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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hijinks" data-source="post: 2463916" data-attributes="member: 31094">I've recently been having issues with my father.  He's a very "difficult" personality; he is overly critical of everything and he is never pleased with anything that a person does.  I am a rather laid-back easygoing personality, and it's hard for me to just take his jibes and griping and let it slide off my back.  Recently, he retired, and his grumpiness has gotten much worse. I was discussing it with my sister, who is also a "diffcult" personality herself - she's a very A-type go-go-go personality who always gives her opinion on the right way to do things and if you disagree you're wrong and she spends a lot of time explaining why you're wrong and she's right. Anyway, she was telling me about her mother-in-law, who sounds like a class-A (bad word).  This woman's daughter was visiting once and her daughter, who is 6, woke up from a nap and the grandmother (my sister's MIL) demanded a hug that very instant.  When the child didn't run over and give it, the grandmother lit into her daughter (the child's mother) about how horrible a parent she is to not show her daughter how to give affection, and she (the grandmother) was deeply hurt by not receiving a hug, etc.  It caused a huge row. My sister buys this woman expensive jewelry every birthday and Christmas, whether they can afford it or not, and is constantly calling her to tell her how much she loves her, and is training her own son to always say he loves his grandma and tell her she's pretty.  As a result, the woman favors my sister's son over any other grandchild and always acts like he can do no wrong; this apparently pleases my sister, that she can succeed in pleasing this woman who doesn't get along with her own daughters.  The woman's daughters do what I would do with such a difficult person; they limit their own children's contact with her because her actions are detrimental to the child's self-esteem (this woman freaks out about EVERYTHING). I guess I just don't understand.  My sister swears it's better to coddle this woman and treat her like she's so awesome, just so she doesn't freak out and fight with her.  I'm trying to find a way to work things out with my dad, and I find myself pulling further away from him in order to avoid the hurtful things he does and says.  I just can't bring myself to suck up to someone who does mean things to me, and tell him he's great, just so he'll stop being mean.  He treats my sister like she's the favorite, because she's born him a grandson (which I have not) and because she kisses up to him. Does anyone have a person like this in their life that they're able to work things out with?  I love my dad but at this point, if I have children, their contact with him will be limited, because of his hurtful words and actions.  My children's self-esteem is more important to me than coddling a man's feelings.  My sister says he doesn't have a problem; I say he does because his actions hurt other people.  If something you're doing, or a way you're behaving, hurts other people, it's your problem, isn't it?  Or is it their problem for feeling hurt? (An example of things he's done to me - nothing horrible or Oprah-worthy, but still hurtful:  when I was a teenager and overweight he would say "you shouldn't wear that, it makes you look fatter" or "you don't need to drink that Pepsi, you're too fat."  Once, Oprah did a show about overweight teenagers and how they need their parents support to lose weight, and I asked him to watch it with me, and he wouldn't.  I'm 30 years old and he still criticizes my job, what I eat - and I eat very well, lots of fruit and vegetables - and picks on me for my weight.  When I try to explain to him that I broke my back 10 years ago, which limits my physical activity, he says "Oh baloney!"  He just has no idea his actions and words are hurtful).</blockquote>

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