Will my parents divorce ever stop affecting me?:(
F21, my parents divorced officially in 2009 but fought for pretty much all of my life before that. (I never saw them happy or loving each other) My father begged my mom to have my brother (25) and I, and then became an alcoholic with anger issues and severe depression. He completely stopped helping my mom with us. He’d work, (bring alc with him) come home to play video games, and then repeat. It got so bad that he got gout and had to go to the hospital because his stomach ulcers were bleeding. He also emotionally cheated on my mom by sending emails to a woman he knew AND HOOKED UP WITH during his teenage years. I can’t remember the exact sequence of events (I was 5) but my dad left and then begged to come back. My mom took him back because he promised to do therapy with her, but he went back to how he was. Then started the messy divorce process. Some things my Dad did during this time: came over in a fit of rage to get his tools out of our shed and broke the door handle off to get in, stole our family dog out of the backyard when we were at a Cubscouts meeting for my brother (we told my mom to let him keep her because he had no one else.. 😕), threatened to shoot and kill my uncle, came over to our house to again get belongings and tore my mom out of her car in another fit of rage, all of this while FIGHTING for custody with my mom. Flash forward to 2014 and my Dad has a new gf and I had soon to be step siblings. (F6, M16) He has shared custody of us and gets to see us every other weekend and every other day during the week. My mom always wanted us to have a relationship with him. Anyways, that day was my mom’s birthday and she was planning on going to see her friends. We were supposed to go with my dad but my brother didn’t want to go over. My dad said he had a surprise for us, a trip to Jumpology. My brother still didn’t want to go and this enraged my dad. Come to find out, he was really taking us to the beach with our (not officially) step siblings. He was lying about this because my mom did NOT want her 8 year old daughter to be staying somewhere with a male 16 year old that she didn’t know.. understandable. Long story short, my brother and dad were arguing in the front yard, and my dad eventually pinned him to the ground and was yelling in his face. Cops were called.
Flash forward to 2025, my brother and I have a relationship with my dad. (They both did therapy together) However, it has not been without many fights between my dad and I. Last year I had the courage to tell my dad that I’m still very much affected by the divorce and that it was HIS fault. It was his drinking, his anger issues, his lack of accountability. (He eventually got Cali Sober) You know what he told me?! “It was 20 years ago.” and “I would say it was 70% 30% my fault and your mom’s fault. The audacity of that man. It hurts because I used to be Daddy’s little girl, until I realized who he really was. I can’t cut him off because he helps me financially. My mom has struggled ever since the divorce because he begged her to quit her job, so she had a resume gap for 10 years.
Anyways, I don’t know if I will ever get over this. Would therapy between him and I help, or do you think he will never admit his wrongdoings?