I think you’ve gotten some good advice already. As was said, you owe them nothing. You don’t owe them thanks. You don’t owe them time. You don’t owe them love.

I think the easiest and healthiest path forward is to set up boundaries. If, like me, you grew up without the concept of boundaries, it might take some learning and training. But, you set the boundary where you feel comfortable. Maybe at the point where you have found common ground before.

I highly recommend therapy to help you navigate this. Get a therapist, tell them what you want to do. That you want to set healthy boundaries with your parent. The therapist will start to find out the nuances to help you set and communicate the boundaries.

The therapist will likely understand this next need. If not, you should bring it up, that you want to heal the damage the parent has done through your childhood.

You can read up on toxic parents. Maybe they’re narcissistic, there’s plenty of books just for that. The key here, above all else, is to look after you. To make sure you’re okay. You deserve healthy relationships. And you can demand that you don’t continue unhealthy relationships.

Your life is yours to live. You deserve to be happy. Everyone else’s life is theirs to live. The choices they make are on them, and you can’t control that. But you can control in what ways others interact and impact you. I hope you choose the best and healthiest relationships to foster. I hope you live in your best interests.

Going absolutely no contact is a bad idea in most cases. My suggestion is to make occasional attempts as long as he’s alive, how often is up to you, maybe only once every few years. Why? Because people DO change, do grow, and do learn throughout their lives.

Give him a chance once in a while, he’ll die eventually, and then it will be too late, and you’ll wonder if maybe you should have given him one more chance, instead of ignoring him for decades, or whatever. Just go into it with no expectations.

If you give them an honest chance, they fuck it up etc, you tell them specifically how they fucked it up and how it upset you, and THEN they do that shit again the next chance they get. Thats when i give up on people. They are the pattern they perpetuate.

There are extenuating circumstances sure, if theyre young, or really trying just stupid maybe give them a few more chances.

Not a mom, but I’d like to pitch in.

Cutting off parents can be hard, because you might feel you owe them, since they brought you into the world and cared for you. You don’t owe them anything.

Or maybe you still feel some love towards them, which makes you hang on. And it is understandable, they are your parent after all. These emotions are complex and it is normal but confusing to feel both anger and admiration. Allowing yourself to feel either of them, doesn’t change the fact that they have hurt you or make your pain less valid.

When feeling a lot of pain, there is no way you will be able to work this out at the moment.

Your question reads to me like you at least need a break, which is an opportunity to process the pain. It sounds like it started way back in your childhood, so allow yourself time, as in years.

I wish you all the best.

Would you have a relationship with this person if they weren’t your family member? No? Then why not invest that time and energy into a positive relationship with someone else that adds something to your life instead of subtracting from it.

I don’t know if giving up on your child is the right thing to do, but I understand. If your child is an addict or criminal that is harming others or stealing from you specifically I don’t know if I could fault you morally for cutting ties with them.

Edit: it’s your Dad. Here’s my opinion on that. If your family members are making your life difficult and they do not rely on you, you’re under no obligation to keep interacting with you. I’ve cut ties with some of my family members, and never felt bad about it.

If they don’t learn, will they ever?

I cut off my mother 12 years ago. I do not communicate with her at all. She’s treated me like a second rate citizen all my life.

I made every attempt to bridge the gap across 30+ years. Even as a child. But children are supposed to be children, not peacekeepers. But when the insults and passive aggressive jibes persisted for 3 decades, I finally had enough, and stopped talking to her altogether. It was a gradual process, but I had to stop.

I won’t be someone’s punching bag. Nor should you. If they can’t meet you in the middle and attempt to be a better person towards you, and give you the respect you deserve, and honor your boundaries, it’s okay to finally cut ties.

Abuse comes in many forms, and identifying it can be difficult, tedious, and laborious. But once you learn what you are worth, and what you are willing to put up with (and what you aren’t willing to put up with), you can be free.

I’d be surprised if there is one rule of thumb to go by. For me my father was abusive, physically and mentally, a drunk, lost one home due to being drunk and we got kicked out of the other and had to move in with my grandma.

There was a short period of time I just didn’t talk to him at all and then I had kids and felt he needed a chance to get to know them.

Fast forward to today, my Dad passed away in February after a far too brief battle with cancer and we had an amazing relationship. I had no axes to grind and feel when he passed we had the relationship we always should have had.

Had I cut ties like younger me wanted to I’d of lost out on so much and am pretty sure I’d feel terrible about the regret for the rest of my life. But that is with the hindsight of knowing how well it turned out.

I’m also a father of three and all three in their late teens to mid 20s were pretty hard to like. And I’m positive they all hated me (one still does), but as they grew they changed and whatever it was that was in the way of our relationship went away.

I read the progress / change parable as I was coming out of my early 20s that helped me make the decision I made and fix so many other things in my life that I’ll share here. Hopefully you find this helpful at some point. That said there are father’s that should be cut off from our lives, but how do we know we’re making the right choice?

(The parable has been repeated in many different ways and attributed to different people, I have yet to find evidence of what would consider a credible source…)

The parable: When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change my nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change my town, so I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself.

And if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation.

And I could indeed have changed the world.

Depends on the person/relationship and the balance of good vs bad interactions.

I have ghosted family because the only real interactions for several years was the obligated holiday visits and they always involved being stressed before and after due to conflicts between different people. Nothing direct or blowing up into arguments, just a lot of small slights that added up over the years. There wasn’t enough benefits for the negatives, and obligated fun isn’t fun.

Actual direct conflict would have ended it years prior, because relationships are an ongoing thing and if they sour then they don’t need to continue. Unless there is some other thing like ending it would cut off access to someone else, retaining a relationship that is a net negative is going to be an unnecessary strain on mental health.

If things were bad and they were obviously trying to do better then maybe it would be worth keeping a relationship for long term goals, but there is still a limit on how many chances they get.

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I think it’s important to honor/respect your father. If you were born into the same situation with the same genes, upbringing, environment, and family you can’t say you would do any better. Maybe he is doing the best he understands how to do.

I also believe in forgiveness. Your dad might be a piece of shit that did a lot of damage to you. Holding that against him is limiting your life more than his.

However I don’t think forgiveness and respect require you to make yourself vulnerable. These are both things you can do from a distance.

Respect him but understand that he is showing you who he is and not who you want him to be. You have to control how close you want to let this person get to you. For some people it is good to temporarily put some distance while you figure out how you want to run things in your life instead of trying to live by rules you learned while living with your parents.

I understand I didn’t actually answer your question. If you think he is legitimately dependent on you and you can help him out of love then I think you shouldn’t give up on him. If you think you just have a duty to “worry about him” I would say you probably don’t.