I'm 16, and my parents have been divorced for close to a decade. Recently I've been trying to stop my visits to my dad's house. I have several reasons for this. Most are pretty minor, teenage-angsty things, mostly his dissaproval of my taste in books/movies/games/friends/religion/clothes/hair. Obnoxious, but minor. He also tends complain to me and my brother about problems he's having with my mom, usually about child support. Bad, but not abnormal for divorced parents. However, during the marriage of my parents my dad was a massive alcoholic. He fought with my mom every night, and hit her frequently. He also hit our dogs, and he hit me on the last day of my parent's marriage. I also had to call 911 on him that day. After the divorce, he frequently drove drunk with my brother and me (something he still does.) He complained almost constantly about my mom, as he still does now, and at one point had me convinced that she was an alien from another planet ( I was 6, mind you.) Finally, in one horrific act of child abuse, he held me over the railing of a 3rd-floor balchoney by my ankles. He did the same thing to my brother, at our grandpa's house, at Christmas. He has, at some point or another, denied everything I've written here. The one reason I havn't left him already is because he's finally said that he's willing to discuss these things and, hopefully, move past them. I know this is a tremendous effort for him, since he has not admited he was wrong about anything before this to me, and it shows that he does love me. However, I'm not sure it's even possible for the two of us to ever have a normal father-son relationship. Should I blow him off, or should I try to form a lasting relationship with him? I've already made my choice, but getting the opinion of an unbiased 3rd-party would help put my mind at ease.
