My dad grabbed me by the neck after I finally stood up to him, and I’m trying to figure out how other people handled similar situations

Hi everyone!

I’m 26(M). I’m posting this because I honestly don’t know what to do with all of this yet, and I’d really like to hear from people who grew up with an explosive, controlling or abusive parent and have been through something similar.

My dad has always had a temper. Growing up, I was the shy kid around him and I always felt like I was walking on eggshells. I usually avoided confronting him because challenging him tended to end badly. Even now, when he leaves a room, I sometimes catch myself sighing with relief because the tension immediately drops. He can explode over really small things, swear at everyone around him, and then afterwards either act like nothing happened or give people the silent treatment for weeks or even months. We’ve had plenty of clashes over the years, followed by months where we barely spoke, but this was by far the biggest one we’ve ever had.

The thing that gets to me most is how he treats my mum. Over the years, he has created a situation where she has basically been conditioned to shape her whole life around what he wants and how he wants it. He has manipulated, insulted and worn her down to the point where a lot of the time she seems to just accept it and submit because keeping the family together has always mattered so much to her. He uses that against her.

He has also kept her financially dependent on him. From what I’ve seen, he has discouraged or prevented her from working in a way that would let her build her own independence, which means she has never really had the money or footing to leave and start over somewhere else. She also doesn’t really have a social circle or close friends she can rely on, so she is isolated on top of being financially dependent.

That’s what makes the whole situation so hard for me. It doesn’t feel like she is simply choosing to stay in a normal relationship. It feels like years of control, manipulation and abuse have gradually narrowed her options until staying has become the path of least resistance.

A few days before everything blew up, he came upstairs for breakfast and the food was still too hot, so he got angry, stormed downstairs and started slamming doors. At lunch, the kitchen was still hot because the oven had been on, and again he got pissed off and stormed away. By dinner, my mum didn’t cook him another fresh meal, so he ended up eating the leftover lunch cold.

It sounds ridiculous written down, but that’s kind of the point. Tiny inconveniences can become something the entire house has to deal with.

The same Saturday was also supposed to be the day we were doing some concrete work. He had told me on Friday that a concrete truck was coming Saturday and I said I would help. Saturday came and he never called me. I can’t know for certain why, but based on how that day went, I strongly suspect his mood and everything happening in the house had something to do with it.

Then on Monday at around 10 AM he suddenly called me while I was working and said the concrete truck would be there in about 30 minutes. I asked why he hadn’t given me any warning the day before. He basically said you never know when these people can come, then immediately went into, “If not, fuck this, fuck everything, I’ll cancel it.” I told him I would help this time, but next time I wanted some notice.

The whole job was chaos from the beginning. The first concrete truck ran over something we had prepared, my dad started shouting and swearing, the driver got irritated because traffic was building up, and eventually the driver told him to hurry up or he was leaving. My dad told him to fucking leave, so he did.

A second driver eventually came and thankfully he was completely different. Really cheerful, relaxed and easy to work with. Honestly, he was great. We carried on, but the work itself was exhausting and my dad kept expecting me to somehow know exactly what he wanted without actually telling me. Then he would get angry when I didn’t magically understand him. At one point I told him, “For fuck’s sake, just tell me what you want instead of getting angry and shouting. Tell me what the fuck you want.”

Later on, when we were maybe 80% finished, my dad started yelling for my mum to bring him water. She was on the roof and didn’t hear him immediately. He started insulting her and calling her ignorant because apparently she was supposed to know he wanted water.

I told him, “Enough. Stop.”

He kept going and started saying that instead of being on her phone, she should be bringing him water. I told him that she was allowed to be on her phone instead of spending her whole life cooking and catering to him.

My mum eventually brought the water down. He took a sip and immediately started complaining that it was too hot, swearing at her and asking what was wrong with her for bringing it like that. What made it even more ridiculous is that he normally doesn’t even drink cold water and will lecture other people about cold water being bad for your teeth.

He handed the water back to her, then took it again, took another sip and spat it all over the place. It almost went all over me too. Then he carried on swearing at her.

