do I even tell my dad this is why we have a bad relationship? I don’t know if we can fix this but my mom is a sweet person now that I’m old enough to understand she was a good parent to little children. Now that I’ve pretty much acted like an adult for years and been an adult, it’s easier to talk to her and she’s been good to me now that I’m older and lost weight bc of my ED (she fat-shamed me a lot as a kid), so I do think our relationship has changed but we’re not at a level where I’m comfortable being open with her. I’m close w my dad tho and not sure how I let him know this is why my mom and I don’t have the best relationship. Any advice would be really appreciated!! :))
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