While I Was Away at College, My Manipulative Mom and Sister Pushed My Dad to The Edge, Now I’ve...

while I was away at college my manipulative mom and sister pushed my dad to the edge now I've returned and taken every single thing he left behind i,21 m go to school a few hours from home my parents split when I was 13 and since then I've kind of floated between the two houses but I always leaned more toward my dad my mom's always been a lot like the type who'll cry if you disagree with her make everything about her and talk trash behind your back even to your face sometimes my sister 18F lives with her full-time and has basically turned into her twin personalitywise anyway my dad's always been the calm one quiet didn't complain much never talked badly about my mom even though she absolutely deserved it he's the kind of guy who just takes the hit and keeps going worked his ass off paid support showed up when it mattered i always felt like he got the short end of everything but he never made me pick sides we were close or at least I thought we were so I'm at college and back in like late February March I started noticing my dad acting differently texts got short sometimes he'd just leave me on red which is weird because he used to always respond even if it was just a thumbs up i called a few times no answer one time he just replied with fine that was it nothing else i asked if he was okay and he said he was just tired i figured maybe it was work stress or something i didn't think too much of it stupid I guess fast forward to spring break i decide to surprise him and go home early didn't tell him I was coming thought maybe we'd get lunch or something i pull up to his place and it's empty like fully emptied out no furniture no boxes nothing just dust and an old air freshener stuck to the wall like someone moved out in a hurry and didn't even bother cleaning i asked the landlord what happened and he said my dad gave notice a month ago and left no drama no issues i asked where he went landlord said he couldn't tell me for legal reasons that was it i didn't even know what to do i just sat in my car for like 45 minutes trying not to freak out i texted him again called still disconnected so I go to my mom's place ask her what the hell happened she barely looked up from her phone and just goes "Guess he finally ran out of gas he was always too sensitive. " Like that's all she had to say not shocked not concerned just whatever i asked my sister and she said he dropped off some boxes of old stuff at their house a few weeks ago and said something like goodbye but she didn't really listen i swear to God I could have thrown something through a wall right then it was like they didn't care or worse like they enjoyed watching him disappear and yeah maybe he left on his own but the way they talk about him I know they pushed him i know they wore him down my mom nitpicks everything she makes you feel like you're wrong just for existing and my sister just follows her lead like it's a game i don't know where he is now still haven't heard from him no text no email nothing it's like he just wiped himself off the map and the thing is I'm not even mad at him i get it i don't blame him for wanting to get away i just hate that he left without me like I didn't matter enough for a goodbye so yeah I went back to his old place a few days later the landlord let me in one last time and I took everything the stuff they clearly didn't want his tools his books the photos his jacket his guitars the little old boxes i remember him pulling out when I was a kid i filled my car and drove back to school with all of it i'm keeping it all of it screw my mom and sister they treated him like garbage and then shrugged when he vanished i'm not letting them pretend like he never existed if he doesn't come back then this is what I've got left and I'm going to hold on to it i don't even know what this post is supposed to be i guess part rant part what the hell do I even do now if anyone's been through something like this where a parent just vanishes because the weight was too much I'd love to know how you handled it because right now I feel like I'm the only one who still gives a damn if I ever hear from him I'll post again update one didn't think I'd be back here so soon but yeah I found him sort of before anyone gets too excited no I didn't get a phone call or some big emotional reunion or anything like that but I finally know where he is and I know he's alive which is more than I could say a few weeks ago when I was sitting in my dorm staring at his old guitar case like it might give me answers if I looked hard enough so here's what happened after I posted that original thread someone DM'd me random Reddit user no idea who they are never interacted before they said they didn't want to overstep but they read my post and something about it hit them and they gave me a name of a small town about 6 hours from where we used to live said they thought maybe they saw my dad there they weren't sure just thought it looked like the guy from one of the photos I described i didn't even mention photos in the post so I thought it was BS but the name stuck in my head a week went by i couldn't stop thinking about it so I went I packed a bag left campus early on a Friday didn't tell anyone drove six hours straight to this little nowhere town I've never heard of in my life population maybe a couple thousand tops nothing but diners antique shops and a downtown that looks like it hasn't been updated since the '90s but I swear the second I got there something felt weird like my chest got heavy i didn't know what I was looking for i just walked around for a bit got a coffee sat in my car staring at a laundromat for no reason i almost gave up but then I passed this small hardware store real old school like the kind with creaky wooden floors and zero branding and out front sitting on a bench was this guy reading a book it was him i stopped in the middle of the sidewalk like someone hit me with a brick i almost didn't recognize him at first he looked older grayer not sick or anything just tired but it was my dad no doubt same jacket I took from the apartment just in a different color same way he sits with his ankle crossed over his knee like he's about to explain how to fix a car engine i didn't walk up to him i wanted to my legs were moving but something in me froze it was like seeing a ghost and I didn't know if I was going to cry or throw up or just fall over i stood there for maybe 20 seconds and then he looked up not at me just in my direction and I panicked i turned and walked into the nearest shop like a coward i waited watched through the window as he closed his book stood up and walked around the corner i never talked to him i don't know why i hate myself for it i had every chance to just say his name to ask why to get answers and I blew it but I saw him he's out there he's okay maybe not thriving maybe still hurting but he's alive he got away and honestly I think I get it now he didn't just leave because he was tired he left because they wouldn't stop my mom and sister have this way of breaking you down without ever raising their voices they poke and poke until you start thinking you are the problem and then they act like you're crazy for reacting i think he left so he didn't end up doing something he couldn't take back i think he left to stay sane and I can't even blame him i went back to my car after that and sat there for a long time thought about knocking on every door in town until I found out where he lived thought about writing him a letter and leaving it at the hardware store thought about a hundred things i didn't do any of them i drove home that night but here's the thing i'm going back not today not tomorrow but I will i'm not letting it end like this i just needed that first time to see he was okay to let it sink in and maybe when I go again I'll actually talk to him tell him I still have his guitar his books that I didn't let them erase him that I still remember who he was before they broke him down and yeah maybe he doesn't want to come back maybe he's moved on and doesn't need me showing up in his new life but I need to try not for some dramatic reunion just so he knows someone still gives a update two k so I saw him like actually talked to him this time no guessing no from a distance crap we sat down and had a real conversation and honestly I still don't know how to feel about it i went back to that town last weekend i didn't tell anyone I was going not friends not my roommate nobody just packed up and drove i figured worst case I'd sit in my car for 5 hours and stare at nothing best case well I didn't even know what that was anyway I went to the same area and yep there he was again same bench outside that little hardware shop just reading like he had nowhere else to be like nothing happened i froze for a second not going to lie i was right there maybe 20 ft away and I almost walked past like I hadn't seen him but I didn't i just went up and said "Hey. " He looked up it took him a second but yeah his face totally changed not super emotional or anything just that kind of surprise where someone's not sure if what they're seeing is real first thing he said was my name just my name that hit harder than I expected we sat down no hugging no crying no dramatic reunion just two awkward dudes sitting on a bench like it was the most normal thing in the world he asked how I found him i told him someone online pointed me toward the town i didn't get into the whole Reddit thing just said it was a long shot and I got lucky he kind of half laughed and said "Figures.

