How Can I Prepare to be Disowned?

[DannyMason]

I still want to know why you don't have your Bachelor's degree after 8 years in college. What is the hold up? When are you expected to graduate?

 

I've suffered four major delays. First, had a difficult time with a chemistry course that my uni nonsensically lists as a prerequisite for most biology courses even though there was essentially no overlap in content. Retook that one like twice. Secondly, I started taking a bunch of courses in preparation for adopting my second major. Thirdly, I chose Latin as my foreign language not knowing that the advanced courses are given only once every couple of years and I flunked out of the last course the semester after I had my heart problems. The last major delay was when I was suspended for low grades. I had to retake the classes I flunked and sit out for a semester, so that was a year and a half delay in its own right.

 

Edit: Forgive me, Sole, we were typing at the same time!

[Fugu]

Hey, Love Shackers, I'm in a bit of a situation. I have reason to expect that within the next year or two my Dad will disown me and I'd like to prevent or prepare for this outcome. Basically, I've been forced to live a lie for the past four or five years related to my academics and I don't think the facade can hold much longer. I'm 25 years old and still an undergraduate after 8 years of schooling, working towards a BS in Biology. I'm almost completely financially dependant on my father, who pays my tuition and helps support me.

 

Dad believes a lot of delusional things about my education and career prospects. He believes that I'm on the verge of graduating with two PhDs, with nearly perfect grades, from a nearly Ivy League caliber school, where immediately upon graduation I will become a professor. Believe it or not, these aren't lies I fed him; Dad came up with most of those ideas on his own, or through horrendous misunderstandings of things I said. Truth is, my school doesn't even have a PhD program. My GPA is only 2.3. My school is obscure and has no prestige at all. And, of course, academic jobs are scarce and you typically have to move a bunch of times before you get tenure, assuming you even make it.

 

For a while, when he started believing those Looney Tunes things about my academics and career outcomes, I took pains to correct him. However, even with me explicitly telling him those things are not true, he continued believing them anyway. I had to correct all of those stupid ideas over and over again, but it never did any good. Dad decided what he wanted to believe and no amount of me telling him the truth was going to change his mind.

 

Back in 2009, Dad and I simultaneously developed apparent severe heart problems. I decided to give up trying to correct him in case I died in the near term future. That way he could remember me as the idealized son of his delusions. If Dad died he'd go to the grave thinking highly of me and I could use the inheritance money to rebuild my shattered life. Instead I got the one outcome I never expected; 4-5 years later, we're both still alive and apparently reasonably healthy.

 

Obviously after 4-5 years of my graduation constantly being postponed, Dad is starting to wonder why I'm still in school. I'm running out of excuses. Even though my double life is essentially Dad's fault - I did try over and over to tell him the truth - I don't expect him to take the revelation well. Dad's threatened to disown me over much lesser offenses than this. I might lose everything. Does anyone have any advice? I'm so deficient in basic life skills due to Dad isolating and coddling me that I don't feel equipped to survive on my own. How can I survive if the worst happens and Dad disowns me?

 

In other words, you've been lying to your pops. And now it's time to pay the piper.

 

I don't know man. I think the way to end lying is to start telling the truth. The truth will hurt, but the truth will probably be found out anyway, and it's better to hear it from you, not someone else.