Outsiders might think my father has a great lifestyle. He’s in the twilight of his life, unmarried and dates frequently, he drives fast cars and motorcycles, is a small-time musician at bars/clubs, dates many, many younger women, has an old cat, takes care of the strays near his house, rents out the other room of his house so he lives comfortably. He’s got a well-balanced life.

He’s charismatic, good-looking, cultured, a good conversationalist - to everyone except for his family. I can’t tell which one of his personalities is the mask he’s wearing. Everything he does and says pushes me further away from him. I can only interact with him as if he is a friend, not as if he is my father. He’s a terrible listener, invalidates what I say, he takes unnecessary risks, he condemns me, and he’s a very “do as I say, not as I do” type of dad.

Sometimes I want to be comforted by my dad, not by an experienced peer. He drinks himself into a stupor several times per week and he is a mean, cranky drunk, and that makes it impossible to communicate with him. I know he’s proud of me because I am highly-successful and respected in my field, but it’s not because he is actually proud, he just wants to brag to women about me so he can sleep with them. It’s less about me, and more about what it does for his image.

All I have ever wanted is to settle down and start a family, and my father has been a terrible example for me. I’ve been laying awake at night this whole week, struggling to sleep, because I realize that I am turning into him. I don’t know how to stop it.

It’s a fear I’ve had for years, and I just can’t seem to avoid it. I consciously make decisions to try to stop it, and it never has the intended result.

My father has all of the superficial trappings of a good life, what people strive for, but the only reason he has a relationship with me is because I do all of the heavy lifting.

I feel like his life is my fate and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.

I don’t want to be him.