" We talked for a bit i didn't grill him or anything just said I wanted to know if he was okay he said he was doing all right just needed space he said stuff at home got to be too much that no matter what he did it never felt like enough and eventually he just broke down that's how he described it broke down he didn't trash my mom or my sister he actually didn't talk about them much just said he felt like he was drowning and that staying would have made things worse that leaving was the only way he could breathe again i told him I didn't blame him i said I was pissed he disappeared without saying anything but I got it now i saw what they were like how they acted after he left it was like they were relieved like they wanted him gone he just nodded didn't really react i think he's still unpacking all of it in his own head i gave him some of his stuff I'd grabbed old photos a couple books that coin collection from when I was a kid he just stared at it for a second and said "Didn't think anyone would keep this. " We didn't talk about the future i didn't push i just asked if it'd be cool if I came back sometime he said "Yeah that was it. " We sat for a little longer then he had to go said he had a shift at the store before he left he said "I didn't mean to hurt you you know.

" And I just told him "I know and I do know it still sucks but I get it now. " So yeah I'm going to go back not to fix anything just to be around be part of his life whatever that looks like now I don't need a perfect explanation i just need to know he's still here and he is that's more than I had before update three things are weirdly normal now i've been back to visit my dad three more times since the last update every couple of weeks I make the drive we get lunch or just hang out at his place which is basically a studio above someone's garage small but clean quiet and honestly kind of peaceful in a way I didn't realize I needed to he's still working part-time at that hardware store says it's simple and no one bothers him which is what he wants right now we don't talk a lot about what happened anymore at least not directly sometimes we dance around it little moments like when he mentioned how good it feels to wake up and not have someone yelling or making everything about them or when he laughed at how quiet his fridge is now compared to back at home when someone was always slamming it like they were mad at the milk but mostly we just talk like two people trying to reconnect not as father and son but just people i didn't realize how badly I needed that last visit we fixed his old record player together took us 2 hours a few swear words and way too much dust in our faces but when we finally got it spinning again it felt like a tiny win we didn't make a big deal out of it he just nodded and said "Glad you're here kid.