How do you find peace in your heart when you resent having to financially support a father who was absent most of your life?

Time for LTC where Medicaid ( called something different in CA) foots the bills. His SS and any pension will go towards his care. A Personal Needs Acct will be set up and a small amount taken out each month to help pay for haircuts, snacks, maybe some clothing. All his needs will be met. 3 meals a day. Depends if he needs them. Toiletries. His clothing is washed. He will have activities and some entertainment. You can visit 4x a year. Brother can when he wants.

If not already, his desease will progress where he shouldn't be left alone.

Time for him to be placed in a home, and stop paying to support him. You call him father, but the truth is..he was just the sperm donor. As it stands, the resentment will continue unless you make some changes in your thinking.

My Best To You....

I’d feel resentful too. He didn’t bother to take care of his kids, but now expects his kids to take care of him? Really?

It sounds like you and your siblings see this situation as something you are morally obligated to do. You aren’t!

Why do you think that you need to give him money?

You are not responsible for your parents' lack of planning.

I know that sounds mean/cold/cruel. But it's the truth.

The short answer is that you don’t owe him a thing.

I'm firmly on Team You-Don't-Owe-Him.

Caifornia's version of Medicaid is called MediCal.

I'm going to assume that you and your brothers (both of them) are doing what you individually believe to be right.

I'm also going to assume that the financial sacrifices you are making now will not put your own security at risk. If that isn't so, then none of this applies and you and older brother both need to think again.

But based on those assumptions, and that you just want to feel better about doing this: how you behave in general towards other people is not about what they deserve, it's about what you are like.

So in this case, your fulfilment of what you see as a duty towards your father (his care) and your older brother (meaningful support for him) shows what you are like. You are a person who acts on a responsibility when you have decided to accept it, and does so with appropriate boundaries.

Your father may not have matured, but you most certainly did. You should be proud.

I believe that your mother and others did a good job raising you. You see someone who needs help and you have stepped up. However don’t feel obligated. Obligation leads to resentment which leads to hate which leads to self loathing
With your brothers’ (yep both of them) find out exactly what your father is entitled to under state and federal aged care and hit them up for the lot. Ask your father about his life. Is he entitled to any services from Veterans Affairs. Does he have super or pension money sitting somewhere untouched. One of you will have to get financial and health POA This will lessen financial burden. Where he ends up ask about visiting services by local church groups and such and arrange for someone to visit.

I don't think you owe your father anything because he "gave you life." All he really did was have sex with your Mom, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinking of your best interests when he did it.

The only way to make peace with this is either to limit your help to an amount you can feel good about, or to view it as a gift you are giving older brother, to keep him from bearing the whole load himself. If that doesn't work for you, then you need to rethink the whole idea of providing help except maybe in a dire emergency. JMO.

As others have suggested, perhaps one or both of you could explore what benefits mom or dad could qualify for (Medicaid, VA, other.) If their income is low enough and they qualify for AL (in some states, not all, AL might be covered) or NH benefits.

I do like the post by Countrymouse - if the financial drain is too much for you and/or your brother, you should seek help. Initial consult with Elder Care attys are usually free (have all your questions ready before the visit!) They can guide and/or suggest options. If it isn't a huge drain, then it speaks volumes of you (and one brother) and your values! It might lead to some resentment when it curtails your ability to enjoy life, and it likely burns a bit that he didn't bother with you when growing up, but that's in the past.

If you can afford it (albeit it means giving up something yourself) and there are no options available, this may just be something you have to live with (as for YB, you likely can't make him chip in. that comes from the heart and basically you can't change other people, only how you perceive and deal with them.)

I would suggest you seek EC attorney, probably best to use one in the state mom and dad live in (I know this was about dad, but your profile indicates your brother is caring for your mother too.) You can locate some there using:
https://www.naela.org

Locate some in their area and call to ask questions about free consult, whether they handle Medicaid applications or VA benefits, etc. No point in wasting time, even with a free consult, if they don't cover the issues you have! If any of you have POA, that will help managing finances, etc and hopefully you have medical waivers too. If not, the EC attorney *might* be able to help, if the dementia hasn't progressed too far. It may require getting guardianship (EC atty and court costs for this are not cheap!)