That was where something in me finally went. It wasn’t really about the water anymore. It was years of watching my mum cater to him, watching him explode over stupid shit, everybody having to adjust themselves around his mood, and nobody really calling him out because we all know where that usually leads.

I raised my voice and started calling him out. He started telling me, “Fuck your mother.” My own father was standing there telling his own son “fuck your mother” while insulting his wife.

At one point I looked at him smiling and told him, “Say it again.”

He did.

So I deliberately walked right up to him, almost face to face. I’m not going to pretend that part wasn’t intentional. For most of my life I had been the shy kid around him, and I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t scared to call his shit out anymore. By then my mum walked away.

He was standing on a wooden plank because there was wet concrete around us, so when I walked up to him he didn’t have much space to move around me without stepping into the concrete.

That’s when he grabbed me by the neck with one hand.

He didn’t squeeze or choke me and he didn’t leave any mark. He just grabbed and held my neck. Then he started calling me “crazy” over and over.

The weirdest part is that I was still smiling.

I looked at him and said, “Come on, what are you going to do?”

He eventually let go of my neck, but kept going with “fuck your mother” and “crazy” like a broken record.

At that point I started saying things like, “This is my father. This is the man I’m supposed to look up to. This is supposed to be my example.” I tapped him twice on the back and basically said, “This is him.”

What surprised me most was my own reaction. Normally my anxiety around him can be horrible, but during this confrontation I wasn’t really scared. I felt strangely in control.

I also want to be honest about how angry I was. When he grabbed my neck, I knew that if things escalated any further I might react in a way I would regret. That was one of the reasons I knew I needed to stop it from becoming a physical fight. I didn’t want one horrible confrontation to turn into something that could wreck my life or make the entire situation even worse.

I eventually walked away, got him the cold water he had originally wanted, and told him I was done helping him. I told him not to call me for help anymore and that if his attitude changed, maybe that could change too.

Since then we basically haven’t spoken. We were in the same room briefly today, but that’s about it. Silent treatment isn’t unusual between us and we’ve gone months without speaking before, but this was the first time one of our clashes became physical.

I know some people are probably going to say I should have gone straight to the police. I understand why. Personally, I don’t feel that’s necessary in this particular situation. He didn’t leave a mark on my neck, nobody else actually witnessed the neck grab, and from my perspective it would basically come down to my word against his. I’m not saying grabbing someone by the neck is okay. It isn’t. I’m just explaining why I personally haven’t involved the police.

I also don’t expect him to change. I’ve known him my entire life and I’m not basing my future on the hope that one day he suddenly becomes a different person. What I’m trying to figure out is how I handle myself and this whole situation from here.

The part I struggle with most is my mum.

Realistically, I know I may eventually be able to leave this household and build my own life somewhere else. But the thought that keeps getting to me is what happens to her if I do.

Right now, as bad as things are, I’m still here. I can call him out when he goes too far. I can step in when he starts unloading on her. I can at least be another person in the house who sees what is happening and isn’t pretending it’s normal.

If I leave, part of me worries she will be left completely alone with him, with even less resistance around him than there is now. I worry that his control over her could become even tighter because there would be nobody else there challenging him or backing her up.

At the same time, I know I can’t sacrifice my entire life trying to protect my mum from my dad. I can’t stay trapped in the same environment forever just because I’m afraid of what happens when I leave.

So I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually been in something like this.

How did you help yourself without feeling like you were abandoning the parent who stayed behind?

Is there a healthy way to support my mum without becoming responsible for protecting her from him?

For people who moved out while one parent was still living with the abusive or controlling parent, what happened afterwards?

Did leaving ever make things worse for the parent who stayed, or did it sometimes give them somewhere safer to turn later?

How did you deal with the guilt of knowing you could leave while someone you loved either couldn’t or wasn’t ready to?

And more generally, how did you handle a parent who explodes, then later acts like none of it happened? Did you stop helping them? Keep contact but emotionally distance yourself? Go low contact or no contact? What actually worked for you?

I’m not really looking for advice on how to change him. I don’t expect that. I’m more interested in how other people learned to protect themselves, build their own life, and still deal with the guilt and worry that comes with leaving another parent behind.