AboutAnnie Kaszina Expertise All questions relating to women's experience of domestic violence and recovery. I am not qualified to talk about men's experience.
Experience 20 years in an emotionally abusive marriage. Since then I have worked with thousands of other abused women to help speed them on the road to recovery. My website www.EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com and blog www.lifemadesimple.typepad.com/abusednomore offer insight, information and support,
Education/Credentials Educated to Ph.D. Level. NLP Master Practitioner. Diploma of Life Coaching.
Expert: Annie Kaszina Date: 5/6/2008 Subject: An abusive father
Question My parents have never had a good relationship but my mother has always covered up for him and made us children see that he loves us. We have always walked on eggshells around him....always pleasing him in fear he will 'kick off'.....thats what us children call it now. I am in my mid 30's and still feel very shakey around him. When he is in a good mood all is fine and he is lovely but when something doesn't go is way like the WEATHER he is miserable and sinks into some kind of depression which affects us all. He doesn't think anything wrong about how he is. He has been violent with my mother but never raised a hand at us...he gets very very angry screams shouts throws the dinner on the floor if it doesn't taste right but my mum just tells us to keep quite and all will be fine later. He does drink alot but has recently stopped and his anger is still there just worse after alcohol.
I am very happily married with a very understanding husband but i my dad went crazy yesterday when i was visiting because the cutlery my mum bought recently wasn't nice. I was very very upset and left immediately as i did not want my children to see it and i was scared deep inside.
Please help me.
Answer Hi Dee,
I'm not sure how you want me to help you.
Your father is abusive and you are still frightened. Your options for behaving differently around him are pretty limited. If you were to tell him that you will not tolerate that behaviour in front of your children, maybe you would be worried that he will 'kick off' with your mother.
It may be that you could be helped with your own feelings. Because he behaves the way he does, it doesn't mean that you have to continue to feel the fear that you always have felt. My guess is that EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) could help you to clear some of those old painful feelings.
Of course, it would be much better if you could stop him behaving that way, but that is probably wishful thinking. It doesn't sound like he has any intention of stopping. Still, at least you did the right thing and got your children away from that; they really don't need to see it.
And it is wonderful that, despite growing up in such a difficult environment, you have managed to create a good life for yourself with a man whos is loving and understanding. If you cannot change your mother's world, maybe you owe it to yourself to clear those old feelings of fear. It really can be done quite quickly and easily with EFT.
