AITA for refusing to apologize to my dad after screaming insults at him?
I (30F) caught my dad cheating on my mom about 1.5 years ago. He wasn’t only seeing several sex workers, he was also constantly insulting my mom behind her back, calling her crazy, pathetic, and saying she was more of a maid than a wife.
This hurt even more because my mom has struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my life and has been in therapy and on medication for years.
My siblings wanted her to leave him. I told her the choice had to be hers, although I personally would have divorced him. I promised to support her no matter what. She chose to stay. I accepted her decision, despite being disgusted.
The cheating allegedly stopped, but the disrespect never did. He orders her around, yells until she goes quiet because he knows she’ll become anxious, dismisses everything she says, and generally treats her with contempt. It‘s a slap to the face every time I have to witness it.
Now, to the recent past: A few weeks ago my parents visited my husband and me at our new apartment. Our best friend was there too.
During dinner, I offered to pay for a cleaner to help my mom, and my father „joked“ that he’d throw her in the trash once she was too old to do housework. Later he said she wasn’t even human. My mom quietly asked him not to speak to her like that. I was furious.
Two days later, after calming myself down, I called him. I calmly explained that I respected my mother’s decision to stay but would no longer tolerate him humiliating her, especially in my home and in front of my husband and friends. I told him he wasn’t welcome back unless his behavior changed.
He denied everything, refused responsibility, told me to mind my own marriage, then tried changing the subject by criticizing me for wearing shorts and “dressing inappropriately.” I kept telling him that my shorts were none of his business and to stay on the topic at hand, while he kept attempting to steer the conversation to my shorts.
That’s when I snapped.
I told him I wouldn’t take lessons about honor or shame from a man who spent his daughter’s school money on sex workers. I told him he had embarrassed our family for years, that the way he treated my mother showed how small and pathetic he was, and that I was ashamed to call a cheating, vulgar, narcissistic abuser my father. I screamed that I wished my mother had never forgiven him so he’d have been left to die alone, because that’s what he deserved. I called him pretty much every bad name in the book.
We haven’t spoken since. My mom keeps begging me to reconcile because she’s suffering from the conflict and says I’ll regret not visiting if something happens to them.
I refuse. I don’t regret what I said and don’t intend to apologize. I am determined not to talk to him unless he shows genuine remorse and changes. Even if he were on his death bed, I would not reconcile without that. I‘d genuinely be okay with not talking to him even then.
AITA for refusing to apologize or reconcile, even for my mother’s sake?