Father on Deathbed After Abusing Me, Family Wants Me to Visit—What Should I Do?

A 31-year-old Reddit user is grappling with the decision of whether to visit his father, who is dying after years of verbal and mental abuse. Despite working through anger and resentment, the user has built strong relationships with his mother and sisters, but they all urge him to visit his father, even if only once.

His wife supports him but isn’t pressuring him. The user remains conflicted about whether he should go and confront the pain of his past, or maintain his decision to keep his distance from the man who hurt him.

‘ Father on Deathbed After Abusing Me, Family Wants Me to Visit—What Should I Do?’

I have 3 sisters that I love and a mother I adore, not always though, I hated them when I was younger because while my father would yell at me or belittle me for everything possible, they were the apples of his eyes, I did my best at school and karate, nothing impressed him, not when I earned a full scholarship to a prestigious university,

not when I was the valedictorian of my year group, not even at 26 when I managed to start my own small company that has grown considerably since. No matter what I did, I was made to feel worthless, less than a person, good for nothing, useless, a failure. I have lingering issues about it to this day,

when I was younger all I wanted just once was for my father to say I’m proud of you, nothing even close, he doted on my sisters and mother though and I’m not proud to say I hated them for it as much as I hated him. How dare they get away so lightly, how dare they get his smiles and laughter and kind words when all I had to get was cruelty.

It took me a long time to finally begin a relationship with my sisters or mom that wasn’t the jealous angry son. Today we are all very close, I love them to death and would do anything for them. Some time ago my father was diagnosed with cancer, he’s had other issues as well, suffered through two heart attacks and a stroke and it seems as if his body can’t carry on anymore.

He’s dying and I don’t care, I don’t have it in me to care and if he died I could live the rest of my life having never seen him before he passed or knowing that I won’t attend his funeral. He wasn’t present at my wedding either, I did not invite him which was very noticeable to many of my family members but I didn’t care,

I’d found a woman who loved me and that I loved and I wanted to share that day with the other important people in my life that I love or strongly like. My uncle was always sympathetic to my case as growing up, my father, his older brother was an a**hole to him and he understood why I wouldn’t want my father there even while other family members thought I should’ve still invited him.

Here’s the thing he wants to see me, he probably has only a few months left and now wishes to see me. My wife, mother and sisters all want me to pay a visit to him, well my wife thinks I should go just once, she isn’t pressuring me, she knows my history with him and says if I decide not to go, that’s it then,

my mother and sisters however do think I should go and have all spoken to me several times in the past month about this. The only person whose laid off bugging me about it is my older sister, I’m the 2nd child, she’s 34 and she was the one who say my father be a d**k to me from as far back as she or I can remember, my 2 other sisters are several years younger, 26, 25.

We met recently to talk about it, my older sister and I and for the first time in years I broke down crying, I literally just let it out, I told her I can’t do it, I tried to put everything in the past but I can’t, I hate that man and what he did to me mentally.

I can’t forgive him and she says she understands, she said she’d speak to my mother and sisters however my mother & sisters tend to be very pushy. Anyway, do you all think I should go at least once?

Let’s dive into the reactions from Reddit:

[Reddit User] −  If you think you will regret it go but don’t go with the mindset that you are going for him go remembering you are going for yourself. If you however decided not to go ask your family to respect your choice and not to get on you about it.

teresajs −  You obviously, and with good reason, don’t want to see your father. Your current issue isn’t with your father, it is with your mother and younger sisters. You need to be strong enough to say, “That nan abused me for years. There is nothing he could say to change that. And I will not suffer his presence for your sake.

Your insistence that I must see him has been causing me a great deal of emotional pain. Stop pressuring me to do something I will not do.”. If you are on the phone with them and they continue to argue/pressure, get off the phone. If you are in their physical presence, leave.

You do not owe it to any family member to have some Hallmark moment because it will make them feel better. A few months of Low Contact with your sisters and mother until after your father’s funeral.

Tenebrous1 −  Forgiveness is a gift that you give the other person. He is only wanting to speak with you to, I assume apologize, now that he is coming to the end of his life and he wants to clear his conscious. Now, don’t be fooled by this, this is to make him feel better, NOT YOU. He wants to pass in his mind with the thought that he did right by you, which clearly is not the case.

The only reason you should go is if YOU feel that you need some closure, but honestly it seems like you have put that part of your life behind you a long time ago. I personally would not go to seem him as it doesn’t seem to be any benefit to you. Clearly other family members have seen his treatment towards you, so nobody should be surprised.

Let him take his guilt to the grave and go out and have a beer once he passes, as there will be one less a**hole who has mistreated you in this world.

seaharechasr −  Everyone’s assuming his dad is asking to see him because he sees the error of his ways & wants to make peace before he goes. Never assume. We had a similar situation with my grandfather. Turns out he just wanted one last go at spitting some venom & needed his old punching bags to come to him because he was confined to bed.

He ended up seriously assaulting my aunt (his youngest daughter who had been estranged from him for 30 years) with his cane. In the aftermath of all the drama, of his 4 kids only 2 attended the funeral (neither of them actually wanted to, they just thought it would look awful if none of them went at all).

OP’s dad may not be putting on an act like my grandfather, he may genuinely have the best intentions about what he’ll say to OP, but even if he does, so what? He’s had his whole life to fix this & waiting until now is about as selfish as you can get because coincidentally(?), it makes OP look like the bad person if he doesn’t drop everything & rush to dad’s bedside gushing forgiveness.

Obviously my own experiences make me take an extreme view of the possibilities here, but unless there’s a long history of mum & the sisters trying to push contact, it sounds like he’s already playing the situation up for all it’s worth.

Op is right to be wary because when there’s a lifetime of mean behaviour behind it, the saying “once a b**tard, always a b**tard” often holds true. If you go OP, go for yourself, & not for a mother & sisters who never helped you when needed it.

girlinthewoods12 −  it doesn’t sound like it would be healthy for you to go. Did your mother ever acknowledge that what he did to you was wrong? I would just say to your mother and sisters, that seeing your father would not bring you peace of mind, and your father actions caused you not to care about his peace of mind.

Hanasuki −  I would only go if you think you would regret it later in life. If you do go, do not expect closure, do not expect a good meeting. This situation reminds me of my mom. She was abused as a child by her father. She ended up visiting him before he died and it ended up traumatizing her, even 25+ years later after his death.

[Reddit User] −  The only reason they want you to go so badly is so they can pretend things really weren’t that terrible for you and that that disparity in treatment wasn’t such a gulf. They don’t want their sadness to be tainted by mixed feelings that their loving father was actually kind of an a**hole.

This is about your mother and sister(s) wanting you to do something so that they will feel better, to the detriment of what you want. If you want to do that for them, by all means go. If you want to be genuine to yourself, then don’t go.

[Reddit User] −  Don’t go. Your mental health is the most important thing. Protect it.

joker-lol −  Do you think you’d regret going? Or do you think you’d regret not going? That’s how I’d make the decision, because you can’t take it back.

whatmary −  my dad died recently. he was pretty much horrible to both me and my sister for the last twenty years. he was brain dead for a week or so before he finally died. she went into the room to see him, I did not. she says that she did it for her, to have closure and to be the bigger person.

I didn’t go in because I knew everything from the last two decades would be fresh in my mind upon seeing him. I didn’t want to *hate him more,* if that makes any sense. my sister and uncle asked me a million times if I was sure. god, no. I wasn’t sure and I’m not sure, and likely I never will be.

but I made the best decision I could at the time with the information and emotional capacity I had. this has to be about you. don’t let them make it about him or them. good luck and I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through.