I think my dad is in an unhealthy relationship…
This is going to be a long post, so my apologies in advance. Five years ago, my mom died from cancer. She was the glue the held our family together, she was very smart and emotionally perceptive, and did a really good job of maintaining boundaries in a healthy way. Her death was really difficult for my sister, my dad, and myself, and has affected us all in different ways.
My mom and my dad started dating when they were in college and were married for almost 40 years. When she died, his attention kind of immediately turned to dating. He put his wedding ring away, got on the apps, and would talk to my sister, brother-in-law, and myself about how hard he was finding dating, but how lonely he was and how he wanted to find someone to live out his old age with. I won't lie, it was hard for me, and I fought with feeling like it was disrespectful to my mom, but I also understood and was sympathetic to him wanting to move on with his life.
About a year and a half ago, he started dating this woman (I'll call her Judy). While my sister and I weren't chomping at the bit to hear all about their relationship, we also were happy that we wouldn't have to hear about him dating anymore, so we were supportive. But right away things were tense. My dad announced to my sister and me that Judy would be joining us for Thanksgiving, when both of us had only met her once briefly before. At that time, we were sensitive about the house we grew up in, and holidays were hard, so we asked if they could stay somewhere else. They did, but it definitly created friction. My family accused us of "making a shrine of the house" and "being unable to move on."
After that, we tried to right size things. I got dinner with my dad and Judy, it was cordial, but we definitely didn't have much to talk about. My dad also started telling me about all these changes he wanted to make to the house and began boxing up and selling a lot of my mom's furniture. I would ask him if this was because of Judy, but he would deny it, and say he was just trying to "downsize" and "spring clean." Then, he abruptly announced that Judy was moving in. My sister was 8 months pregnant with her first child at the time, and when she needed my dad's support, his focus was entirely on moving Judy into his house.
Judy completely redecorated, which I expected, and demanded that I move my things out of my childhood bedroom. When I said I didn't have time to do it, Judy said she would do it herself. I told my dad I didn't want her to do that, because I had deeply personal things in there, and was told by my dad that I would need to do it as soon as possible because Judy wanted to make a guest room out of my bedroom. It was hard on me to do that, it brought back a lot of stuff with my mom, and when I got emotional about it, my dad told me I was 33 and lots of kids didn't have their rooms at 33. Judy didn't end up doing anything with the room ultimately, just moving in a different bedframe, so it was clear that the urgency just came from her needing ownership of the space.
After my sister had her kid, I asked if I could come up so I could ease tensions with Judy and see my grandparents. But my dad told me I made Judy uncomfortable and she needed to impose boundaries around the house and her space. That upset me, so when I lost my temper, my dad said I had "emotional problems" that "needed to be addressed before Judy or him could engage with me in a productive way." He also told me that my sister and brother-in-law had said the same things, which I later found out was not true.
My sister, her husband, and the baby went up to visit Judy and my dad in the meantime, because they were still welcome. My dad was rocking the baby in his rocking chair and told Judy he wanted to keep the chair. Judy yelled at him and said they had discussed it and he would be getting rid of that rocking chair (it was the same rocking chair he had used for my sister and me when we were babies). Then, when my dad was wondering what to make his grandpa name as, Judy told him it would be "Poppy" and when he said "or maybe Grampy" she said "No. It'll be Poppy." That put my sister off, so she and her husband started spending less time with Judy and my dad. They also saw her Facebook, where she posts non. stop. 14 posts a day. All political rants. When they said that, and some of Judy's other behavior, concerned them, Judy blocked my sister, her husband, and me.
My dad got rid of all the pictures of my sister and me and our mom in the house, "because they upset Judy since you can't find a way to let her into your hearts." They've also told the family that my sister and me can't accept Judy because we're unable to move on from my mom's death. Most recently, however, Judy has started blocking my dad from seeing his grandson. My dad texted my sister because he was going to be in the town they live in and said he really wanted to spend time with his grandson. It was Judy's birthday that weekend, so she joined him, and according to my brother-in-law, my dad told him that Judy wanted him to prioritize her for her birthday and felt that my sister and her husband were using their baby as "a golden egg," to get leverage over the family. When my brother-in-law asked my dad what she meant by that, my dad couldn't clarify. He also said they had been arguing all weekend about whether he could see his grandson or not. Then, my dad told my sister and her husband that the rest of the family had said the same things about them using their son for leverage and had told him not to see them.
When my sister and her husband asked my grandparents whether they had said that, they said they had actually encouraged my dad to see them, and that "golden egg" is not really in their vocabulary. I reached out to my dad to see if we could set up a call with Judy, and he said only if we submitted a list of discussion points so they could approve them, rather than "having this descend into a greivance fest."
At this point, I don't know what to do. I feel like my dad is in a very controlling relationship with his girlfriend, but he cannot, or will not, stand up to her, even when he's said that he wants to see his grandson and spend time with me. Should I stop engaging with them? How do these situations usually play out? I feel hurt and exhausted and like this situation is coming to a point where it is emotionally unsafe for me.
Tl;dr my dad is in a controlling relationship with his girlfriend, who is preventing him from seeing his kids and his grandson.