Your dad must be some sort of Rasputin if he was a financial and emotional deadbeat yet his adult children are sacrificing their own futures and orbiting around him while he still doesn't give a d**m about how it impacts them. If you and your brother aren't able to save for your own futures, you are just kicking the can down the road. Help your dad apply for Medicaid, get him into a facility and then don't feel guilty about it. This is the retirement HE planned for. And HE certainly isn't feeling guilty about using you and your brother. Your youngest brother is the only one who has isn't an enabler.

You don't legally owe him a thing. This is on you not him.

I empathize with you and also congratulate you for your helping your father in his old age. I don't intend to lay "religion" on you, but the commandments say, "HONOR" your father and mother...…...It does not say "if he was a good dad" or if you loved him or not, and so on...It says "honor" him. Again, I empathize with you in your situation.

Grace + Peace,

Bob

I wonder why you “have to” do anything for him. Yes, he is your biological father, but he was also supposed to provide for and raise you, and he elected not to. It sounds like he only took an interest in you when he needed you. But he wasn’t there when you needed him. It is very kind of you and your brother to try to take care of him but you owe him nothing and have no obligation to save him from the situation he put himself in.
My parents divorced when I was very young and my father also chose not to be part of my life. My mother had to move heaven and hell just to get minimal child support from him and he avoided spending time with me. Now he tries to initiate contact with me and I suspect it is for the same reason as your dad—he realizes he needs someone to take care of him now that he is elderly. I have no guilt at all about ignoring him. I have plenty on my plate taking care of my mom (she is in memory care and her dementia has convinced her that I abuse and steal from her, so she hates me now) and he is in his own. He didn’t want the responsibility of having a child, so he doesn’t get to reap the benefits of having one either.

Let our brother know you will not help at all, and he can do what he wants.

When dad calls, tell him that you resented that he was not there for you.

I think you have expressed your HONEST feelings perfectly, and I cannot tell you how well I think you are doing. Better than many would. Your younger brother has chosen not to participate. I don't blame him one little bit, and am not certain I would not take the route he has. In fact, I believe I would have. I have a friend who is supporting her alcoholic son through life, he being early 40s now and with no interest in her and her needs as she has more surgeries and becomes more frail. She has the money, so that is not the question. The question is something other, and that something I suspect without any answer. I think FloridaDD is in your younger brother's corner. It seems to me you are not the kind of person who could live comfortably having done that. And I think it is too late to let your Dad know he failed you. Ultimately we are who we are and we do the best we can, and at times that is very awful, indeed. You have suffered for it.
I wish that who you are, what you are doing, brought you more peace than it does, for it SHOULD. It's too late to say "You weren't there for me and now I abandon you". I think YOU are the one who couldn't live with it.
Basically can't tell you how much I admire you. And I wish only that you have PEACE from it. Because that's what you deserve, if ever anyone did. Hugs to your BIG brother and for the youngest, my deepest sympathy. Wish he could help a bit, if not for DAD, then for YOU and your other bro.

I also provide help and financial support to a parent who did little to raise me. The few short years I was in my mother’s care as a child, she was a drunk whom was checked out. But I too feel a sense of responsibility to ensure she at least has food on her table and needed medications.

The way I have made peace with this is that I had to change my way of thinking. My helping her is not really for her. My financial support is securing my future peace of mind. I know myself well enough to know that if I abandoned her to be homeless and helpless I would feel a tremendous amount of guilt that I didn’t help when I could help. I don’t have to provide her with the best life has to offer and cater to her every whim. I just need to help her survive in a clean and safe environment. She can’t afford assisted living and she is not infirm enough to need a nursing home that would be paid by Medicaid.

So don’t see it as doing it for him. See it as an investment in YOUR future peace of mind. When he is gone, you and your brothers will know you did what you could to help him even if he didn’t entirely deserve it.

