Help me understand

[Anonymous No.15126384]

So my father was always this extremely coarse person. Treated my mother like shit, berated me in front of people, forced me to play sports and freaked out like a small child when I couldn't play anymore due to shoulder injury. He voted for Bush both times (but went third party in 2016), was deployed to the Iraq for large chunks of my childhood, and harassed my girlfriend after making fun of me for not having one most of my childhood.

Despite this he also has a master's in physics (which he doesn't use at all, dude's always just lying in bed these days except when he follows a mediocre country band on tour by himself) and reads exit-level literature like Robert Musil and Marcel Proust regularly. Whenever I try to get him to break his boorish highschool jock behavior and talk about something interesting he almost never does. And if he does its usually extremely briefly and dripping with condescension. The whole family barely tolerates him.

Based or Cringe guys? I want armchair psychologists to examine this man here.

[Anonymous No.15126400]

>>15126384
Sounds like he split his identity between being a jockish chad and an intellectual and failed at both, causing him to become hostile and self-loathing.

[Anonymous No.15126417]

>>15126400
He was a high school sports star and almost certainly misses that. Wouldn't call him a failure though since he's had a successful career and will retire a rich man (though far less rich than his younger brother-- which seems to seriously make him bitter)

[Anonymous No.15126515]

>>15126384
>>15126417
>forced me to play sports and freaked out like a small child when I couldn't play anymore due to shoulder injury
>He was a high school sports star and almost certainly misses that

>Treated my mother like shit
>harassed my girlfriend

>has a master's in physics (which he doesn't use at all
>reads exit-level literature like Robert Musil and Marcel Proust regularly

I think it would help to think about these aspects as pairs in the way I have arranged above, but there's still not enough to go on. Do you have any siblings? How would you describe your own life, and your achievements?

[Anonymous No.15126609]

>>15126515
I'm an only child. My mother wanted more and he refused. My life is alright, slightly underachieving but I'm getting a decent degree at a decent school. Social anxiety but mild enough that I have a handful of close friends. Severe listlessness if I'm not careful.

[Anonymous No.15126623]

>>15126384
Based irl shitposter.

[Anonymous No.15126641]

>>15126384
sounds like he's bored and this has led to depression. Does he drink? Does he exercise? Does he take xanax like some bitch?

[Anonymous No.15126656]

This sounds like me in 30yrs.

[Anonymous No.15126715]

>>15126609
>My mother wanted more and he refused
Interesting. I would perhaps draw another connection between this point and his military service.

Has he spoken to you much about his time in the military?

[Anonymous No.15126720]

>>15126641
Puritanical about his health. Never drinks, hypochondriac, frequently stays in bed thinking hes sick. Excercises sometimes when he feels better.
He's been on prozac for over 25 years.

[Anonymous No.15126749]

>>15126715
He's reticent about the military in general but has talked occasionally about it over the course of my life. I think the not having more kids thing is because he doesn't love my mother- and she dotes on him almost pathetically. But it may also be because when I was younger out financial situation was far shakier than now. Now we're bona fide wealthy because of his pension and a 9/11 GI bill for my college etc.
>>15126623
This is correct. He shitposts 80% of the time irl. Also he hits on every waitress when it's just the two of us getting food and he'll talk to ethnic people at restaurants in their own accents. Like he'll speak like a meatball chef at an italian place or like a japanese dude at a sushi place (literally said 'herro' to him) and it makes things extremely uncomfortable. One time a Turkish dude looked like he was about to fight him.

[Anonymous No.15126755]

>>15126641
>>15126623
I think a part of it is that he spends so much time online he's become like a mixture of a zoomer with irony poisoning and an outrageous boomer. Thus mixing the worst of both worlds.

[Anonymous No.15126940]

>>15126749
Given all of this, and the fact that he's been on prozac for the last 25 years, my diagnosis would be: he's depressed as fuck, likely exacerbated by his compulsion to avoid any kind of sincerity or honesty, and his inability to reconcile the conventional metrics of success (money, wife, kids, a successful career, etc.) with the sheer lack of gratification or fulfilment those things provided for him. What the actual root cause of his depression is impossible to know, because it sounds as if his emotional immaturity simply won't allow him to confront it, let alone talk about it. It's a sad thing but some men of a certain generation aren't really open with either themselves or those closest to them. Adding to that, his cruelty, childish rage, condescension and even making fun of other people's accents with no regard for the personal dignity of other's are further indications of emotional immaturity. Taking prozac for 25 years is presumably to compensate for all of these issues, but it also seems to have only exacerbated his tendency to dissociate from other people.

