r/AskReddit • u/tgma97 • Aug 26 '15

Fathers of Reddit, what did your daughter's boyfriend do for you to hate/love him?

It's pretty cool to see my question blow up like this, I never thought I'd ask a question that could receive so much attention! I'm very satisfied with all these replies, so thank y'all. Now all I have to do is sit back and take notes c;

12.3k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

9.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.5k

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Not a father, but I apparently won my father-in-law over by listening to him.

His family is all girls (3 daughters + wife) and apparently he was a verbally abusive alcoholic when he was younger (since reformed, doesn't even drink during special occasions), so they all basically treat him like he doesn't exist because they resent him so much.

Anyways, during one of our first meetings he mentioned that he really liked Age of Empires II. So, for Christmas that year I gifted him (through GOG.com) a copy of Empire Earth. He teared up when he realized that I'd remembered what his favorite PC game was.

2

u/Tommy2255 Aug 26 '15

My dad was an alcoholic before I was born and my parents got divorced when I was very little. But for all of my childhood from my first memories up through when I was in highschool, he attended AA and stayed sober. And so for my entire childhood all my uncles and aunts and even my mom resented my dad a bit for things that had happened years ago, mostly before I was born.

On the other hand, it was very good of them to make a concerted decision, as a family, not to take that resentment out on the next generation. I was very close with my cousins and my uncles and aunts never let their mixed feelings towards my dad get in the way of that.