Hi Zelwolf, thank you so much for your post, it helped enormously! I am sorry to hear you have had a similar experience and admire the courage you have shown in deciding to do what is best for you. I am inspired as you seem to have come out the other side and still feel confident that you did the right thing. If you can do it I can too 🙂 I too have heard similar things to you uttered by my Dad, it is completely unacceptable to say something like that to your child and says more about them than it does about us! I wonder if our fathers feel threatened by our good qualities and feel they have to bully them out of us? You seem to have acquired wisdom and strength from your experience which is a positive from the negative. The thought process you suggested about what is worse the “now” or the “then” has really put things into perspective for me. I had come to terms with never seeing my Dad again after the last time he kicked off and apart from feeling sad every now and then I didn’t expect to see him again or really want too. As cowardly as I think it sounds I don’t want to see him, I don’t want to hear the things he and my stepmother say and I don’t want the calm and peace of mind I fought so hard for to be taken away. I’ve spent so many days of my life worrying and being upset over him, it’s time to stop now, it makes no difference to me or to him. I know you will have good days and bad but I hope you are in a good place in your life right now and that you have positive relationships to make up for your experiences. Thank you so much 🙂 xx