Dad thinks that my friends are HIS friends too. - Relationship Health Message Board

purple2067 · 04-12-2003, 04:35 PM

Hello all.

I have been having a problem with my dad, and I am at the point where I can't take it anymore. He is driving me and my friends up a wall.

I am 22 years old and I still live at home, until I finish college and get a job (which will hopefully be in september). As soon as I can get a job I am going to move out. But since I am going to be an elementary school teacher, it can be quite difficult since nobody is hiring. Anyway, I am forced to live at home for the time being. I love my parents very much and living at home is really not a bad thing. I appreciate what they are doing for me very much. But....this is the problem... Every time my friends call, if my dad picks up the phone then he spends 10 minutes talking to them while I am standing there waiting for him to hand me the phone, and he absolutely REFUSES to give me the phone until he is done. Heck, my DOCTOR calls to speak with me and if my dad picks up the phone he will sometimes talk to him about himself before giving me the phone! It's like he is holding my friends hostage on the other end of the line! My friends are NOT calling to talk to him. They have all told me several times "I really don't like talking to your dad". The worst part is that when my female friends call, he makes sexual innuendos towards them. My best friend has a 5 year old son who calls his mommy's breasts "muffins" (this is what his dad calls them!). My dad has heard him refer to them as such, and now whenever my friend calls he asks her about her "muffins" and makes here feel very very uncomfortable. He'll say something like "so how are your muffins? It's hot out, can I put some ice on them for you?" My friend starts to laugh because she giggles when she is nervous or uncomfortable, and my dad takes this as a sign that she finds him funny. None of my friends find him funny AT ALL when he does this. I have spoken with him about it several times and asked him to please stop doing this. My mom has spoken with him as well. We have both told him how first of all, my friends are not calling to talk to him, and #2, the conversations that he has with them are extremely inappropriate. He makes both my friends and ME very uncomfortable.

He doesn't make any kind of sexual "jokes" with my male friends (that I know of) but when they call I literally have to pry the phone out of his hands. Also, sometimes with any of my friends, male or female, he will stand near my bedroom door and listen to my conversation and chime in. Or he''ll occasionally pick up the other phone while I am on it and start talking, and he won't get off unless I scream at him. I hate to have to yell at my dad but he is really getting out of hand and I can't take it anymore!

Another thing is that when I was younger and he had to give my friends a ride home from my house, my female friends would BEG me to come with them because he would make the same kind of innuendos. I am 100% positive that he doesn't mean anything harmful by this, but he is making us all very uncomfortable and he sees nothing wrong with it. He thinks it is all a big joke and that everybody should laugh. Ha ha. Very funny. Today he did the same thing again and I got really mad at him. I wouldn't talk to him. He realized I was mad and he came in and apologized and said he wouldn't do it anymore, but I truly do not believe him, because he has said this before. He also occasionally says something provocative to me as well, and I am his own daughter! Once again, both my mom and myself as well as my older brother (who no longer lives with us) have told him how extremely inappropriate this is and how he embarasses me and makes me uncomfortabl, and that he should not be doing saying these things to his own daughter. He apologizes and says "I won't do it again". But he does it again anyway. I can even remember when he used to drop me off at school (high school) he would make comments to me about how hot all of the girls were. We have even gone so far as to tell him that ne is a pervert and a dirty old man. He is very proud of this. He takes pride in making other people fumingly angry. (I am serious... he does!) He thinks this is all one big joke. I can't take it anymore. I am seriously considering upgrading my cell phone plan and just telling all of my friends to stop calling the house and just call my cell phone. But that is a shame, because they do have rather nice conversations with my mother. My best friend doesn't really have a good relationship with her own mother so sometimes she calls my mom to ask her for advice on childcare issues. I have also considered getting another phone line hooked up and telling my friends to just call me on that, and just having the phone in MY room. He generally won't go in there. I know he would probably answer the phone if I wasn't home, but I would get an answering machine and ask him to please not answer it. It's a shame that I am going to have to resort to this, but unless I can figure out how to get him to stop this once and for all, I am going to have to tell my friends to stop calling the house. In fact, when I was younger some of my female friends from high school refused to call unless they knew he was not home. This is not fair to me, because why should my friends have to feel like this around him? I am going to lose my friends over this.

