For me it was time, distance, and a few instances of saying "back off!" to him and mother.

And then not worrying about whatever else he was saying.

For a friend of mine, it was cutting off contact entirely.

A lot of destiny is up to you. But a relationship is a two way street - your dad may have to adjust as well.

Whatever your parents do, at some point, you have to make your peace with them on your own terms or face the prospect of never being an adult.

Some things like beatings or molestation are reasons people cut off their parents forever but beyond that it's just stuff to move beyond.

I know 2 people in their 40's who still hold grudges toward their parents due to perceived or real slights to their autonomy and dignity that happened more than 2 decades ago.

I still love both of them because of our shared history but I also feel bad that they feel like petulant toddlers to me.

With that mustache of his, I could never be angry with him.

My dad was one of my drinking buddies when I was in college. When I got married he was the buffer between my wife and my mom. I don't think I have had to "make peace" with him.

Distance and time. As it stands, I can't stand to spend more than an evening or two with him.

I wish all of us were as lucky as you, Doohickie, but some of us are really unlucky to have a bit of ass-holes for fathers at times. I wish my Dad wasn't, but he is at times, and it's hard for me not to be one right back. I guess this is where lysdexic's advice comes through--he may have to adjust a little--and I'll have to make sure that he does.

God, rhapsodie, can you imagine being in my shoes, and getting all the help of course, but then to be stuck with him for Six Months--ouch!

The day we picked up my mom's ashes I was in the kitchen talking with my dad about my nephew and I mentioned how sometimes kids do schoolwork and you can tell they devoted time and effort to something not even tangential to the topic at hand, or they miss the question or assignment completely, and sometimes it's funny.

My dad laughed, and said, "Well let me tell you. You were the king."

"You once had an essay question where you were supposed to pick one of three questions and write a page about it. When you came down for me to look at it, I said, 'Well, Hugh, you need to answer just one of these questions, not all three in one essay.' You were all steamed at this, and you huffed and moaned about it, and went upstairs.

"When you came back down I read it and told you it was good and suggested you break the first long sentence into three, and you got all angry and then went upstairs and did it. Came down, it was fine, turned it in.

"I asked you about it few days later, and you said, yeah, you got your grade for it, and I asked what it was, and you muttered that it was a 95.

"I said, 'Well, that's great, Hugh, it was a good essay.'

"And you got mad and said, 'Of course you'd say that. You wrote it!'"

We both leaned against the kitchen counter and laughed.

I never made peace with my dad. I left home 2 days after my 16th birthday and only saw him once after that, at my mother's funeral five years later. I never spoke to him again when I left home. He died a year after my mother. What a relief it was to me to know that he was out of my life for good.

In hindsight, I can differentiate between the way he behaved as a result of his alcoholism (for which I have some understanding and forgiveness) and the way he behaved just because he was a cruel bastard (for which I hope he is burning in the hottest fires of hell).

He died. He's very peaceful now.

I loved my Dad, respected my Dad, but never made peace with his morals. We were so close when I was a kid, but as I got older, I found out about his lies and deceit: it completely shattered my image of him.

I had in mind that one day, I could get to some understanding. But, he developed a brain tumor and died. I still have major regrets that I could not enjoy spending time together with him as an adult.

Never knew him. Parents split up when my mother was pregnant.

Also never knew him. Mother left him when he demonstrated his anger could also be taken out on toddler seanyboy.

I've still not come 100% to terms with the Stepfather either. He was a weak man who found it difficult to cope with living with a strong wife who made a business success for herself when he lost his job (when the steel industry collapsed in Sheffield). He took his misery out on me and my brothers a few times. I'll never forgive him that. But - He's since made as much of an apology as his working-class-pride will allow. And for all his flaws, he was the first person I knew who rallied against racism and rallied for being green. He did this at a time and in a place where both these things were unknown and (probably) frowned upon.

He's an idiot still, but he means well. I saw him a couple of months ago. He accidently said something he shouldn't in front of the girlfriend. His reaction, and his own horror at what he said made me a little proud of him. He's weak, but his desire to do the right thing sort of (but not quite) makes up for that.

My father walked out on my mother when I was about 6 (and the eldest of 4) - he was having an affair with my mother's best friend and she ended up pregnant.

I have not forgiven him after 40 years and never will. Haven't seen him since I was about 9 and don't care to again.

