Anita, I am truly touched by your responsiveness here. 🙂 Also reading over some other threads and the way you’ve talked with people and helped them sort out their issues…I am just really grateful and I hope you know you are a beautiful person.

Unfortunately, my dad and I haven’t been so close in the last few years. When he was going through his break up with his ex (who had been another father figure to me since the age of 3), my dad would share far too many personal details of their relationship with me. He would keep me on the phone for hours, just talking trash about the ex and failing to respect my boundaries. I had always had some guilty feelings for him…like if I was anything less than loving he would fall apart. He knew how to manipulate this. Like getting really short and pouty if I had to get off the phone. Even as a little kid I can remember him saying things to me like “I only get you for 4 days out of 30…” and I can remember feeling responsible for this. Feeling responsible for both his and my mom’s happiness, but I couldn’t make them both happy at the same time, so always torn. Anyway, when I was living in Maryland and going through my own adult life struggles and splitting up with my ex, I decided to stop falling for the guilt trip trap and started cutting our contact down because I WAS DEALING WITH MY OWN ISSUES. I feel that he is only happy when in a relationship and he becomes CONSUMED with that person when he is in one (which is always). Like it is all he can talk about and this leaves little to no room for me to share my stuff. He is a 65 year old man and in this regard he reminds me of a 12 year old girl who has her first crush. I feel if we have one thing going it is honesty (at least on my part – he is very selective with what information he will share and with whom). I have repeatedly and currently try to maintain a relationship with him but at a bit of a distance and I try to see it for what it is but at the same time keep an open mind with him. He has told me since I was small “your mom and dad are the only people in the world who will love you no matter what.” He is aware of my mom’s emotional tendencies, so yes – he is someone I sometimes talk to about that stuff but he doesn’t like to spend too much time talking about me lol.