by Carol Nissenbaum

Created on: October 12, 2008

My father is 77 years old, in fine health physically, but not in his right mind. For the past few years, I had been the only one of his three children to even bother with him, as the other two were smart enough to "divorce" him years ago. I just recently made the gut-wrenching decision to walk away from him, which was painful, but it was inevitable because he pushed me away years ago and has made it abundantly clear that he has no use for me. This past year he made it clear that he also has no use for my kids, which was the last straw. If you hurt me, I'm an adult and I'll deal with it, but don't dare hurt my kids!

My father has always been a bit of an odd duck as far back as I can remember. He was never social, was always angry, never talked much, and he had to work three jobs at a time to support all of us. My childhood was troubled and turbulent - we were the most dysfunctional family I ever knew. I tried to stay under the radar so I woudn't get beaten, but you never knew when he would blow and take off his belt, line us up and whip us. My mother would explain that he worked very hard and was under a lot of pressure, but that was not an excuse. Were this to happen today, Child Protective Services would no doubt step in and take us away. My mother didn't beat us, just slapped and punched us, and verbally abused us every day. When my father beat us with the belt, my mother would cry out "Not the face! Not the face, Jerry!" She wasn't trying to protect us. She just wanted the bruises to be well-hidden and their sick ways kept secret.

When my father finally retired, he never got a chance to enjoy it because my mom soon was stricken with Alzheimer's, and he took care of her all by himself for 6 years. I think during the agony of those 6 years something snapped in his brain because he began to act in a bizarre manner shortly after she had to go into a nursing home. First he took up with a woman nearly 25 years his junior, not much older than me! He began to talk about "sailing around the world" with her. He never spoke about my mom, to whom he had been married 50 years! He actually went on a cruise with his younger girlfriend, and it didn't quite work out as he'd planned - she ditched him on the ship and went back to the husband from whom she had fled!

He stalked this woman on the Internet and the police actually came to his house and warned him that if he contacted her again he would be arrested. I found this out from his NEXT girlfriend, Penny, a widow close to

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>