Video Game Forums

Hi, VGF, I'm a little bothered right now and I have a lot more personal of a relationship with you guys than I would with random people on /r/offmychest, so I figured I may as well post here.

For a little background information, even though some of you already know this, my parents are divorced. I'm in high school, I'll be graduating soon.

Siblings and I are over at our dad's for the weekend. I went downstairs to get breakfast this morning, my sister was still upstairs.
My nine-year old brother was in a room near the living room playing the new Lego Marvel Heroes game on the Wii U. I think he's working on unlocking the characters, secrets, etc.

My dad and his girlfriend are sitting in the living room while my brother is occasionally calling out to my dad from the other room- Dad's a huge Lego buff, plays some games, so he looks at what's going on with the game at times out of interest, since he's been playing it as well.

So my brother says something about asking my dad to look up the "red brick locations" on his laptop to help him find something in the game. My dad said something like, "Not just now, okay?"

My brother says something along the lines of, "Okay," and then my dad gives the middle-finger to the direction of the room my brother's in. His girlfriend just kind of laughs at this, if I recall correctly, all of this happening while I just stood there, since I was about to head into the kitchen to eat. My dad seems pretty pleased with himself and I just stand there staring at him.

His girlfriend tries to beckon to him that I'm standing there watching this- he catches on after a few seconds, turns to me, and just says, "Hi!" I guess he wasn't sure what to say. I said nothing and walked away to get my breakfast.

He walked into the pantry after about a minute and said something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, that was rude. I've been a little light-headed today and haven't felt too well."

He proceeded to walk away after a second and I just said, "Dad, come here." He walked back and I said, "You're already kind of a dick to him sometimes..."

My brother called from the other room and my dad said something along the lines of, "Oh, he needs something for the game, I'm helping him with it."

No **** you're helping him with it, you're clearly put out by this.

Don't apologize to me for being "rude," you ****ing flipped my brother off. It's bad enough that you belittle him at times, to his face and behind his back. And it's not that I think you're a bad person, I appreciate and enjoy my time with you, but stop being a dick because you're put out. You only see these kids on the weekend, you should appreciate them as much as they do you. Maybe you do, on some level, but I guess feeling bad takes too much of a toll on you to respect a nine-year old who loves you dearly.

Maybe I'm being immature, perhaps I'm super sheltered. But you don't ****ing flip my brother off. If I could do this again, I would at least slap you, perhaps again for the time you hurt his feelings for being a little stubborn in his opinions a few weeks ago by making sarcastic remarks with your girlfriend about it.

Needed to get this off my chest, it's bugging me. Maybe this is a common thing and I'm just inexperienced and self-righteous. I don't know, but I'm certainly not going to accept it.

Thanks for reading.

I don't know if it's a common thing or not because my dad's only jokingly flipped me off to my face. But anyway, this is totally unacceptable and I think you have a right to be upset. Sounds like your brother needs someone to defend him to your dad and so I think you did the right thing calling him out. Maybe your dad is stressed or doesn't know how to channel his negative emotions, but really there's no excuse for being rude to his own son. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. :(

His actions were definitely immature. This is an identical context to, say, you flipping off friends of yours behind their backs because you don't like them in that instant. Oh, and your friends see this and get a laugh of it too. Because in that moment, you're establishing yourself as the king of some invisible hierarchy, that you're superior to that one guy, that you're somehow super awesome and that that guy is substantially less awesome. It's very junior high.

In this case, it's a clear establishment that he values his own life and his girlfriend much more than your 9-year-old brother. I'm not saying that he doesn't value your brother at all, mind, nor am I saying that your conversation won't have any effect on him, but there's clearly a pecking order to be had.

It's kiiiiiiiiiiiinda understandable because I know many parents have told me that, after being surrounded by kids for a while, they need another adult to have a meaningful conversation with. Kids can take a lot out of you; kids can certainly be demanding creatures. However, there is a sizable difference between "I'll do that with you later" and "I'll do that with you later; by the by, you don't know this, but you are such a little twerp, and my girlfriend thinks the same thing."

I’m sorry, man, but I guess, based on your story, I now know why your parents are divorced. :-\

In a way, 1-Up, your dad reminds me of mine. He’s maintained his marriage, but that doesn’t mean he always plays well with his family. This is likely because he grew up in a very stoic, Victorian-esque household with uptight, unemotional parents (NOTE: the late Colonel KR Sr. and his widowed wife are actually my mother’s parents, known for being warm and sociable, and therefore not the same as my father’s). He says that being sent to boarding school was a blessing for him, but he’s obviously still resents being born to them.

So based on this example from my life, the best advice I can give you is to not be afraid to ask questions whenever your dad throws a childish hissy fit. Granted, not many of us men like to talk about how we feel about certain things because we see that as emasculating, but you know what they say: asking questions is a great way of finding things out. Try appealing to your old man in some way and get on his good side, and maybe (eventually) he’ll realize where he went wrong in his marriage.

That's definitely immature and rude and I think you did the right thing confronting him about it. Good on you.

My dad is the exact same way to both of us (though me more than my brother, I've noticed). There's a reason my parents are divorced, and a reason why I now no longer talk to my dad much. I've never been in the situation of him having a girlfriend, though, but I would suggest also talking with the girlfriend and see how she feels. If she's just as big a twat as dear old dad, take steps toward not having to see them anymore.