Get him on Medicaid...take him to ER & say you can’t take care of him anymore...& he needs skilled nursing care...they will help you have him placed. Talk to Social Worker there...hugs 🤗

Your question struck a nerve with me. I too, have a father who supported me as little as he could. I don’t support him now because he is in a Medicare/medical home. But I do visit him because I don’t want to feel guilty later about not seeing him. I look on it as me providing myself with future peace of mind.
He is as mean as he ever was. He spits pills out at the nurses and gets combative with them. At least now I know, that he is mean not only to me and my sibling but to the rest of the world.
i wouldn’t feel obligated if I were you to pay for your father, but I admire you and your brother for providing for him. But I don’t condemn your other brother for not helping him at all. I’ve been there and I can empathize with you and your brothers.

You have two choices: 1. Don’t do it and take the same route as your younger brother or 2. Continue as you are but choose to distance yourself emotionally. At 90 perhaps he doesn’t have that long left. Do what you have to do to be at peace with the decision you make after he is gone.

Dear Daughter44 You and Your Brother are doing the right thing in supporting Your Father Who is now 90 year old, and You will I promise You will find great peace in Your heart when this journey come to its end. Through out my life I have seen People Who were spiteful and hateful towards a Parent and It eat them up like a cancer. These People became very bitter, and You and Your Brother Who helps out and supports Your Father are so much better than that. Naturally Your feelings are very normal under the circumstances You wrote in Your Post, but You will get through this un wounded knowing in Your heart that You honoured and cared for Your Father
and did not judge or punish Him.

Nothing would convince me to provide financial support for either of my parents.

You don't owe him a thing. Biological father means nothing, especially if absent most of the time. Even a cockroach can be a biological father. Even a cockroach can give "life". Stick him in a nursing home and be done with it. He's most likely eligible for Medicaid. and he could live another good 10 years, especially without Alzheimer's disease.

I was estranged from my father for 20 years. He was not a good father and grandfather. He was a mamma's boy and never grew out of it. My mother divorced him and he remarried quickly. His wife resented his having had a family and after my son I could no longer tolerate either of them. I knew eventually they would need care as they managed to isolate themselves from everyone. My dad landed in the hospital and then a nursing home. His wife had dementia by then. I visited and continued to visit and try to offer advice and assistance from a distance as I lived nearly 4 hours away. I went home and sat in a hospital with him the night he died and later assumed guardianship for his wife until she passed away in an AFC. We reconciled too and she apologized in her own way.
In the end the only person you have to answer to is you. If you can look at yourself in the mirror and live with yourself for what you are doing or not doing then that is enough. Some people don't have it in them to be parents. I tell people now "Sometimes all your parents do is teach you how not to be." That was true with my dad and true with yours as well. I am glad you have some sibling support in your brother.
I look back now and have peace. I wish that for you as well.

I think that having resentment towards your father is understandable. Holding in any emotion only does you harm. I use to hold things in as well.. and now let things fly from both barrels.

Anyway please consider yourself and what is best for your family.

You do NOT "have to" help him financially. It is a choice.

Maybe help him find a solution as you extricate yourself from a situation you do not want to be in. And if he is not cooperative, you just need to give him notice and do what it is you want to do.

A lot of men can be a father, but not every man can be a daddy. It looks like he was never a daddy to you and now expects you to act a certain way to him. It's up to you to decide that you don't want to be guilt tripped by him. Good luck. Prayers...

Why are you paying for your dad's care? He is an adult; you and your brother are adults. Unless he can not make decisions for himself, you do not "have" to do this. We have lots of social services available for the poor in this country. Help him get set up for Medicare, Medicaid, HUD housing, SNAP (food stamps), and any other services available to subsidize his care. I also suggest you read any of the books by Townsend and Cloud on "Boundaries". I especially like the one on boundaries with your parents.

I am confused. You say you love your father but he was never there for you and you are helping foot the bills even though he is obviously not a good or nice person. Why on earth are you doing this? Remember, what you sow is what you reap. You do not, in my opinion, owe him money when you obviously don't have it to spend foolishly. There is nothing wrong with visits and calls and letters. However, I feel it is time to tell the truth - let him know what he has done and how it has affected you. It is time he knows and you will not have to carry this secret burden the rest of your life - and if you do, it will consume you later. Let him know, stop the money, visit and be friendly but put up solid boundaries and don't be a fool any longer.

You’ve seen it in many other answers - you don’t owe your dad. The two questions I’d ask myself are: what do I want to do? And, what kind of person do I want to be?
Whatever you decide, you want to feel good about it.