Dear Richard,
My father is 76 and now in quite poor health. He’s always been a bully and he made my mother’s life a misery (she died 10 years ago), constantly belittling and deriding her so that she had no self-confidence or life of her own. As children and young people we begged her to leave him, but to no avail. My younger brother and I live hundreds of miles from my father, yet he expects us to visit fortnightly, clean up after him and help him with all his various medical and social engagements.
I would be quite happy to leave my father to his fate – after delivering a few home truths – but my brother is in a less financially secure position than I am, and I feel my father uses his considerable wealth to keep him under control, offering gifts and paying for lunch and so on.
If I make a move to cut my father out of my life (or, at least, cut back on the amount of time I spend with him) I feel that my brother will just end up doing more and that my relationship with him – which is very important to me and my children – will suffer. How can I avoid this happening?
– KH, via Telegraph
Dear KH,
Well, the equation here is plain enough. If you punish your father, who you don’t love, you’ll be punishing your brother, who you do. Ergo, don’t penalise your pa for being an old curmudgeon with an unpleasant backstory of spousal bullying and family manipulation.
I appreciate how tempted you must be to tell him his fortune and then make your grand exit. I would be, too. He obviously has an overweening sense of his own entitlement, self-importance and patriarchal prerogative. It sounds like your mother endured life with a domestic despot and yes, that must make you very angry.
But we come back to your brother. He’s under no illusions about his father either, but there is the unavoidable question of continuing financial assistance (all right, bribes) to consider, not to mention an eventual inheritance. You can manage without all that; your brother can’t. So you’re right, if you walk away he’ll have little choice but to pick up the slack.
Here’s my suggestion. Talk to him about it. Get it off your chest. See what he thinks. There may be a compromise possible; some middle way for you to cut back contact with your dad while retaining practical support for your brother.
But there’s another factor to consider. If you do tell father his fortune and never darken his door again, you’ll almost certainly be cut out of his will. That’ll presumably leave more for little brother. Worth thinking about?
