Father’s Day is tough for me. I don’t have a dad, because the man who was my father made a choice, when I was a child, to be my bully, instead.
For my entire life, this man was implacable, inscrutable, and entirely unwilling to have any kind of relationship with me … yet he still felt entitled to my adoration an attention. Every day was a new puzzle to be solved, a new set of circumstances I had to figure out, so I could somehow evade his wrath and his cruelty.
In short, the man who was my father is an awful, selfish, cruel, racist, narcissist, and he made a choice to withhold his love and affection from me. Instead, he poured his rage, his shame, his scorn, and his cruelty into me. In my dysfunctional family, he made me the Scapegoat, and my mother went along with it.
I didn’t deserve it. No child deserves to be treated the way the man who was my father treated me. While he was bullying me, humiliating me, making me feel small and unworthy, my mother was enabling and protecting him.
And every Father’s Day, I was expected to worship and laud and celebrate that man, who may have contributed DNA to my existence, but is in no way, at all, my dad. I don’t have a dad, and I never did. I had a bully. Now, I have an endless black void where a father’s love should be, and it hurts every day. That man could have built a relationship with me, could have been a father to me, could have worked to build the same relationship with me that I’ve built with my sons, but he chose to bully me, and he invested a LOT of time and energy making sure I knew how contemptuous he was of me, and everything I did. (He didn’t have any compunctions about spending all of the money I earned when my parents put me to work against my wishes, but that’s a whole other thing. I’ve been able to earn more money; he’s the only person on this planet who could have been my dad).
So today is hard for me. I see pretty much everyone I know celebrating their awesome dads, who loved them unconditionally, the way a child deserves to be loved. I see them sharing memories of time spent with their dad, which I never got, because the man who was my father never made the effort. I’m doing my best to focus on how happy my friends are, and how lucky their children are, but it’s really hard for me to do that without feeling the massive black void where my father’s love and affection should be.
I want today to be a reminder of all the joy my own kids have brought me. I want to celebrate my own existence as a dad, to stand up and say that I did the work, I broke the cycle. I am not the selfish bully I had the misfortune of being born to. I’m a good man, and a good father. I love my sons, and we have a close and loving relationship. We don’t need a Hallmark holiday to celebrate and acknowledge the love we share, and my wife and kids know what a bastard my father was, so they’ve never imposed a celebration on me. But it still feels good when my boys call me their dad, and it still feels good when they tell me they love me. Being their dad is such a privilege, and I choose, every day, to be grateful for it.
Today, I’m going to make a deliberate choice to focus on my own children, my own experiences being the dad I never had, and I’m going to give a very special shoutout to my fellow children of bastards, who have the same complicated relationship with fatherhood that I have. This is a tough day for us, and if you grok what I’m saying, I’m so sorry. I see you, and I know.
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I can relate Wil. On all levels. Thank you and Happy Dads Day.
You are 100 times the man and father that yours could ever be. You did break the cycle which is I guess something he couldn’t do, but that’s on him! Try to have a good day with your boys!
A good reminder that when people fail as parents, typically their own parents failed them.
❤️❤️❤️
Sir, I wish that I could, person to person, give you a hug. You are a decent, compassionate, loving man and you grew from such stony ground. You have my respect and my very best wishes.
XOXO
It is so painful to even read this, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you to go through all of it. However I am proud of you for breaking this pain train and being the father to your children, you wish you had. I am sure when your children group up, they’ll have nothing but happy memories, when they think of you. Smiles and hugs! 🌸
Oooff. I feel this, deep in my soul. I recently found out that my mothers first husband, that creature known as my father, was still alive. I couldnt imagine why the fates had spared his life almost 85 years when he has contributed not one thing to the harmony of the planet.
I was lucky to be cast aside at 18. I’ve got a hole in my heart that is never going to be right, and my only comfort is this thought: people with great fathers suffer in proportion when their fathers die. I did my suffering while I was in contact while he lived. The worst is over for me.
Like you, I have a whole different relationship with my kids. My mom has remarried, and after 21 years , I’ve started to warm up to her husband. I’ve learned along the way from a few nice men a few ” fatherly” things and I’ve back filled that hole in my heart as fatherless children have through the ages. We are not the first to walk this road. We are just a long line of children grown old,( as the great Bonnie Rait aptly put it in Make Me an Angel). Weve raised ourselves. Weve done a good job. Let it be enough.
Thank you for this, “we are just a long line of children grown old.”
