I watch this man turn to complete mush as his father walks in the door. EVERYTHING he does from the moment that man crosses the threshhold is about looking for dad's approval
Hello Tree..........you reelly got something going here. This is the first I've heard about this dynamic though I admit to not having memorized everything you've posted so you might have brought this up before..... One of the difficulties in my marriage was my inability to "stand up to" my fairly intrusive father, who lives only about 30 minutes from here. The family dynamic when he was around would get very squirrelly: My F is controlling, talks compulsively almost non-stop and will be oblivious to everything else, I would get withdrawn and irritable with my poor kids, W would be frantic trying to keep everything cheery, meals would be torturous. It wasn't until the past six months or year that I've finally confronted my own problems and demons with my father, who at 82 ain't gonna change, and have started to have a more realistic and tolerable relationship with him. It's amazing that at my age of 48 years he could still have such an effect on me!
SOOOOOOOOO..........you are doing the right thing. That last encounter you had, in my opinion, showed really good self-caring behavior on your part. I'm serious! It seems to me that you took the single most important step of NOT buying into that dynamic. Keep doing it It would be great to somehow get your H to look at his own behavior and have him learn to overcome this glitch in his development (at some point we are supposed to rebel against our parent's authority and leave that aspect of the parent/child R behind) but then that would be moving into the area of trying to control him or fix him and setting yourself up for resentment.
Maybe someday later when you two talk to each other ( me ducking and running for cover ).
![[Smile]](images/icons/smile.gif){kind=icon}
One of the difficulties in my marriage was my inability to "stand up to" my fairly intrusive father, who lives only about 30 minutes from here. The family dynamic when he was around would get very squirrelly: My F is controlling, talks compulsively almost non-stop and will be oblivious to everything else, I would get withdrawn and irritable with my poor kids, W would be frantic trying to keep everything cheery, meals would be torturous. It wasn't until the past six months or year that I've finally confronted my own problems and demons with my father, who at 82 ain't gonna change, and have started to have a more realistic and tolerable relationship with him. It's amazing that at my age of 48 years he could still have such an effect on me!![[Big Grin]](images/icons/grin.gif){kind=icon}
( me ducking and running for cover 
