I thought about it a lot over Shabbos and looked into some of the relevant halachos. I definitely don’t know nearly enough to have any kind of definite opinon on the matter, but I came up with reasons why (impressive as your actions were) it is possible that your father is right
I don’t know if I will have time to explain more before Pesach and I would want to think about it more in any case. I think some of them were points that you yourself made. B”n, I might try to write more either during Chol hamoed or after Pesach.
But in any case, I definitely think you should ask a sheilah about it, since I am sure you would want to know if you should be doing teshuva and/or asking mechila from him and you might not be allowed to do that if your actions were correct. Also, I’m sure you would like to have closure either way.
It is very important when it comes to something like this that you make sure to ask the right person. Obviously whenever you ask a sheilah, you need to ask someone competent.
But when it comes to hilchos LH, I find it is particularly important. There are many people who are qualified to answer questions in other topics but not necessarily in hilchos l”h. In addition to knowing the halachos very well, you also have to be unusually perceptive, and of course a person who is himself very makpid on hilchos l”h.
Personally, I think this is a sheilah that may need to be asked to a Gadol.
I do think it’s a good idea to think it through as thoroughly as possible first so that when you present it to the Rav you can make sure to present all the relevant factors and halachos. I find that sometimes when I ask a sheilah, there are halachos or factors that I knew that the Rav was not aware of, and once I presented these facts or halachos it changed the way he answered me.