Thanks for this. Father’s day has always been a painful holiday for me, and I think it actually got harder when I made the decision to fully sever ties with the man who contributed half my DNA.
Your dad sounds a lot like my mom and older brother. They fed off of each other, when it came to bullying and abusing me.
My dad wasn’t around much. This was partly because of parent alienation. And my dad has issues from being in Vietnam. He was an alcoholic for many years and very lost. But I take time out of my year to fly down to Florida to see the old boy. I don’t blame him for not being around.
I am sending my love to you, Wil. I am glad that you talk openly about your life experiences. It helps people feel less alone. Enjoy spending the day with your children. They’re lucky to have you in their lives. And it sounds like you have broken the cycle (or is it circle) Either way, you are teaching your kids how a father is supposed to treat their children. And when they have children, they will pass on what they have learned from you.
Happy Father’s Day, Wil. You’re a good person.
I understand Wil. I see you and I hear you. My biological wasn’t there for me a lot but I got lucky with my stepdad. I understand.
I have a bully too for a father. My whole family goes along with it and makes excuses for him. I realize much of what I have accomplished is me trying so hard to say “am I enough now?”
I dislike this day very much.
My bully has made me dislike myself.
I appreciate this life preserver you have thrown out today.
Yeah.. .my brother and sister are lauding my father on social media today. I loved my father. But he was a horrible father. He loved my mother. And he loved booze. The rest.. I’m not so sure of.
He despised me. My weakness. My over-sensitivity. My looks (too skinny/no boobs). Everything I was, everything I thought, everything I did was something for him to make fun of. When I was finally diagnosed with depression and started medication, he railed at me about how medication was wrong… as he sat down and drank another half gallon of Baccardi. Near the end of his life he at least conceded that I was helpful to my mother. (I guess that was as close as he could get to thanking me for being his live in nurse.)
I don’t miss him. I know my mother does and I can respect that. I miss what ‘could have been’ but he chose alcohol over life. So I’ll leave the gushing Father’s Day posts to my younger siblings and stay off Facebook today.
I hope that you are enjoying your boys today. Be well.
Focus on your now family. I have the void, too. Alcoholic emotionally removed who left and found another familiar in another state. Harmed all six of us. You overcame the abuse and appear to be a wonderful father. Celebrate, my man. CELEBRATE! Be open to the love and appreciation. He was a dick. You’re not.
I really do grok on so many levels and I hope you have a Happy Be With Your Kids Day.
For me, that was my mother, but I certainly understand the feeling, Wil.
Very sorry that happened to you. It’s wonderful that you don’t follow in those footsteps. You’re a better man and human being.
Oh, man. I empathise. I’d a lonely and emotionally distant alcoholic father, who did love me but just couldn’t show it. I have conflicted feelings about these Hallmark days, too…
Wil and all the wonderful posters, thank you for honesty and sharing. Your experience of a father only had a referent of what you didn’t want to be. I can’t conceptualize what the act of parenting was like for you. I do, however, know from your posts through the years that you put caring and love as priorities. You broke the chain of bullying and I’d like to acknowledge you for that accomplishment. Happy Father’s Day to you Wil Wheaton because you are the father worth honoring.
I can relate on some level to your story. I have two dads and a complicated relationship with them both.
I made the decision earlier this year to break off contact with them, and I wrestled with whether or not I should acknowledge them with a card or a text.
I wish you all the joy of this observance with your kids and I wish you well in all the days ahead.
Wil, I understand how you feel. And over the years reading your posts about your kids and how much you love them has been has had a great impact on me.
Some of us get dealt a shitty hand in life and if we are lucky we can rise above it. Sadly, not everyone can.
I don’t do well with either mothers day or fathers day (in fact I try to ignore them) for a lot of reasons, and I try and focus on anything postive that I can on those days. I helped raise my cousin’s son from the time he was a tween (his dad was a raging alcoholic) and now he’s married with 3 children of his own and he’s a greatr father. I treat him like my son. I also mentor a number of young people. I am gratefull to have the opportunities to be there for them come what may.
A father, whether they be biological or adoptive, if they love you, and take good care of you, they are your father. He was not. Indeed, you had no father.
That was not fair.
Instead of perpetuating the cycle, you overcame, and became the father for your children that you deserved to have for yourself. Good on you—no…GREAT on you!
Happy Father’s Day, Wil.
I understand. I’ve also tried to be the dad that I wished I could have had. I think the best thing we can do is to take our fathers’ behavior as a cautionary tale, and be better men. Your kids are lucky to have you in their lives.
