Me [33 M] and my Dad [72 M] got in an argument, he got physical and pushed and pinned me against the wall. How do I manage him?

I'm home visiting my parents for a couple months: I'm a PhD student and can teach remotely; my mom is fighting cancer right now, and CA was on fire so it seemed a good opportunity to spend time away (I took Covid precautions before traveling). The past few years with my dad have been rough. He keeps insisting that I'm a kid even though I'm 33 and support myself (it's not a luxurious life, but it's a life). We sometimes get in tiffs about weird shit or things that should be non-issues: he's MAGA, conservative, climate change denier, COVID questioner, and I told him to wash his hands when he came home once and he blew up at me. There's a lot of resentment but I don't know the source. About a year ago, I tried to talk with him about how he picks on me (almost bullies me) and kinda always has: he's really invested in his masculinity and I'm a 130 lb, 5'7" bookish univ.-type. Tonight I told him not to put raw vegetables on a bag of raw meat and he told me to "Go fuck myself." My mom blew up at him; I didn't say anything. Then he kept going on about me being a juvenile and he's sick of my shit. He left the room and I followed him and said that he never talks to anyone else like that and it was unacceptable: my mom agreed that she would have said the same thing about the vegetables lol. When he said something back to me, I said that's he's incredibly fragile and is actually acting like the child here. He then pushed me against the wall and held me up from my shirt. I've never been in a bar fight before but I think we made it to second base! I didn't fight back or struggle. Anyway, mom intervened, I kept going at him about how he's unrecognizable from the person I knew growing up who told me never to get physical with anyone. He replied, "And you weren't always a lippy little fucker!" I hardly say anything to him though is the thing...

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He drove off and my mom said this is normal, I just don't see it cause I live across the country. Anyway, we talked it out. He came home maybe an hour later and said, "I apologize. I was out of line. That's all I want to say." I didn't say anything, but my mom went back to talking to him normally. But I can't really go back to being normal with him after violence and uhh, don't think I should. I have enough self-respect to at least name what he did. But I feel like I have to have the accountability and no-violence talk with my 72-year-old father, but I'm not sure it's worth it. I already am depressed and on mood stabilizers and antidepressants and... I don't need this. How do I manage my adult father?

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tl;dr: My father got violent with me tonight. How do I manage his anger?

Submitted November 21, 2020 at 05:36PM by robyn_herbert https://ift.tt/36WaV6u