AITAH for using my dad financially but not giving a damn about his feelings?

I’m F(19) soon to be 20 yrs old yay me. My father (M 44), let’s call him Tommy, is helping me pay for college. Now I feel terrible for not doing more, i feel like i’m not doing enough honestly. He pays for my apartment at the school and the courses. He also pays for my phone bill, my tech, my xbox, my credit card, the fucking air i breathe— people would be so grateful to have him in their lives and i am but it always comes with a price. I discovered in earlier of this year that he was cheating on my step parent for over a year and that he was paying off his affair with money he could’ve used to pay for my schooling. I want to feel bad but then you do this. When i found out i was in total shock and to be fair embarrassed. I waited for like a week for him to come out and tell the story himself but when he did I was high as hell the entire time, this was on facetime mind you. After the conversation he sent me 200 dollars which i took. I go out of town every summer to see that side of my family and he was telling me he didn’t want me to go over because of the mass tension but still wanted to see me.

Now i had heard many of their arguments in person with my sister but never this crazy. I won’t get into specifics but i will say when i went on our annual vacation things blew up as soon as we got there. I’ll fast forward to a few months ago where I had mentally been checked out given the entire situation and tensions in the house, I was offered to go on a one-on-one lunch with Tommy bcs my stepmom wanted us to keep our “bond” and not let me shut him out completely as i continue adulthood. We go to this lunch and i tell him a list of things that bother me. The type of person he is..for example me and my sister were talking about going to an arcade. He says Oh well you got games at home, yall play those all the time. Or when we were planning where our next trip would be at and he was talking about going to an island. I said oh well it is this season so we might get caught up with some weird weather and he was like no we should still go and worry about it later. Or at our recent vacation we were in a restaurant and looking for stuff to do. He says “i’m a planner and we should figure stuff out” but then my sister and stepmom chooses to do a boat tour and i have to find something for me and him to do and he asked why we had to figure it out then.

During the lunch i expressed my concerns about how im not the same person as when i was 12, i shouldn’t be compared, my feelings should be validated even when he says his, he holds money over my head, and he goes “I wish you could’ve told me this on your own”, “i didn’t even wanna do this or come to this lunch”, “i feel like the bad guy”, “you should be putting more effort into this relationship”. I pretty much clocked out and I was looking for if he was really even hearing me. He feels like his feelings or opinions are never heard.

Another thing he was buying things to try and make up to my stepmom for and for example, after that lunch we go to get ice cream for the family coming back. He asks me what my stepmoms usual order is or what she likes and i tell him. He says a different answer and then calls her there on the spot to verify and she tells him exactly what i had originally said. I know her favorite flowers, her coffee, etc. Even my sisters favorite things, he doesn’t know us as people. For christmas last year i didn’t ask for much and i don’t ever, and I got some headphones which i love btw. The other year i got a pet rock as a joke from him and my sister got a cat calendar. While my brother got all those toys. I didn’t keep the rock. he got us others he just made us open those first as a joke. For a lot of gifts i write him letters bcs i feel like he’s not thankful for gifts i actually buy for him. I bought him a cologne he wouldn’t shut up about and some personalized bracelets. For father’s day me and my sister built him a robot filled with gifts as you opened it and i think he threw it away by now.

There’s so much more honestly but im tired of writing. AITA like fr, should i be trying more? My feelings didn’t change over night, i’ve just grown more clarity and chose to speak up more.

Posted Dec 6, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

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