I am estranged from my father for a number of reasons, but mainly because my parents divorced when I was young and my father spend the next 15 years trying to destroy my relationship with my mother through basically any means at his disposal. It came to a head when my father called me late one night while I was in college, and he told me "We did it, we won, we beat her". I was very confused and asked him to elaborate, and he told me that he sued my mom in court for child support that she paid while he was paying for my college attendance. He told me that he loved me more than my mom and that he was paying for college because he loved me and that my mom wasn't paying because she didn't love me. He had previously used money as a weapon in my relationships before and we had discussed and agreed that he cannot talk about finances like this with a 19 year old who is (1) needs financial support to make it through adolescence and early adulthood and (2) wants to maintain relationships with both parents. It was impossible for him to get over the anger and resentment he had for my mom and to keep that out of our relationship, so I cut ties with him. Having talked with him about this a lot before cutting ties, he would consistently gaslight me about how (1) my mom never cared about me (2) his remarried family were the only family that cared about me and (3) that everything he did, he did for love of me and not out of spite for my mother and (4) that he never did any of the stuff I specifically asked him not to do to help me maintain my familial relationships.