And the thing is, I really cannot afford to upgrade my cell phone plan or get a new phone line. I do have a separate phone line for my computer that I could hook a phone up to, but the computer is not in my room... it's in my brother's old room.

If anybody has any suggestions or has ever dealt with anything like this, please, please help me. I am at my wit's end here. I have even consulted a social worked/therapist who doesn't know what to tell me.

Thanks a lot,
Elyse

P.S. My mom has female friends who call the house, and he has NEVER done this to any of them. It's just MY friends.

#1Texan · 04-12-2003, 05:00 PM

Hi Purple (my favorite color)

Well, lets see, you and the family have talked to him..he thinks he's funny, he apologizes and turns around and does it again. He has got some sexual issues with young women, he thinks it's ok to be a dirty old man, he probably figures " oh there just kids, what's it gonna hurt." SICK

He needs some serious help and I'm sure he will never go for that. I'm really sorry, this just make me sick. No father should be like that! Geez.

Upgrade your cell for a few months until you can get the H*** out of there.

Take care

#1Texan

sweetescape02 · 04-12-2003, 06:57 PM

Purple, I don't mean to sound rude but if I was your mother, I'd get you the hell outta there! If I knew my husband was saying things like that, to ANYONE, much less young girls, he'd be a distant memory, no matter how many years we'd been married, blah blah. It's wrong and it's sick. It doesn't matter if he acts on it or not, just saying it would be enough for me to pack up my babies and hit the damn road. I know you said he's never acted on it, but to me, if he keeps on, one day he will. YUK!!!

We have a local radio station that has callers call in once a week and ask for advice. Well, last week, a 19 year old girl called for advice on what to do about her father. He had recently found out that the girl's best friend thought he had a "nice bod" and from the second he found out, he would start walking around the house in only his boxers whenever the friend was there visiting and doing all kinds of crazy crap because a young female paid him some attention!

The mother of this girl called in this week and gave her own update and told us that she sat down to talk with her husband about his behavior and found out that he'd cheated on her several times in recent years with young girls, many of whom were his daughter's friends. Ewwww..

If you've asked him to stop and he says he will, but never does, then he never will. He'll probably always be this way, so my advice to you is concentrate on getting your a$$ outta there and keep your friends away from him!!!

Good luck!

------------------
In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul.

lilihob · 04-12-2003, 07:36 PM

are any of your friends forthright, ballsy, with a bit of a temper?
sic her onto him.
he obviously thinks you/mom/brother are just party poopers, and he's interpreting your friends' giggles/not saying anything, as that they secretly like it.
he thinks being a "dirty old man" is funny, because he likes bugging people, getting a reaction, it's a kind of bullying.
if your friends knew there would be no comeback from the rest of your family, i'm sure one of them would LOVE to put him in his place.
i have a feeling that a really harsh set-down from one of your friends, telling him exactly why he's such a jerk, will knock some sense back into him.
my best friends dad had this older man/sex god/superflirt, image going on in his own mind, till my mom heard him say something inappropiate to me(i have a "large" chest).i was 18, she ripped into him, his paunch, his thinning hair, his breath!
she put him right down into the ground.
he never did it again. to anyone!
scared of the reaction he might get i guess.
if your father ever says anything sexual to you again, threaten to tell everyone, be cruel, tell him it's a kind of sexual harassment on his own child, and as for his behaviour on your friends,tell him he's too old and ugly to be one of your friends, tell him to face the mirror and realise his youth is OVER!
your mom needs to back you up on this, he's bullied you all into accepting the unacceptable for too long.
print out these posts. make him read this.
he's an awful father for DARING to talk that way around you.
if your mother doesn't stop him, she's JUST AS GUILTY.
i understand that she can't control what he says all the time BUT, i'm a mom too, and no mom i know would tolerate sexual innuendo between dad and daughter, 22 years old, or not.
even better, your friend should tell her boy's father about the "muffin" comments.
after a "man to man" talk, he won't do that again!!

