Me [24M] with my dad [58M] duration, clashing on me visiting him on holidays and in general

So, I want to point out a couple of things.

If your dad wanted to be in your life while you were growing up, he could have. He had legal rights as your dad and could have pursued a relationship with you. He chose to abandon you. Then, if he wanted to be in contact with you when you reached adulthood, he could have done so, for instance by finding you over Facebook. But he didn't. He was a crappy, absent dad. If you aren't very close with him, well, he needs to man up and accept that the reason you two aren't close is that he made the choice not to be in your life. I think on some level he knows that and his anger and embarrassment about his own behavior is getting misdirected into anger at you, as if you somehow caused the lack of closeness.

Also, even in "normal" families, people talk about Thanksgiving plans ahead of time to plan where Thanksgiving will be held, at what time, and who will bring what. It's not normal to just assume someone will come and then text them angrily the morning of. His behavior here kind of mirrors his behavior while you were growing up... Total radio silence followed by total butrhurtedness and failure to acknowledge that he kinda created the situation himself by not reaching out when he should have.

/r/relationships Thread