[Anonymous No.15126942]

>>15126384
He has low self-esteem. The reading choices reflect that. He's probably hoping to prove something to himself, likely that he's smart, but it's not working. For most people they could try to get people to talk about obscure books with or to lord it over when they read Anatomy of Melancholy or something.
The anti-social stuff means this won't work. So he should probably do something creative and very regularly. Hopefully his brain isn't fucked from the years of anti-depressants and he can muster up some creativity.

[Anonymous No.15127377]

He sounds like a typical American Gen X dad. The physics degree thing says less about him than it does about American education.

Anyway, mine wasn’t so different and we had a shitty relationship. We didn’t speak to each other for almost 10 years after my parents divorced. I know you’re not going to listen to me but I’d advise you to not just tolerate, but love and appreciate your father in spite of his faults.

[Anonymous No.15127430]

>>15126384
>was deployed to the Iraq for large chunks of my childhood
Sorry op, your father lives in a world that you will likely never understand. He's damaged for life, and actually coping with it. Sounds like he's managed to keep a roof over your head and provide for his family. Cut him some slack. If you want to understand him, talk to him.

[Anonymous No.15127434]

>>15126384
my dad is similar, a lot of boomers are basically mentally ill

Nothing you can do just get away

[Anonymous No.15127522]

>>15127430
I get along with him well it's just strange.

[Anonymous No.15127535]

>>15127430
you can go to war and have PTSD and not be an asshole to people you love

[Anonymous No.15127570]

>>15127434
Same. You can't change them, and if you're an only child OP there's probably even more shit you don't even recognise yet.
He's taking shit on you because he can't do it to anyone else or has no other outlet. He brought you up as a punching bag for his own failures basically, and he'll always see you that way.

[Anonymous No.15127850]

>>15126384
>>15126609
>Coarse
>Physics degree
>Doesn't do anything
>Doesn't love wife
Yeah my dad has these traits, too. I recently tried to get him to pick up gardening so he may at least channel his endless spare time productively, but we have nothing to grow yet.
I don't know, sometimes its hard to relate to him. The things he likes to talk about are the opposite of mine. What a life.

[Anonymous No.15128852]

>>15126384
bump

[Anonymous No.15128903]

Just get in the Eva god dammit

[Anonymous No.15129032]

How does one learn to forgive his father for being a pitiful, impotent faggot who probably fucked your life up unwittingly, and learn to love him in spite of his flaws?

[Anonymous No.15129116]

>>15126384
Two things you have to learn.

1. You are not going to change him.
2. It is not your job to change him

Get on with your own life

[Anonymous No.15129188]

>>15126384
You sound like a whiny baby
>forced you to play sports
boo hoo. maybe you would have turned out even weak otherwise

[Anonymous No.15129217]

>>15126715
>interesting

[Anonymous No.15129237]

>>15126384
Based of course, a true boomer alpha male like they don't make them nowadays.

[Anonymous No.15129244]

>>15128903
kek

[Anonymous No.15129255]

>>15129032
Why love him? Because he fucked your mother?

[Anonymous No.15129290]

>>15126384
Fight that dude, let him know he's a dick. Doesn't matter if he's overpowering, he needs some negative force and if it means nothing to him that his son and everyone else thinks he's a dick then I don't think that's something to respect. A man that has a family and doesn't care for it is failing at a basic task, and I'm not saying that moralistically

[Anonymous No.15129297]

>>15129188
>>15129237
it's really easy to spot weak kids larping master morality

[Anonymous No.15129320]

>>15129297
I refuse to start signing my posts /s.

[Anonymous No.15129351]

>>15126384
You should cut him off forever until he dies no exceptions

[Anonymous No.15129390]

>>15126720
The army doesn't allow you to take antidepressants, how is this possible?

>>15126749
>Now we're bona fide wealthy because of his pension
Military pensions aren't that big, how could you guys be wealthy from it?