I never knew my birth parents. My mother did the best thing for me and put me up for adoption. I am told that I chose my parents, that when my dad leaned over my crib I immediately gave him the smile that only a five-week-old baby can give. I wish they could have adopted you, too. They are both gone now, but I would have given anything to share them with you. Love, Laurie
Oh man, that is so hard! I hate this day because I’m expected to be the adoring daughter and I just don’t feel like its my truth. I feel shitty saying it and I don’t dislike or hate my dad, I just ever had that sweet daddy daughter thing going on that so many have and I am jealous of, seems so dumb at 50 to feel jealous still, but when I see the gushing tributes I feel so left out like “what was wrong with us that I have no concept of what that must be like, and it kind of disgusts me a little, what’s that about?” I have been reading your blog for like 20 years and I have an inkling of how much you love those boys so congratulations to you for turning out to be an amazing father despite it all!
We love you, Wil
Hugs. Just hugs all around to everyone.
I’m thinking a bit about my father, too, now. I almost forgot it was Father’s Day (a day my dad always hated anyway–Oh crap, now some of his friends are gonna call me and reminisce for hours when that’s the last thing I want. Dammit.).
He passed away almost two years ago. I don’t know how I feel about him anymore. He kept a roof over my head and helped me with college, but didn’t make much effort on a personal level. I know his family was distant, fawning over his older sister “the princess” while he and his brother were afterthoughts… but it sucked to be in the same boat once I came about. I can count the number of times he hugged me once I got past 10 years old on one hand and still have fingers left over, and those moments were because he had a procedure in the hospital he had to stay overnight for. He thought it was weird when I tried to hug him a few other times for no reason, so I quit doing it.
We were like roommates occupying the same space and I’d get up and help him out.
It was a lot of emotional nothingness that just sucked the life out of me.
And now I’m living in my own house, but he’s still here. he’s here because his death gave me the money to get rid of that falling-apart one we lived in and buy this place, and it’s a constant reminder that he was there financially but that was about it, (and he is in an urn on top of the fireplace mantle–can’t figure where he’d want his ashes the most even now, and he never said).
He told his friends and our neighbors that he was proud of me and that I tried and kept my education going, but never could say anything like that to me. When I was at my worst, wondering what I was supposed to do in the midst of depression to get out of it, it would’ve been nice to hear something from him.
I supposedly made him “happy,” but can’t for the life of me figure out how or why. The Universe knows he couldn’t say it.
Be well, all, whether fathers were good, bad, non-existent or indifferent. Some folks don’t know what to do to be a good parent, but I’m sure most everyone on this thread has a good idea what NOT to do. So, now I’m gonna have to call my stepdad and tell him hello in a minute because he deserves it. I’m looking forward to THAT call.
I see you too. I’m sad that we share this. Every time I see a good father with his kids I’m surprised and other stuff. It took me a long time to get here from feeling only sadness and jealousy. The surprise is a nice addition but I wish we could all take good fathers like you for granted. That sounds bad but I think you will know what I mean by it.
I see you too. I’m sad that we share this. Every time I see a good father with his kids I’m surprised and other stuff. It took me a long time to get here from feeling only sadness and jealousy. The surprise is a nice addition but I wish we could all take good fathers like you for granted. That sounds bad but I think you will know what I mean by it.
Happy fathers day to YOU. You’re the dad! You’re the one being celebrated today for being the father you are.
I’m so sorry that you had to endure this, but I’m also glad that your sons can celebrate the great father you are today! :–)
Thank you. I am right there with you. Hug
In lieu of wishing any of my fathers a “HFD” Instead I sent a text to my amazing half-sister and thanked her for sharing a biological father with me. (She’s purposely never met him because she knows that he is a terrible horrible human being… I only met him for the first time a few years ago and yes yes he is a terrible horrible human being… And the stepfathers I grew up with were also all terrible horrible human beings)
I too choose to find something positive to revel on for this day instead of sinking more energy into that black hole inside of me.
Your thoughts always make me proud of you. Thank you for being such an authentic person and spreading it out into the world 💜
Wil, I also relate and I’m so grateful for the connection I feel to you whenever you write about your childhood. It was my mother and at 61 I can tell you that I still feel that black void. Ive missed having a mother every day. But I also am so grateful that I broke the cycle. My children have only been loved. They did miss out on having a grandmother. But I am a super grandma to my grandkids and it’s wonderful!!
