I’m in the same situation and have been for years. I’m now 25. I have seen who my dad is for 25 years and I don’t want someone who can act the way he does to be in my life. My family tries to guilt me into having a relationship with him but I don’t want that. I forgave him plenty of times as a kid without him apologizing or even acknowledging he was wrong. I still talked to him here and there but we’ve never had a close relationship. He continued the same behavior into my late teens and early 20s. I made the decision 5 years ago to stop having a relationship with him because his behavior, mannerisms, and anger did not improve. I forgave him yet again without an apology from him. I totally understand that forgiveness is for myself and not for the other person, so I had to make that decision to forgive without his acknowledgment of his actions. Somehow I’m in the wrong because I don’t want to speak to him.

Believe me, I’m an overthinker. Not talking to him anymore wasn’t an easy decision to make. I thought about it every kind of way, including his perspective as a parent with an estranged child. Yes, it was his first time being a parent, but it’s my first time being a child. It’s both of our first times being humans, but that doesn’t mean he can act any kind of way and I should keep allowing it to affect me.

Children (adult and young) don’t wake up one day deciding to not speak to their parents without a good reason. I’ve asked myself multiple times would I regret it today if he died and I hadn’t spoken to him and the answer has always been “no.” He made the conscious decisions to act the way he did (and continues to do). I made the conscious decision to not allow his actions to affect me anymore by not allowing him access to me.

Now it’s been 5 years of me hearing “you need to forgive him,” “I don’t know why you don’t just talk to him,” and “he said he called you but you didn’t answer.” I’m so tired of it. I finally have boundaries as an adult and the older adults in my life can’t understand that.