[Anonymous No.15129406]

>>15126749
The second half of this post reminds me of the short story Reunion by John Cheever.

[Anonymous No.15129426]

>>15126384
What is it with physics majors and being fucked up?

>knew two physics majors at my college
>the one who graduated phi beta kappa had a schizophrenic breakdown and cannot function well enough to hold a job
>the other one got a master's degree and showed up to teach a community college class acting so bizarrely that students called 911

[Anonymous No.15129456]

>>15129290
>he needs some negative force
I don't know all the details but OPs father does sound like someone who really needs an actual confrontation on his rather cuntish behavior.
Seems like people around him put up with his disrespecting manners until they got ingrained, but it is probably hard to get that out of someone who has trained it for his whole life.
>and harassed my girlfriend after making fun of me for not having one most of my childhood.
Absolute fucking inexcusable.

[Anonymous No.15129513]

itt faggots with daddy issues
now wonder why people call tumblr and 4chan two sides of a same coin

[Anonymous No.15129549]

>>15129513
>itt faggots with daddy issues
Explain. At least, explain the difference between having problems with your father and "daddy issues" as renders you a faggot.
Or is this just bait

[Anonymous No.15129557]

>>15129390
20+ years gives you a big pension and he makes six figures working in a related DoD capacity that's technically civilian. Also my mom worked close to full time and made ok money.

[Anonymous No.15129573]

>>15129513
I don't have daddy issues you fucktard I get along with him well enough and have a high tolerance for eccentricity. I'm just soliciting armchair psychologists on the internet to explain his behavior which is genuinely unlike anything I've seen. Especially his level of erudition. I know people who act like boomer jocks and people who read Flaubert for hours at a time, but doing both is odd.

[Anonymous No.15130767]

>>15129032
I studied myself. I won’t claim I don’t still feel some resentment because I do but I destroyed most of it and I did it by asking myself why I felt a certain way and really studying both the question and the answer. It allowed me to detach from the bonds of expectation and liberate myself towards a different notion of fatherhood. He is my biological father but he doesn’t have to be the fatherly principle that I orient my life towards and in that context, I was able to appreciate not only what I had relative to others, but the hardships from it that forced me to grow. Perhaps the biggest benefit though was the sense of liberation to be my own man, to live by my own principle, to really be a creation of my own accord, and perhaps seek out non-biological fathership where it felt right. I figured out where he fit in in my life and we have a fairly good relationship today. I don’t want to come off like I’ve disregarded my dad because that’s not what I’m saying. I still love my dad, but I turned the burden of expectation into a propulsion toward freedom.
>>15127377

[Anonymous No.15130890]

>>15126384
Your Dad believes he doesn't deserve to die. To connect with him, ask him what he wants his legacy to be. At some point, bring up you don't have fond childhood memories, he'll crack.

[Anonymous No.15130910]

>>15130890
For bonus points, just tell your Mom you have bad memories from your childhood and ask her opinion. Then, she'll tell your Dad, and maybe he'll get it.

[Anonymous No.15131089]

The older I get the more I can see parts of my dad reflected in myself and it scares the shit out of me. He was in a far better position than me at my age and he still feels like he could fall apart any minute at nearly 60
>>15130910
Communicating through your mom is a surefire way to make your dad resent you, I used to do it and my dad concluded it was because I was some kind of sissy, even though it was solely because he’d freak the fuck out whenever I tried to be honest with him.

[Anonymous No.15131233]

>>15126609
>My mother wanted more and he refused
this alone almost guarantees that he has narcissistic personality disorder, people who can support children but don't do it are not doing it because they're more interested in things that satisfy their ego and material desires

[Anonymous No.15131354]

>>15129255
Because he loves me and I know he regrets his passed mistakes. He doesn't deserve the resentment I have for him and nor do I want to resent him, but I resent him all the same. Of course it doesn't help that he's a complete oaf, but I still feel guilted and deeply disgusted by myself for the ways I often treat him.

[Anonymous No.15131883]

>>15126384
I'll respond in good faith. He seems like a likeable man and based on all accounts. You were wrong to stop playing sports as a kid. Why should he open up to someone who considers Proust exit level anyway?