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help me say no :-(
my dad emailed today. we rarely talk. i told him in the email that he was responding to that i had surgery and he didn't even comment. nice dad, huh? he did respond to other parts of the email about HIM though. it's always about him and he pretty much only contacts me when he wants something.
so anyway he wants to come live with us. i told him he could probably six months ago but i have had a change of heart. how do i tell him no? when he asked my sister for money awhile back you might recall he sent me a horrible letter about her calling her selfish and he sent her a copy.
my dad is almost 80 and has no money other than SS. even though he would probably make my life hell putting me down and whatnot (with "jokes" of about my weight etc) i feel duty bound to say yes. however i need to say no and i will say no. btw if it were my mom i would be insisting she come. because she actually acts like she gives a shiit about me. grrrr...
maybe i will te him he can come to stay but not live? oh and final detail - h is totally fine with him coming, no big deal to him.
ETA to add paragraph marks (was writing from my phone).
Re: help me say no :-(
You need to ask yourself how you'll feel in all sides of the situation. Will he make your life unbareable while he's there, or just unpleasant? How will you feel if you turn your back on him, and say no? Why is he asking you to stay? Is he going out on his @$$ if you say no? Or can he find other living arrangements? Is he dying? Having a change of heart? Why is he so down on his luck?
Personally, I have no issues saying no to anyone, for any reason. But how will you feel about it? My mom always tried telling me that "blood is thicker than water" and my retorte was always "no, plasma is. blood is mainly water. what's you point?" But, you are a grown woman, and if you don't want him there, that's your priority. You don't need any other reason. I just wanted to point out some questions for you to think of. But if he's an abusive jerk to you, then you shouldn't feel bad about it, I wouldn't.
thank you city, you make some good points.
i talked to my mom and she was like seriously, don't do it. she said he is "undomesticated" and will bring complete chaos to our lives. i tend to agree and while she's biased, she doesn't bad mouth him usually so i think she's probably right. she did however suggest finding some alternative possibilities for him to ease the guilt.
oh and today he emailed and said he realized he hadn't said anything about my surgery and wished me well. the rest of the email was about him living here so i can only surmise that he saw my terse response back and figured he better butter up the gravy train.
Ugh. Sounds like you're doing what's best by saying no. I hope this isn't overly stresful on you. The last thing you need is stress after the surgery.
Hope you're feeing better.. on all counts
I 100% agree. If he's still an american citizen (he's in costa rica, right?), maybe you can help do some research for elderly housing and such in your area. That way you could be close by but far enough.
thank you, that's a good idea. he is a veteran so i am going to look for options in that realm. i don't think you ever lose citizenship, do you?
Whats with our fathers and ignoring the fact that we had surgery??? My dad did the exact same thing.
I would have no problem saying no. I also wouldn't even offer to let im stay for a while. I would be afraid that a while would turn into forever. Then you'd feel even worse when it was time to kick him out.
I agree with the others that you can help him find a place to stay.
that's true. if it's hard to tell someone no so far away how am i going to tell him no when he's here - especially if he claims he has nowhere else to go.
shmoozer - i'll try that agency - thanks for the lead.
thanks
I know we talked a little about this and I agree with everyone. I think it would be very hard for you if you took him in for awhile to get him to leave and since you work from home that would bring a lot of tension to your life.
I totally hadn't thought of the idea of an elderly service to help especially since he's a veteran.
I think that's a great option for you to look into so that he doesn't think that you don't care (going off from how he treated your sister when she just needed a few days to get him some money). If he still acts nasty towards you at least you know you did what you could with finding alternative housing for him.
Good Luck
thank you... agree with all :-)