My dad had a heart attack and figured out that he didn't want to die without repairing his relationship with his daughter.

I never had to. I learned early that for all their faults, my parents were saints, comparatively speaking.

This has been a very distressing thread to read.

I'm pretty much with you, Ardiril. Sure, I had a few conflicts with Dad, but he was a comparative saint, for sure. My dad's biggest fault was that he worked too hard, but he was a pretty great guy, otherwise. I still harbor some resentment for his workaholism, but I know he did it because he thought the most important role for a father was to provide for his family, and he did that well. He died a week before his retirement party.

I visited him the last time he was in the hospital, a few months before he died. I'd gone through a few rough years after my divorce, but things were really on track again for me. No, I wasn't the business success he was, but I had a good life--a good, stable job; a decent relationship with my ex-wife, which ensured my place in my daughter's life; a new, promising relationship, with the woman who was, eventually, to become my wife; a wonderful circle of friends. It was a very different lifestyle from my father's, but he said the words that a lot of kids never really hear: "I'm proud you."

I had tried, in previous vists, to talk to him about his health issues, his clearly-impending death, but what he wanted to know was that I'd be OK without him. Now, I'll never really be OK without him, but in his view of the role of the father, as a stable provider, I had succeeded. From then on, we could just hang out, watch TV, whatever, since he knew he didn't have to worry about me. That was our peace.

I was a draft resistor during the Vietnam era. I was ready to go to jail rather than serve in the military, although very few who refused were actually sent to jail.

My parents thought that I should be a medic, or something but I did not want to do that. (I eventually failed the physical for genuinely shitty hearing.)

I was very estranged from my family at the time, esp. my veteran father. He passed away during this time, and it was pretty horrible to have all that unresolved stuff. It haunted my dreams for maybe the next 20 years.

So, try to build a bridge if and while you can. The alternative is not a good one.

My Dad and I were never close - he was a very cold, aloof, analytical guy who went Far Right as he got older. He also married my stepmother, who is a radical racist, liberal-hating Irish Catholic type.

The last time I saw him was at the hospice.

Things will finally be totally square at the exact moment I pack the last dirt down and piss on it. Bridges? You don't build a bridge just to reach a worthless shithole on the other side.

I think I'm beginning to make peace with my father now, nine years after his death. I thought I'd dealt with all of it long ago but my mother's death stirred up a whole lot of submerged shit. So.

What arse_hat said, really. I'm an adult now and my parents are both gone. It's unfortunate that my father was in many ways an asshole but it's my task to get past that. I say to myself, "He did the best he could with the tools he was given." and I think that's true. The tools he was given, which included a long bloody interlude in Italy in WWII at the tender age of 17, a mentally ill mother, undiagnosed but quite severe depression, possibly bipolar, and alcoholism, were not the best ones with which to approach parenthood. I literally prayed for my parents to get divorced but they never did. Oh well. That was then.

Now I look back and think, well, that was sad for everyone concerned. I can't change everything that happened but I can control and change how I personally react to it. Part of growing up is accepting your scars for what they are: integral and unique to you. And if you stop picking at them, sometimes they even heal.

Wow, I'm sad that so many of you have/had such toxic relations with your dads. My dad had his share of problems (mental illness, joblessness, alcoholism) throughout his life but found ways to overcome them all. He was a great guy and a really good dad in his own eccentric way and never let me forgot how much he loved me and was proud of me. We had some tension when I was a young adult and I dropped out of college but he was always supportive of whatever I did. I hope that there are half as many crying people at my funeral as there were at his. Even his minister was so broken up that she had a hard time getting through the service. It's been seven years since he passed and I miss him all the time.

He abandoned the family when I was five. There was some sporadic contact through my growing up years, but not much. He'd say he would show up and we'd get all excited and ...he wouldn't show up. Mum quit telling us when he said he'd be there, because she couldn't stand to see our disappointment.

When my youngest brother and I were all that was left living with mum, he drove within a couple miles of our house every night to go to work. Not once in the seven years that we lived there did he stop for half an hour to say hi.

PS: I found out fairly recently that he's hurt and disappointed that I won't have dealings with him. And he recently moved to Arizona to live by his sister. My younger brother (also in Arizona) has tried several times to get together with him so he can get to know his grandkids. He can't be bothered.

He'll have to live with his decisions as I have to live with mine. I'm okay with that.