I don’t really know where to post this but I need someone to talk to about my situation with my father. It’s really complicated but I’ll try to explain it as much as I can.

My mother moved away a few months ago because she admitted that she cheated on my father. Their relationship was horrible for the last 3 or 4 years when my mom found out he cheated on her but she still stayed with him because of my and my sister. She wanted to keep the family together. But as this situation goes on, my father became more and more unbearable to my mom. She always complained to me that he makes her feel bad about everything she does, never listens to her and so many other things I don’t even remember. She felt awful in their relationship. My dad proceeded to treat her like shit and my mother couldn’t get out of it, she couldn’t convince him to change and believe me, she tried everything and sometimes I gave her ideas too but nothing worked and things got worse.

When I failed a very important exam, he started treating me badly too. He was always angry with me but my mom could calm her most of the times. For me that time was not unbearable but not good either. Then my mom admitted that she cheated and my dad sent her away with nothing except her stuff in some trashbags and they agreed that my dad sends her some money every month so she can find an apartment and she had to move away immediately.

So she moved about 150 kms from us and now she has a job but my dad demanded that she gives her car back to him so she doesn’t really have anything now and it’s definitely not easy for her. But it’s not easy for my dad either because he has to manage 2 companies now, the newest company was led by my mom but now my dad has to do all the work now. And on top of that he has to take care of me and my sister. (I’m 20 years old and my sister is 14.)

We argue with him a lot because he wants to be strict with us and he says he wants to prepare us for adulthood but this means that basically he doesn’t really pay attention to us, and doesn’t spend time with us. I told him many times that this bothers me and he never understands me. He constantly makes me feel like I don’t matter and no matter what i do, I can’t be enough for him. I told him that i feel like this and he told me he feels the same, that he’s not enough for me.

I talked about all this with my mom and she said she totally understands me because my dad has been doing the same to my mom for years and that’s why she left and she told me while almost crying that she hopes I understand now why she left. And honestly yes, I believe she did the right thing and she said she couldn’t have done it another way. I’m not sure about that but maybe with time I’ll understand that too.

So my issue is that my dad is making me feel stressed all the time. When he comes home I immediately jump up and try to make myself busy so he doesn’t shout at me. When we’re spending time together, he always talks about topics that make me stressed, such as driving lessons, math (the improvement exam that I failed last year) or he keeps asking stuff about my mom. Stuff that I’m not comfortable talking about with him. And these questions are mostly so stupid that I keep thinking what’s the right answer to a question like “Is she happy?” or “Did she lose weight?”

And the funny thing is that these topics should be discussed about me, because most of the times I don’t feel happy, and I’ve been losing weight (I’ve been really skinny my whole life and everyone keeps telling me that I should eat, so it’s visible but he just doesn’t care…)

Plus, my dad doesn’t really care if I eat or not, our fridge is almost empty all the time and I have to repeatedly ask him to come with me to the store to buy some food and even then, he always asks me “jokingly” if I brought my own money to buy what I need. This is a big topic of our arguments. His opinion is that I should be working because I’m 20 years old and I don’t go to school so basically i’m unemployed and I can’t live with his help forever blablabla. He knows that I’m planning to go to university next year so I will be “employed” then. He always compares me to everyone else. He also said I should be working while I’m in university but as I heard from my other friends who go to university, they don’t have enough time to work next to all that studying. Especially in the first year.

So now I’m worried about my future because my dad always used to be a stable person in my life, and now I’m almost terrified of him and his actions. I’m also thinking about moving to my mom’s apartment but I also have a boyfriend who lives in my city, so if I move we will be in a long distance relationship which I’m terrified of, especially because my love language is physical touch. Plus if I move to my mom’s, I can’t go to university in her city because that university doesn’t have the major I want to study so I’ll have to come back here. And I’ve talked about this with my boyfriend and he didn’t say he doesn’t want to move in with me but I saw that he was hesitant, since our one year anniversary will be in July.

That’s about all of it. This is the hardest situation of my life and I’m afraid of too many things. Most of the time I can’t even study properly. I would really appreciate any advice on how I could make this easier or anything. If anyone has been in a similar situation, please let’s talk about it!