That is a really good question.

In a word: badly.

I could probably write an entire novel about it, and perhaps it deserves a post of its own.

I bought the condo in 2001. At the time, one of the reasons my father used to justify backing out was that he feared that the housing market would crash, as it was simply too high to be sustainable.

Stay with me here.

In 2003 (2 years later), I sold the condo for $70,000 more than I bought it for. I took the check and shoved it in his face. “You see this?” I gloated, triumphantly.

“You got lucky,” was all he could say.

A few months later, I took that money and bought a single family home in nearby Moorpark. Remember, this is right in the middle of the housing boom.

In 2005, I sold the house and moved to Hawaii. The house increased in value by 50%, so I did very, very well.

“You got lucky again.” He just couldn’t own it.

In 2006, he decided he was going to sell HIS house in California, and move to Arizona.

We grew up in a nice suburb, but he thoroughly neglected the house. It was in horrible condition. The carpets were shot, the walls were filthy, every surface was covered with grease and dirt. The lawn was dead, the shrubs were badly overgrown. A few years before, a washing machine flooded the back half of the house, so the place reeked of mildew and mold.

He just didn’t care.

Neighbors hated him because the condition of the house brought down property values of the neighborhood. And he just didn’t care.

Anyway, the market value of the house (in good condition) was $800,000. The next door neighbor who was a contractor offered him $600,000, which my father jumped at.

The neighbor could only get a loan for $400,000 from the bank, so my father financed the other $200,000.

He took the $400,000 and bought a house outright in Arizona.

A year later, the market crashed. The neighbor defaulted on the loan, and there was nothing for my father to collect, since the bank had the first position. For someone who was so afraid that the market would crash, my father made the absolute WORST decisions he possibly could.

Meanwhile, we were well protected in Hawaii. I thrived because of good decisions I made. He failed horribly because of poor decisions he made.

Over the next few years, my father and I had a thawing out of sorts. While he never took responsibility for his actions, he did finally acknowledge that I made really smart decisions. I didn’t need his acknowledgement, but at least he was no longer insulting me.

And then he came to visit my family in Germany once we moved there. He was back to his same behavior.

My mother got sick while they were there and he refused to take her to a doctor. He didn’t want to pay the money.

She was really ailing, so I forced them to go to a doctor. He declared loudly “I’m not paying that! We could just wait until we get back to the states!”

The bill came out to about $40. He’d never heard of socialized medicine.

And that’s when I unloaded on him. I called out his selfish behavior, citing every single time he neglected our family. All the times he lied to us. All the abusive behavior.

I told him how it impacted us, and I demanded that he take responsibility for his actions. He refused, denying any of those things ever happened.

The time my sister got caught eating food out of the garbage can at school because he wouldn’t give her enough money for lunch.

“I don’t remember that.”

The time he promised to take me to a Star Wars convention when I was 11, then he changed his mind on the day of the convention, leaving me heartbroken and betrayed.

“I never promised you.”

“Yes you did! I was there,” my mother piped up.

All the times he complained that we wouldn’t have enough money for food that week, yet he went to gun shows all over the state, paying for expensive tables, and buying hundreds of dollars worth of guns while there.

This went on and on, and the more I presented to him, the more he dug in.

Over the next couple years, he played the victim because I yelled at him back in Germany. I tried to find a solution, in which he would acknowledge the ways in which he impacted us, take responsibility for his behavior and apologize.

He refused.

I told him that my wife and I did not feel safe having our children around a person who had demonstrated such abusive behavior towards family members, and who refused to take responsibility for their actions.

He responded that he would rather have no relationship with his grandchildren than give in to me.

We haven’t spoken since. That was 2017.

To this day he’s had no contact with the grandchildren.

I’m finding this is the best solution. We’re glad to have him out of our lives, as he can no longer impact anyone. And my children will never know what kind of a monster he is. They’re far better off not knowing.