[This message has been edited by lilihob (edited 04-12-2003).]

purple2067 · 04-12-2003, 08:59 PM

My friend is divorced from her son's father, so it wouldn't matter if she said anything to him. He'd probably think that it is funny too. I have been seeing a therapist for other issues, some relating to my parents, some not. I have been discussing this with him for a long time and we have tried numerous things, like coming up with a way for me to explain this to him, or coming up with a way for me to get him to stop, but nothing has worked. I really don't think that he sees anything wrong with this. My mom is used to it because he has always acted like this. He is very open about his sexuality. He walks around the house in his underwear (it's a real struggle to get him to put on pants when my friends come over, but he does put them on) I have learned to live with that, but I do yell at him to put pants on. If I were to tell him that I am embarassed by him, he would say "good, that is my job". In reality, my dad is a big baby. He will do anything to get a rise out of somebody. If I am watching TV, he will sit there and stare at me until I blow up at him, and then he laughs. He pokes my mom just to **** her off!

When I was a child, I saw a child psychiatrist for some problems that I was having. I happened to mention once that daddy walks around in his underwear and is always mentioning in front of me that he wants to have sex with mommy. Well, let me tell you. My dad got called into the doctor's office and she let him have it. For a while he stopped walking around in his underwear and he tried to stop making dirty comments, etc... But he was never really able to stop completely. I really believe it is an illness. He tells me that this is how his father acted when he was growing up, and none of his sisters ever had a problem with it. (my aunts say otherwise though! They didn't like it much either!) That was just the way things were, according to dad.

No matter what I say to him, he laughs. He thinks it is very funny that I am embarassed to have my friends call the house. And how about having them come over?

I have known my best friend for almost 4 years, she has been to my house about 10 times. I go to her house every day, but she doesn't want to come to mine, and I can't blame her. She shouldn't have to be put through that. She knows and she always tells me that this is not a reflection on me. She says that she doesn't get offended, but I know he makes her uncomfortable. I do agree that he has some sexual issues. But honestly, I don't care to know about them! There are no boundaries. He tells me whatever he wants to tell me, whether I want to hear it or not.

Another thing he is constantly saying to me is "Oh, I was bad. I did this, I should get a spanking." Do I really need to hear that??????? NO!!! Once again, I tell him how uncomfortable he is making me, but he thinks it is all one big joke.

My mom has tried everything under the sun to get him to stop acting like this. There is nothing she can do. She screams at him and tells him she can't believe how stupid he is being, but once again, he is getting a rise out of her and he thinks it is great fun. A few times she has threatened to leave, but she never has. And the thing is, I don't want to come between my parents. They have a pretty good relationship (married for almost 30 years) and I don't want to be the one to break them up. Imagine THAT guilt!!!!

I hate to get angry at him because he is my father and with the exception of this problem, he has always been a wonderful dad. He is always there for me, I have cried on his shoulder many times. I feel terrible when I get angry at him because I don't want to hurt him. I also don't want to say anything to him that I am going to wind up regretting.

