I feel genuine hatred towards my dad and I don't know how to control it
For context I'm 23F,living in India. I'm an only child to my parents whose marriage is a marriage of convinience.
Throughout my entire childhood, my dad provided everything I needed but my mom was the one who was the emotionally present parent.
All my memories I have of him from my earlier days is constantly putting me down and criticising me for every single thing. The hardest memory I have of him is when he was teaching me to ride a bicycle which included him trying to teach me for a total of 2 hours and berating me for being absolutely shit at it. My mom then taught me to ride a bicycle patiently later.
For context, my parents had trouble conceiving and I was born after 3 years into their marriage. My father's parents and my mom constantly said how much they hoped I would be a male child but was disappointed I wasn't. My parents couldn't have another child after me. Even though my mom said this, she always assured me she loved me no matter what and was the biggest gift she has ever received. My dad on the other hand has never once said he loved me(he has trouble expressing his emotions). I never felt loved by the way he would treat me.
My parents have this habit of fostering kids(all were male children) that come from a backward financial background and my dad seemed to be so much more involved in their life than mine. I even remember asking my mother if my dad hates me because I'm a girl when I was 7 years old.
He has this constant bipolar behaviour where he's suddenly says something supportive and at the same suddenly something extremely mean. He has a problem with the way I dress, the choices I make in life, the way I breath. I constantly walk on eggshells when I'm around him. He's extremely controlling about where I go, who I go out with and when I'll be back. If I get home late(past 6pm),he screams at me the most vilest things.
The other day, our house door broke and fell on top of me. When I told him, the first thing he said was now you're costing me 6k for this.
I used to work in the UK for two years then decided to quit my job and came back to India. I went straight to a different city and started living with my best friend. My parents keep asking me to come back home and stay with them until I get a job. When I go there, my dad is super nice to me. But I can't keep feeling extremely wary towards this and keep dreading the moment of when he's going to start berating me for existing the way I do.
I realised I can't keep doing this for the rest of my life. I begged my mom to get divorced from him and come stay with me but always refuses it. Now whenever I look at him, I always have this hatred brewing inside me. I always tend to avoid him as much as possible and not talk with him. He's never been my go-to person when I have a problem. He ends up giving me another problem to worry about.
I hate the way I'm feeling. I also end up breaking down and having mini panic attacks when I have to go stay with my parents. I wish I didn't feel this way.
Posted Jul 13, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC