Continued:

* I’m adding this after I completed this short message: if the following is too upsetting to you, please feel free to not answer. If our conversation- exploration promotes your Clarity and Calm, that’s a good thing. Please let me know.

“My dad began swearing, calling him names”- what did he say, what names did he call your husband.. humiliating, crushing names?

You mentioned verbal abuse that he directed at you into your adulthood. Did he call you names as well?

I’m asking not to pry but to understand the extent of his cruelty.

* I don’t suppose you or your husband ever called him names or ever heard anyone else call him names to his face?

There’s much more that you shared, but sometimes when there’s so much, we don’t give enough attention to some things as they get swallowed in multitude of details and such.

I forgot the great majority of the humiliating, crushing words my mother used against me but I so clearly remember this one: “You’re One Big Zero!”

Anita

Good evening, Nea 🙂

I find our conversations very interesting and glad to have them. I hope that we’re helping each other- as peers, regardless of our age difference.

Particularly when I’m using my phone, like now, I like to scroll up, quote a sentence or a few from your message, share what it brings up for me, then scroll up again and repeat. It helps me think more clearly (undoing many, many years of confusion).

“He clearly can exercise restraint, empathy and consideration in some relationships… I have seen that he is capable of (resteaint, empathy and consideration)”-

I think that he is capable of performing empathy. It’s called Strategic Empathy, or Instrumental Empathy, which is aimed at managing his social image, or promoting his personal interests.

Where’s the Genuine Empathy during years and decades of seeing his wife and his daughters suffer, and yet not caring to change anything about his behaviors so to protect the three of you?

“She has always had much more of a ‘don’t tell me what to do’ personality, and she also went through a very dark period with her mental health when she was younger. I think that some of what happened frightened my parents enough that they became much more cautious about how they approache her. My dad can simply be different with her”-

I don’t know your mother’s emotional motivation. She may have been genuinely concerned about your sister’s mental health.

But when it comes to your father, I imagine that what he was scared of was what a daughter’s visible mental health problems would do to his social image.

That she was able to come up with a ‘don’t tell me what to do’ personality may have developed because she was allowed the freedom to develop it, or to maintain it.

I am guessing that he wasn’t afraid that you, Nea, will make him look bad because you didn’t visible display mental health problems.. ?

At this point, because of what you added in the message I’m responding to, I’m thinking that maybe your father is not dangerous at all because physically and detectably (!) injuring his daughters, his wife, or his son-in-law would make him look bad.

I will continue later.

Anita

Hi Nea:

* I’m adding this after completing this message: this may be too much. Please feel free to not read or stop reading at any time. No need to respond if this is too much *

I am back at the computer and can look things up:

Strategic Empathy means he can perform empathy when it benefits him, using ’empathy‑like’ behavior to manage his image, and showing restraint only in relationships where consequences exist.

Instrumental Empathy means empathy used as a tool to achieve a goal: to gain approval, avoid conflict, maintain reputation, and control how others see him.

Another term you might feel useful is Selective Restraint. This describes how he controls himself only when he fears consequences, wants to maintain a certain image, avoid looking bad, or appear reasonable.

Real empathy includes * Curiosity — you want to understand another person’s inner world, * Responsiveness — you adjust your behavior to reduce harm, * Consistency, * Accountability — you care enough to change harmful patterns, and * Non‑performance — it’s not about image, approval, or control.

Real empathy is felt, not calculated; it leads to change, while strategic empathy leads to performance. Real empathy shows up in private, while strategic empathy shows up in public.

Nea, about the words he used against you and your husband, phrases like: “bitch”, “shut the fuck up”, “get the fuck out of my house”, “you don’t fucking know anything”, “fucking piece of shit”, “I’ll show you”, and “asshole”- That’s dominance language.

These words mean: ‘I am above you.’, ‘You have no right to speak.’, ‘Your feelings don’t matter.’

‘I control this space.’, ‘I decide who is allowed to exist here.’

‘I will crush you if you challenge me.’, ‘I will escalate if you don’t submit.’

He uses these specific words because they degrade, humiliate, silence, intimidate, and trigger fear and compliance.

His phrase “I’ll show you” is especially important. It means: ‘I will escalate.’, ‘I will overpower you.’, ‘I will punish you for not submitting.’, and ‘I will demonstrate my dominance.’

His “get the fuck out of my house” means: ‘You exist here only by my permission.’, ‘I can expel you at any moment.’, ‘Your presence is conditional on obedience.’

His “you don’t fucking know anything” means ‘Your perspective is invalid.’, ‘Your voice has no weight.’, ‘You are beneath me.’

His words are weapons designed to silence, dominate, intimidate, humiliate, and maintain control.

This is not a ‘difficult parent.’ This is an abusive one.

And his financial generosity is part of the control structure, not evidence of goodness. Many abusive or domineering parents are financially generous because it maintains loyalty, dependence, image, and power.

Children of abusive parents often say: ‘He (or she) can be generous.’, ‘He can be charming.’ etc. This creates confusion because generosity feels like ‘proof’ of goodness. But his financial generosity does not cancel out the name‑calling, the intimidation, the humiliation, the threats, the emotional volatility, the dominance language, the lack of accountability, and the absence of genuine empathy.

It is entirely possible — and very common — for someone to be financially generous, socially charming, publicly restrained, and still be emotionally abusive, domineering, unsafe in private, and harmful to their family.

As I’ve been typing this message, Nea, I’ve been feeling this heat in my face, anger, as in: ‘How Dare He?’

Your father and my mother have a lot in common. Although they’re not the same.

I have images of my mother, memories of her face- kind, loving, warm. Big brown eyes. I have memories of the hurt on her face and in her voice, and me swearing I will do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to fix her hurt, to make her feel better.

I remember her in private, thoroughly shaming and humiliating me any way she could until she was exhausted and yet in public: charming, pleasing, ‘good’

In cartoons the bad character is 100%, unequivocally bad. In real life, the bad parent is (simplified) a former innocent, hurt child.. and you can see remnants of that innocence and hurt in the abusive adult they turned out to be.

Anita