After Mum passed away, our father lost all restraint. Without her calming presence, the man who had at least pretended to respect our boundaries became a tyrant—shouting, issuing ultimatums, and wielding his favourite threat: “You’ll get nothing! Not a penny of the inheritance!”
I’m twenty-nine. My brother is three years older. We’re grown, independent adults with our own lives, relationships, careers, and plans. Yet Dad acts as though we’re wayward teenagers and he’s the last authority on earth. If it were just advice, we might tolerate it. But it’s not—he demands. Orders. And if we refuse, he twists the knife: “The flat won’t be yours anymore.”
Yes, the flat is nice. A three-bedroom in central London, not some cramped postwar build. Fully renovated. But good grief, how worthless it feels compared to the pain we’ve endured living under his control.
My brother once escaped. Lived on his own, found peace, built a life. Then Dad started calling, manipulating, pleading—claiming he was lonely, that “a son should be near.” Eventually, my brother gave in. He moved back. Straight into a cage of rules: “Home by eleven, or the door’s bolted.” More than once, he slept in his car or at a mate’s after missing curfew, showering at the gym the next morning. A few months of that, and he packed his bags again. And again came the threat: “That’s it! You’re cut off!”
When my brother left, Dad turned to me. I’d “fallen for the wrong sort,” apparently. My boyfriend at the time rubbed him the wrong way—wrong look, wrong words. Dad declared: “If you don’t leave him, you’ll get nothing.” I packed in silence and moved in with my brother. Later, I rented my own place. It was hard, but I managed. Nothing could be worse than living under that weight.
Eventually, Dad cooled off. Called. Made up. He’s family, after all. We thought he’d come to his senses. But no. The next explosion came when my brother announced his wedding. Dad loathed his fiancée—too bold with her jokes, too polished in her dress. He demanded they cancel it. When my brother refused, I was forbidden from attending. I went anyway. Because that’s my family. My brother was at my wedding, too. Dad? He missed both.
Now he’s back. Older, frailer, and suddenly insisting my husband and I move in. “I can’t manage alone—look after me,” he says. We offered help: regular visits, groceries, even paying for a carer. But living with him? No. We won’t do it again.
The familiar refrain began: “You’ve abandoned me. Ungrateful. The flat will go to strangers.” My brother and I just exchanged a look and sighed. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Doesn’t even sting. We’re tired. And if the cost of peace is his money, so be it. We’ve paid too high a price already for the freedom to be ourselves.
When you lose someone close, the rest of the family is supposed to grow stronger. For us, it’s the opposite—we lost Mum, and in doing so, we lost Dad too. We’re done scrambling for his approval, done begging for scraps of love under threat of disinheritance.
If Dad thinks respect can be bought with square footage, he’s wrong. We’d rather be children building our own lives—no handouts, but no shackles, either. Some things are worth more than money.
