My father in his youth was a sensible and wise man, educated, loved and respected by everyone at work, and I was told to follow his example. But no one guessed that at home Dad never missed an opportunity to remind me that I was an unwanted child of his first love, who became a burden to him and his wife, because they were the ones who had to raise me. Dad made me regret coming into the world my whole life.
He stabbed me more, telling me that I would never get into anything and would never get anywhere, ending up on the street if I got a bad grade. He insisted that I take up boxing, when I didn’t like the sport at all. Dad wanted to raise me as one person, but I grew up different, and that, too, was always an excuse to insult me.
My relationship with my father got better after I moved out and got married. I could see that he even liked his sister-in-law very much, he was in a way grateful that I was now out of his family, since I had my own. And at seventy, he started nagging at her.
– You spend so much time and money on your wife! She still wants to go to beauty salons and get her hair done for some reason, but she’s actually cheating on you. You don’t have kids of your own, so you’re pandering to her. You’d better go back home, help your old father. What did I raise you for? So that you forget all about me and live only for yourself?
He couldn’t stand me before, but in his old age he begged me to move back in with him. He didn’t hesitate to say mean things about my wife in front of her and tried in every way to spoil our relationship, but that’s not why we moved back in with him. He became very forgetful and many times left the key in the door, causing the neighbors to call, or almost started a fire by forgetting the iron on the ironing board. He had to be looked after, so my wife and I decided to live with him, temporarily renting out our apartment.
Anyway, Dad got even worse. Sometimes he is ready to cry out of love for me, saying that he missed me a lot, that I was the closest thing he had to family. And sometimes he scolds me and throws me out, waving his wand. I know that this happens to old people and that no medicine can help, but I find it very difficult to cope with him. My wife and I are discussing the possibility of sending Dad to a nursing home – I always told myself, when I was angry at my father for not loving him, that I would get back at him in my old age and put him in a nursing home, but now I doubt that’s the right thing to do. He is not the best person in my eyes and says a lot of hurtful things, but I feel he would be better off with them than with strangers in the ward. My wife insists otherwise. So what to do about it?
