my mother was a pickme most of time growing up and had a turbulent, abusive marriage to my deadbeat dad. around the time I was in middle school, their relationship had further unraveled and I was noticing how toxic it was. my dad had classic LV tendencies but was also very verbally abusive to my mother, and sometimes to me. he would drive use around, not let us stop to get food, and my mom would "let him do his thing" which consisted of last minute plans, driving far away, him getting lost and refusing to ask for directions, then driving recklessly as he cussed and threw a tantrum. when we asked where we were going my dad always said, "it's a surprise". my mom never knew how to dress us or what to pack because he wouldn't tell her. usually it was a flea market or park with lots of walking and it always was boring, because it was always what my dad liked. we were just there to tag along. photos he took were just to make it look like he was a good family man at work, where all his coworkers believed he was a wonderful person. when we all would go out he treated it like a casual "hangout" where he would purposely wander off to do his thing, leaving my mom with the full burden of watching and feeding me.

around this time I started spending a lot of time at friend's houses where luckily, I saw how "normal" my friends parents seemed to be. one friend in particular had wonderful parents, who I think of as examples for a happy marriage. but that's when the wounds started opening up about my own father being a deadbeat. my mother filed for divorce around that time, when my father turned physically abusive in front of me and my sister.

I am in the US and the way it went for us is that we were allowed to see him on weekends. I am not sure if this was the official ruling for custody, but whenever my dad asked to see us, my mother would force us to see him.she had filed for a Protection for Abuse I think in the past and again and for whatever reason she would STILL force us to see him. I had no say. as an adult now I see that man as mentally unstable and actually verbally and physically violent/abusive. I can't believe my mom ever let us be around him after he threw a remote at her and then towards me and my sister when we were small kids.

whenever we saw him then I always felt scared. it didn't matter to my mom. no amount of me crying or faking sick got me out of it. when my dad picked me up, he always acted like this other person: cool, fake nice, and it felt like a weird "hangout" were we would just sit in his dumpy apartment or the park and eat fast food as he sat and played video games or worked on his computer. if he took us out, it was us tagging along on his errands he had to run anyways. he would then do this thing when we didn't want to go to the flea market he would give us the option: go along with him or walk over to his mom's house and be stuck in front of the tv until he returned. either way, he would then have act like a toddler and snitch to my mom about how I "gave him grief" and "had an attitude" no matter what option I chose. my dad would only talk to me about simple shallow questions: how are you, how's school, and then ask me prying questions about my mom and trash talk her. whenever I did tell him about school or my life he pretended to listen, gave one word answers, and changed the subject back to trash talking my mom or venting about his life and problems. I couldn't talk to him about anything unless he was complaining and trash talking it. eventually, he started being late to pick us up, then it was hour late, and eventually stopped showing up completely. whenever he was late or didn't show my mom would say picked stuff like "he just forgot" and "there's traffic" and make excuses for him. she would tell me be a good person and give the "benefit of the doubt."

I am writing about this on here because you can see how my father's LV behavior is almost the same as a lot of the LVMs we dated as pickmes. A lot of the men I talked to or date in the past ended up treating the relationship like a hangout, to which was last minute and they were late, and of course had no actual interest in me or my life. As I got closer to graduating college, I got smarter and started dropping them when I was seeing LV behaviors. subconsciously we are attracted to men that are like our own fathers. I have now been to therapy and also follow FDS and still I find myself talking to and attracting men with similar lv traits like my dad - only now do I walk away at the first mask slip.

divorce and custody needs to change in America. I do not understand WHY or HOW it was even allowed that I was seeing him as middle schooler like that. it continued into halfway through high school. in high school he would take me to get pizza or I would tag along to the male-centric movies he wanted to see. I never had a voice in what I was interested in or what I wanted to do. it really felt like a casual low effort date with a LVM. the fact of how my mom handled it and then being forced to spend time with someone who really didn't care about me and who I didn't even feel safe around played a large factor in why I settled for Low effort, last minute, non-committal sort of casual "hangouts" rather than proper dates. unfortunately, many of my female friends who also had divorced / separated parents growing up accepted the "hangout" LV bs and even married men that were a Lot like their own deadbeat dads.

if you went through something similar growing up you are not alone. I am speaking up about it to help others recognize how powerful of an impact it has on us. I spent a lot of time with my grandpa, my grandpa was my father figure. we did everything together and saw each other almost every day. I practically lived at their house growing up... and my grandpa was HV at least in the way he treated me. I didn't think my dad would impact me as much as he did. you have to be aware of it. analyze your parents relationship and also your dad's traits. write out all the bad things. follow FDS and vet. we have to break the cycle and you have to recognize it, heal, and then drop any man at the first red flag.