Sending you love and hugs😘
I can relate. My father was (and is) narcissistic and manipulative, and when he chose to cheat on my mother, stole everything that could be stolen (and borrowed against what couldn’t) to finance his new life. When I heard from him months later, it was him trying to get me to steal some things he didn’t take when he left and bring them to him.
You do have something to celebrate on Fathers’ Day, though: the way that you overcame the crap example of fatherhood your biological father embodied, and became a good father to your wife’s children, so much so that they chose to be adopted by you. You trumped their bad excuse for a biological dad and your own, and redeemed fatherhood for two people who could have been robbed of it as you were. That’s absolutely worth celebrating.
This really hit close to home. I, though, have no idea who my father was, but the two men my mother was married to during my childhood were abusive, right along with her. Gall thing was when I was a parent my mother said she was so surprised I was so good at it. I looked her straight in the eye and told her “The though of hitting or hurting someone so much smaller than I am make me physically ill.” I refused to be like her, and didn’t take any parenting advise from her, seeing how lousy she was at it herself. Kudos to you, young man, for breaking the chain of abuse, and for being all you are and can be for your own children.
I remember you discussing this with Mack on bunny ears podcast. To this day I still remember your dialogue about your parents. And it continues to shock.
It’s your day, celebrate with your kids. I hope it’s a good one. 🖖🏻
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 I am so happy that you and your boys have a wonderful relationship. That is priceless. ❤️
Your account of your relationship with your father has helped me endure through my (exceedingly) strained relationship with mine.
I really empathize with your situation. The fact that you were able to see him as such a negative influence on your childhood and still be able to care, love, and nurture, and become father to Anne’s boys says everything about you and your abilities to persevere despite your past. I too come from from a very complex and dysfunctional family. I had to divorce myself from them as parental figures in order to continue to live my own life. While I haven’t been able to forgive them or forget them, I learned a great deal about how not to allow those negative influences interfere with how I raised my son. He has thanked me for taking the time I needed to be a better parent for him. He tells me everyday he loves me. So on these consumer driven holidays I don’t feel left out because I’m never without the daily reminder of unconditional love. I don’t dwell on what I never got at the hands of my parents. I feel in doing so would allow them to still hold some sort of power over who I’ve become and they don’t deserve that sort of reward. I’m in no way judging you or your situation. Just imparting my own side. Happy Sunday to a wonderful father in this crazy world
Happy Father’s Day, Will. Yours is sure to be better than mine. We buried my dad yesterday. He was not perfect, but he was like Ed and living. And we will miss him.
Wishing you and your family healing, Duren.
Wil, you are an excellent human. Thank you. I’m still working through the damage my father and stepfather caused to me and I feel like I’ve been trying to rise above it and prove I’m a better person than they were for most of my life.
Today has been hard, seeing all those messages about awesome dads when I associate that word with fear. Knowing someone else understands that….it helps.
I hope you are having a wonderful day with your beautiful family.
Thank you for posting this, Wil. I also have a complicated relationship with my father, and while this may sound a little weird, I filled the void that was inside me by watching tabletop, by watching your interviews and reading your blog posts. Though we have never met, you profoundly affected me and I learned so much about myself and was helped greatly by you. I am sure that I am not the only one who feels this way about you, so please know that while you had to go through life without a father, you have given not only your sons, but myself and many others the father figure that we needed and dreamed of. Thank you, Wil. Happy Father’s Day.
I really needed this reminder today. Even after how much my biological father verbally abused me and cut me off when I was outed as trans, I’ve still been expected to send birthday cards and father’s day cards, and this year I decided not to do it. I’ve felt coerced mostly because I didn’t want to stir up family drama among people who never defended me, but who would say, “but how could you hurt his feelings by forgetting father’s day?” It’s really scary and this reminder that I’m not alone is extremely timely. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
The decision to cut off a parent is incredibly hard, but it can ultimately be a very good one. “How could you hurt his feelings” is such a garbage tactic to use against someone whose very existence has been rejected. It’s not your job to manage his feelings. IT NEVER WAS. Thank you for taking care of yourself this year. <3
Wil, add me to the list of people who didn’t have a supportive/normal/ dad. My father could be generous at times with things i needed or wanted and that “he approved of”. But most of the time he would berate me, make me feel small, call me names, shame me etc. Short story, when my older brother got his drivers license my father gave him a Chevy truck, when I got my license, I had to buy my own car. My parents did loan me some of the money, but I had to pay it back. Then my younger brother (2 years younger) got his license, yep, he was given the Suburban. Hmm, that did not sit well with me. So many other examples.
