Being able to label my father's behaviors as narcissistic has helped me heal and properly deal with the outcome
I wanted to post on here to feel validation and similar stories because I thought my experience with a narcissistic father didn't fit the mold. My father isn't cold or withholding, He loves me, he's proud of me, and I know that's real. But something happened recently with my mom that brought a lot of old feelings back up and I'm trying to process it. My parents had a rocky marriage, lots of fighting, a few separations. Starting when I was about 10, my dad used me as a sounding board for his marriage. He told me my mom had cheated on him, that he gave up a dream job because she didn't want to move the family away from the man she was having an affair with, that she never really wanted kids, those kinds of things. He shared details about women he dated during their separations, including that he was monitoring her phone because he suspected cheating. He told me things about their sexual history that no teenager should hear from a parent. At the time I just absorbed it, I didn't know what to do so I would just sit there for hours and nod and dissociate, waiting until I could get up and run away. He would also bring me into arguments directly, having me tell my mom things I'd said to him about how I felt she didn't love me. There were smaller things too that added up. When I expressed that I wanted to go out shopping to spend time with just my mom, my dad would I was being mean and rude to him and my brother for excluding them. I was told my mom was bipolar and that if I didn't get this 'mean angriness out of me now' (I was a preteen) then I would end up just like her. He applied the same jealousy and suspicion to me that he applied to my mom. I was always afraid to mention male friends. In college he would call and ask how many guys were at a party or friend's house. I hid my first high school boyfriend and most adults relationships, I was 24 and still uncomfortable telling him I was dating someone. Conversations with him are also one sided. He talks at you, not with you. It's complaints and negativity and when my mom and I recently took an Italy trip together he would call her every day, demand to know why she hadn't picked up if she missed a call, and never once asked us about the trip. He has never apologized to me for any specific thing and I've slowly drifted away as an adult. I moved out at 18, went to college and didn't move back. I don't have a formal no contact or a big conversation, I've just quietly built a life that has distance in it. He tells my mom I'm not in his life anymore but he doesn't make an effort to be a part of my life, I try to tell him things about my life (like getting promoted) and there's no response just immediately complaining about something in his life (at that conversation it was his job).
Recently I told my mom some of what he said to me about her over the years, that she didn't want kids, the cheating accusations, not all of it because I know it would be hurtful for her to hear and my parents remarried about 7 years ago. She then told me some of her sides of the story. She told me that both times she was in labor the day after he accused her of my brother and I not being his. She told me about a period of separation where he hid in the house and waited for her to come home from work to interrogate her about where she'd been. It's heartbreaking to have told my mom these things but our relationship has grown over the years as an adult and I want to keep her in my life. I know my dad loves me and I know he is proud of me and I think that's what made it hard as an adult to put into words the trauma I dealt with as a kid because I felt it wasn't real trauma.