I (26f) still live w my parents and my older brother due to many circumstances (mostly financial). My family has been financially struggling ever since my dad impulsively quit his job, and while right now we are not living in poverty, we are in a constant financial precarious state.
A bit of context: my dad always had bad habits. Eating excessive amounts of sweets/junk food, drinking sugary drinks like water, not brushing his teeth at night, smoking, not exercising, not wanting to visit a doctor, and also refusing to do any chores. We always tried to tell him to improve these habits but he would pretend to listen and ignore anything we say. For example, he would eat a whole box of 6 ice cream sandwiches in a sitting, and we would tell him to eat moderately, get ignored, and would do the same the next day. Whenever we talked to him sternly, he would act like a child throwing a tantrum. He would leave the house for like 10 mins, return, and to spite us, he would consume even more, or eat all of the snacks we have in the house.
After he quit his job, these habits would get worse, and so would his health. 2 years ago, my father realized he reached rock-bottom. He cried in front of us for the first time saying he was sorry for his failures and that he was thankful for still having us.
I honestly sympathized and held no grudge for him then, and told him we didn’t expect him to bring us money, or financial stability, but that all we ask is for him to take care of his health, or at least try to. I thought that our heartfelt conversation was going to be the beginning of him wanting to change, but I was wrong.
Since then, his habits have not changed a bit, and as you can imagine, his health would reflect that too. He sleeps almost all day, and when he is awake he is watching TV or his phone. Whenever we buy snacks to have as treats every now and then, they are all gone by one night, because my dad eats them in one sitting. I try to help my mom with chores, since I work from home, but I have limited time due to work. I have told my dad multiple times to at least help with some chores, but he would find something to complain about (like a headache or something) and refuses to do anything. My mom ends up coming from work and doing the chores I couldn’t do that day despite being tired from work, while my dad just sits in the sofa watching TV, and treats my mom like a maid
All of these infuriate me and I slowly began to treat my dad coldly, almost like a stranger in the house. Once he snapped at me, shouting as to why I don’t treat him with respect, and I told him to act like a dad and then I would be treating him like one.
My brother and my mom had told me to treat him better but I honestly have conflictive feelings about it. On one hand I know that when he passes away I would most def regret how I treated him, and grief a lot. On the other hand, he doesn’t even respect us enough to listen to us, and my one request I ever made. So am I the asshole?