The other issue is that he thinks he has the right to know everything about my life. For example, last year we bought a new cordless phone. This phone has the feature to remember the last 3 numbers dialed. Well, little did I know that I was making phone calls and my dad was looking at the numbers to see who I was calling. One night he said to me "who's phone number is 494-****" I said "why?" He said "I'm just curious. I want to know who you called. Enquiring minds want to know." I just totally lost it. When it comes to my friends and my social life, I have no privacy. He wants to know what my conversation was about when I get off the phone. Some of my friends are away at school, and he asks me "so have you called Scott lately?" Anyway, shortly after we had gotten the new phone my older brother came for a visit and commented on how cool it was that the phone has this memory/ redial feature. I told him what my dad was doing with it! He let him have it good! He told him "I can't believe you are violating my sister's privacy like that. You don't have any right to do that. You absolutely cannot continue to do this! This is wrong! Why do you care who she calls? Maybe I should start checking up to see who YOU call!" Well, as far as I know my dad has stopped checking the phone to see who I called! Or, he'll tell me to call one of my friends to see how they or doing, or to tell them something. Excuse me? They are MY friends, not his! In fact, we went to a broadway show together recently. My brother and I had bought my parents tickets for one of their birthdays but my mom got sick and couldn't go. Rather than waste the tickets, I went in her place. At midnight, after the show was over, my dad said "call Jenn and tell her how the show was. Isn't she waiting to hear from you?" Why would she possibly be waiting to hear from me?

Another thing that I have seriously thought about doing is waiting until one of his friends calls the house, which is not that often because sadly he does not have very many friends (and I really do feel bad for him because all he does is sit home and eat and watch TV). But anyway, I would do the same thing to him once. I'd let him know that his friend is on the phone, and then I would continue to talk to this person while he was standing there waiting for the phone. I might even say something like "so how's the sex life"? But then I thought about this again and I realized that doing this would be just as inappropriate as what he is doing to me, and two wrongs don't make a right.

I saw my best friend today not long after the latest phone incident with my father. She let me know in no uncertain terms that although she understood he was just joking, his hitting on her makes her very uncomfortable. I of course, apologized. I am tired of having to apologize to my friends for his behavior. I told her "well then next time he does this to you, DON"T LAUGH!!!! Tell him how much you hate it when he says this. Tell him 'I didn't call to speak to you, and I certainly did not call to be harassed." I do think that if one of my friends were to tell him this, he might stop. But my best friend is the one who calls the house the most often, and she is much too sweet to ever say anything to him. I have another friend who I KNOW would say something to him, but because of her work schedule she has been calling me on my cell phone anyway, because she calls me late at night when everyone else is sleeping.

The thing is, he feels very comfortable with my best friend for some reason. So with her, he makes these sexual innuendos. With my other good female friend, he doesn't feel as comfortable. So as far as I know, he doesn't make the same comments to her. But when she does call the house, he still talks to her and won't give me the phone. My other friends are all guys, so he thinks that because they are guys then they should find his jokes funny. He thinks that my friends like talking to him. The thing is that my friends are all very nice, respectful people and would never tell him that they don't want to talk to him.

My two biggest problems are 1) he makes all of these sexual innuendos towards my friends, even though I know he would never act on them. (although he does have this insane image of himself as this sex god!)

and 2) he thinks that my friends are his friends and that if they call the house it is OK to hold them hostage on the other end of the phone!

My therapist has suggested that I bring my parents in for a session. We have done this once or twice before, and he has already completely analyzed my dad just based on what I have told him! I think that maybe if we focus on this in a therapy session and make my dad aware that this is socially unacceptable, then he might change his attitude over time. We're going to do this very very soon. In the next 2 or 3 weeks.

In the mean time, I am probably going to be living at home for at least another year just because of my financial situation. I love my parents both very much, but I have got to figure out a way to live with my dad and his behavior! Most of the time he goes to sleep before me and my mom, and the two of us sit up and discuss what the heck we are going to do with him! I have even tried to have my brother talk to him man to man. My brother is very diplomatic (he's a lawyer) and has tried in the most tactful ways to tell him how wrong his behavior is. My brother is bringing his girlfriend over for the first time tomorrow... I can only hope that he doesn't treat her like he treats my female friends.

I think that if he had some hobbies or if he had some more of his own friends, he might stop some of this. But it's not my responsibility to find friends for him or to find him a hobby.

Thanks for all the suggestions. If all else fails, I just may print this page out and make him read it. I just really really don't want to hurt him. My dad is really a big teddy bear and I have these visions in my head of him crying. That's just me. I can't hurt him.

[This message has been edited by purple2067 (edited 04-12-2003).]