Fatherhood

My father is elderly.  He is in his 80's and struggling with his short term memory.  He has a girlfriend of about 4 years or so, who is independently well off, where my father is rather short of the readies.

She's been quite good to him over the years, but he won't go or do anything that means he can't pay for it himself.  This situation often leaves them at loggerheads as she has said she'll pay a few times.

At the moment, they are in an "off" period, with her flouncing off on holiday, while he seethes at her supposed fling with another octogenarian in the village.  They're both as bad as each other as far as this goes on, but at the moment, I think they are more heading for the "off" permanency as his memory seems to be stuck on a short term loop that is bearing her a grudge for some imagined discretion.

On top of this, she is really switched on money wise and he bought her a netbook for her xmas a couple of years ago.  She never used it as her son bought her a Mac.  My dad decided to go get himself online, and she persuaded him to buy the netbook off her, which means the skint dude effectively paid for the same netbook twice.

I've no gripe with this as I told him not to, and to please her, he did it.  He's a victim of his own inability to make or take decisions of his own.

The thing is, that he's now determined to use something his brain won't let him use.

BT have taken over his screen to reset what he's done more times than I can believe they have been so patient for.  I bet they regret the day he signed up for broadband, but I really can't complain as they have been rather good with him and so far, have kept trying to sort out what he does.

Trying to set him up on google for e-mail, to make it easier than BT, he found it impossible to be able to type in an email and a password.  After 3 hours, we finally got past the login box, and then he couldn't work out how to take the next step.  At this point, I'd had enough.

He says he only wants to send e-mail, but if he can't ever figure out how to log into e-mail, it isn't ever going to happen.

He's not fit to be living where he is, but it's his life, and nothing to do with me.  I have to keep reminding myself that what he wants is none of my business.

He was never a dad to me apart from giving me my surname, so why it should bother me now, I have no idea.   He's forgotten all he did in the past, and I have a hard time getting past it all.  He wasn't a nice man when he was young.  Not violent, but a tongue that could peel an orange.

I have a disabled child and my mother at home, along with two other children who struggle, a blind dog, and some health issues of my own.  I know he is not my responsibility as he has never been in my life until recently when his on again off again girlfriend made him get in touch.

So why does it make me feel so bleeding guilty?