My father is where most of my family's unhealthy behaviors stem from. He has an iron clad martyr complex and has a huge habit of gas lighting, spreading gossip and drama, and is hugely self centered. This part here is relevant to the story-growing up, we would all get together at his house. He would start gossiping about my aunt and we would all bitch about her together before she got there. As soon as my aunt would leave my father would start ripping her behavior apart-somewhat rightfully so. Most of us don't have contact with my aunt because she would come in, insult everyone to their faces, tell lies about her life and everyone else's, at some point throw a few violent screaming fits and then she would leave. These fits would occur because someone would step on her foot by accident, or her son would take her lighter, or she couldn't find her purse.
Onto yesterday-we get there and right away my father starts telling one of his stories about one of my mom's ex boyfriends in front of my current stepdad. It makes him visibly uncomfortable. Subject is changed to my sister losing her job that day. My father interrupts the story to say something completely irrelevant. I politely said "that's irrelevant though dad she's trying to tell us the story" and then dad makes a big show out of being upset and leaves the room. Everyone stays to listen to the story. Dad comes back and goes "YOU ALL THINK I'M A REAL SON OF A BITCH" because i cut him off and wouldn't let him interrupt and derail my sister's story. I tell him that he didn't need to interrupt especially with something that could have derailed the entire message and that he could have just waited a minute for the story to be finished before saying what he said. "WELL DO YOU WATCH EVERYTHING YOU SAY?!!" this is when the food is delivered and my mom takes me aside to say that my father is mentally a 3 year old now and that when he interrupts to just let him do it. Fine. We'll let the overgrown toddler dictate all conversations.
We're eating and another one of my mom's exes is brought up. I see that my mom is upset. My mom says "I've been asking this for years and I'm asking one more time. Please stop bringing up my past marriages and past partners every time i see and talk to you. It's disrespectful to my current partner" Immediately, dad gets pissed off and tells us that for years he watched us trash my aunt and run her into the ground and that he wants that to stop too. Literally nobody brought my aunt up until that moment-he just needed to counter being told she was doing something wrong with a "WELL WHAT ABOUT YOU." it turned into a big argument with my mom, sister and me telling him he can't keep acting like this. He did his usual meltdown and yelling about how nobody loves him, he isn't allowed to have his feelings, he does so much for everyone and we all think he is a son of a bitch, he just wants to be a good dad and isn't because we all hate him, how we all only point out everything he does wrong and that from now on he's just going to shut up.
He melts down like this because he knows he has pushed it too far and needs everyone to feel sorry for him again. He looks at me in front of everyone and tells me he loves me. I say it back but don't really mean it in that moment. Then he gets upset that i didn't look him in the eye when i said it and wants me to say it again. I've had enough and i said that its crazy that he needed to control the way i looked at him and my tone of voice. More yelling and covering up him head. Eventually he starts telling really unfunny jokes to "lighten the mood/distract everyone" and it all f***ing goes away again. My mom said she hopes we made progress. I tell her that we made no progress because they all fell for the manipulation again. I really didn't want to go over there and that nasty scene is exactly why i didn't want to go. Unfortunately NC is not an option but I've been LC with my dad for a while. Yay happy birthday to me-we got home 2 hours after our agreed upon departure time because he holds everyone emotionally hostage and i wouldn't have been able to leave during her stupid f***ing meltdown. It's a sad day when the 4 and 5 year old in attendance consistently behave better than the 72 year old. Impeach my father.