One of my favorite moments was when he was berating me for renting a house when both my brothers were buying Townhouses. I spoke up and shut him down saying, “if you gave me as much money as you gave my brothers I could be buying a house”. He had helped both my brothers with gifts of many thousands of dollars that I did not get. Man, I was pissed. Needless to say, our relationship was tenuous at best. It continued on until he died of a self inflicted gun shot. Great stuff. Oh I’ve got a hurt and a lot of anger that sometimes comes boiling up. Just typing these last few lines is making me feel a bit dizzy. I love your posts, I’m proud of what you’ve become. Sorry if that sounds strange.
Peace out
I wasn’t bullied by my father, but I didn’t have a dad either. I’ve been able to find some dad-figures elsewhere, though, and I think that’s what we have to do. Glad you did figure out what a dad needs to be like so you could be that for your sons and help them learn to be men and perhaps dads themselves someday. All the best to you on this Sunday in June!
Reading your account of that man strangely made me think of work, and come to terms with myself that the hell I am experiencing is in fact bullying. I’ve experienced some fresh hell in my personal life too. The memories are still something I face every day. I hope you were able to enjoy your own parenthood today. We can’t change what was done to us, but we can fashion a future with healing in mind.
You’re not alone, and that is very sad. While I can say I had a similar childhood experience, your description of your father is poignantly familiar. Add in alcoholic+rage. The level of self-understanding and understanding of my parents, family, and life’s experience, that I have achieved at age 46, seems familiar to your story, too. But in my case, low income has me I living at my parents house, I don’t have the space to disown him, and I can’t leave my mother, who he also terrorized. So I use that depth of knowledge to block his BS, defend myself or mom, and then educare him. After many years of this, It has made a difference. But he also defaults. I don’t know if I could disown him, but why? What motivates that level of disconnection? The fear and terror and humiliation experienced in childhood had its place in the epic anger I held toward him, and my moms own lack if protection. But today I know she was a victim, too. But not the scapegoat. My older sister and younger brother were also not scapegoats. I took the brunt. But once I began to pay attention to my mind and heart, in my mid-twenties, I was outraged at the reality of my childhood. I was on my own then, not much interaction for more than a decade. When I began to interact again, I had changed, and I no longer allowed condescension, and did not tolerate his massive arrogance. So is the difference in our situations that I am protecting my mom, who didn’t know what to do, or how to handle his abuse to the family?
Do you think there is a correlation to the generation of people in our parents age group? Socially learned behaviors of that time period? Do you think your dad/mom can be humble and honest, owning truths, and then move forward? I had to move forward, becoming a professional artist, and thank dog I found my research. I’m well “over” that part if my past. Do you think you will ever reconnect with them? Are they really that rigid and cold? Uggg, so like you said in the beginning… What about current and future children who also have terrible experiences, and are not protected, but hurt by their own parents? Times have changed, bullying is not tolerated, and kids are encouraged to speak up. It was not like that when I was a kid. Times are still changing. Future Culture Movement. Alter Destiny.
My dad left when I was 3. My birthday is June 19 – Father’s Day weekend. Sometimes my birthday was actually ON Father’s Day. Despite this, he routinely forgot my birthday. The year after he died, my husband and I were sitting in a restaurant on June 19 having breakfast. I turned to him and said, “Well, at least Dad has a good reason to forget my birthday this year, on account of him being dead.”
Many of us are silent today My mother likes to say that my father was always proud of me. I bite back the response, “He sure didn’t show it!
Wil, thank you for sharing. As the many comments exhibit, you are not alone, either. My father quit being my dad when I was 3 years old after my parents divorced and he decided he had other priorities that took precedence over me and my two sisters. He was also a narcissist, a bully, and borderline sociopath. My mother’s 3rd husband, my stepfather, is also not my dad. He is also a narcissist, a control freak, and was not able to break the cycle from the bad parenting he experienced, instead employing physical abuse as “discipline,” just like what was doled out to him. I also have a giant black hole where a dad should’ve been. I would’ve loved to have a father like the one you’ve been for Ryan and Nolan.
Thank you for the shoutout!! I see you, too. It’s SO strange to me now after having a child of my own (even after losing 2 in miscarriages)… to see how much I can LOVE a child… even before ever knowing them, and then to look at the lack of effort I’ve received. It was enough after my losses for me to confront my dad, and simply ask him if he was content with our (lack of) relationship… he gave “a response,” but I understood it well… we both are content. Somehow now not having to try, or thinking I have to a to at least has helped, but it still makes days like today and even my birthday a little weird for me.. so once again… I see you, too.