[Sgr A*]

Hey there.
My girlfriend and I have been dating for four years and only recently have I realized how much of a jerk her father has been and is being. I'm not sure what is wrong with him to be honest, and I'm not sure how to deal with him? Especially if I'm going to stay in a long term relationship with his daughter...

She has been traumatized by ex-boyfriends who have made her do awful things when she was just in middle school. However, when these things were going on, she was showing almost obvious signs of depression among other things and he didn't do anything. ( Her hair was greasy from not showering and it covered her face, she wore black and no colors, and wasn't smiling anymore.... Sure you can have a goth or emo phase but this isn't normal for a middle schooler to just.... flip a switch to this? Correct me if I'm wrong)

In fact, one day she built up the courage ( in middle school) to tell her father that she was depressed and he just laughed at her. Really????

After that she refused to tell him anything, and had to deal with everything on her own. Only her mother has been by her side through all this, but at the time my girlfriend didn't tell anything to her mother.

He also never says he's sorry for anything that he's done, and he is always picking on my gf when he can. It's almost like he doesn't love her.
When she came out to her parents about dating me, her mother was the only person who really had a reaction (we're lesbians) but her father couldn't care less about who his daughter was dating.

In fact most of the time he doesn't show any sort of affection towards my girlfriend and instead likes to make fun of her despite her saying that she doesn't approve of it.
He shows affection and hangs out with his other daughter though, who is on the autism spectrum, but he doesn't really let her grow up. It's almost like he likes to hang out with his other daughter more because she doesn't challenge him intellectually ( meaning she doesn't question his knowledge or logic and looks up to him unconditionally)

Meanwhile, when my girlfriend tries to have an intellectual adult-to-adult conversation with him, he takes that as an insult. He always wants to be right and he always wants others to feed his ego.

He's also super quiet and to himself.... He's also said comments in front of me that were very insensitive towards women. Like I was molested on a train and he basically said "well tough". He's generally been nice to me, but if it involves his daughter, he can get pretty rude.

He also completely disregards anything she says- she is somewhat lactose intolerant and whenever she asks him to either remove the cheese on something or not have a certain ingredient he completely disregards her and in fact a lot of times adds more of the item in.

She ends up throwing up most of the time because of this.

I really don't know what to make of this. He has made a horribly toxic environment for her to be in and since we are currently in long distance until I finish college, she's basically on her own.

Should I just ignore him? He's only made her situation worse by being so uninvolved in her life.

Thanks.

[Skeezyks]

Well... realistically I don't know what's wrong with your gf's father. And, really, to a large extent trying to figure that out is just a guessing game where no real answers are available in my opinion. I do think your gf seeing a therapist, both to explore the relationship she has with her father as well as to explore what she experienced at the hands of ex-boyfriends, would probably be a good idea if she is willing to do so.

I can't tell you how to deal with your gf's father yourself. However here are links to a bunch of articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on how to deal with difficult & toxic people & relatives. Perhaps some of the information in them will give you some ideas both you & your gf can use:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to...amily-members/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/5-ways...ficult-people/

https://psychcentral.com/library/id23.html

https://psychcentral.com/blog/whats-...deal-with-one/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/11-thin...-toxic-people/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/careg...-toxic-people/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/lever...-toxic-people/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/unsha...-toxic-people/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to...itical-people/

Best wishes to you both...

[Shazerac]

I don’t know what’s wrong with him either, but it sounds like an abusive relationship. Hopefully she will be able to get away from him soon.