Great thread Dan.
My dad was never around. He joined the dubs to quiet my mother harping on him about it. He drank alot. I don't remember that, yet my mother insists he was an alcoholic. When he got DFd for smoking, he admitted to me before he died, he was thrilled. He hated being a dub.
He taught me children are worthless. You create them and walk away. You don't pay child support and when you get remarried, you tell your two daughters that you have a new wife and life and need to move on. You tell them to keep in touch, yet never call or stop by and you live only 10 minutes apart.
You refuse to support them in any way, mentally, emotionally or financially. You find solace in sleeping around, drinking (I determined later he was indeed an alcoholic) and going to nudist resorts and reading porn. Your best friend for 35 years (whom dad took to AA to dry out and stuck to it, dad didn't) cannot drink with you anymore so you start to drift. Yet when you are found dead in your bed by your son (from second marriage; son just released from juvenile detention after 3 years and is back to dealing drugs) your best friend ponies up the $4000.00 for your burial.
Your company provided life insurance and 401K are left to your 28 year old *roommate* whom you supported for the last 5 years. She sucked some money from you and more importantly, got you to believe that you were a good father. She convinced you that you did everything right. She fed your belief that you didn't need to have a relationship with your children. She showed up at your funeral crying that you were like a *father* to her. She was a lying slut. You were an idiot.
You lacked all ability to love and care for your families. It was hard to cry at your funeral; I was sad you were dead, however I had long determined that we would never be like normal father's and daughters. You just didn't care.