Family moan- hurt

LegacyUser

Long sorry.

I grew up with my mum as our primary carer. Met my Dad when i was 12 as far as i'm concerned.
He was around until i was 5 but i don't remember him.
I was lucky in one way i dont remember the split.
fast forward few years after he reappeared and the sh*t started happening between him and my mum.. over what was owed/not owed. his/hers etc.
I was only early teens when this was happening so didnt see too much.
this was all in letters /calls. he lived in uk during all this.
fast forward another few years and i'm in my late 20's and i cant deal with this anymore.
there's always something.
Yes i can ignore it but when i see my mum upset/ angry.. it hurts.
there was never an issue of sides. whatever happened to make them split it doesnt matter because she was the one that was there 24/7 for every event.

Anyway roll on another while and earlier this year i was in his home place (he now lives in ireland) I was there to see his side of family who i get on well with, aunts , cousins etc.
Spent a night there, we went to pub.. usually when i've been there, one of my siblings has been there too. this night it was just me.. he was chatting to me, grand.. saying he knows he wasnt there growing up etc would like to know us more.
this was all fine, and i listened.. then one by one he started slagging off my brothers and sisters (his children!), he's sly so he was subtle about it.. "i tried to ring ### but no answer", only ever hear when he wants this or that.
i felt like i spent half hour defending them.. then gradually he moved onto my mum and just insulted her too.. this is when i got upset. once i got chance i got up for bathroom.

Went home next day in such a bad mood, didnt tell mum what was said, just mentioned to sister.. i got on computer and typed most honest letter i've ever written, not being a bitch.. but telling exactly how i felt over last night and over things that were said and done over years.
on advice of friend i didnt send it.. because i needed to calm down.
about a month later.. something annoyed me to do with him .. cant remember... so i sent the letter.
Never got a reply.
His brother in law died during the summer so i was down. when i saw him, i said hello and i got nod but that was it.
Was down later again in summer but not much better as other family were there, when i walked into room, he stayed for tea and left claiming he'd something to do.

Roll on another few weeks and at family gathering, he turns up.. caused my brother and sister (who are so close that i am jealous) to fall out.. they left after weekend not speaking... i confronted him the night this all happened and said what did he say .. etc he was just talking sh*te then saying something completly different, my aunt tried to defend him and i explained to her about earlier in year when he had me in tears slagging my family and then i turned to him and said i wrote you a letter and sent a text and you never acknowledged either.. i was crying at this stage. ... to which he replied an insult about my mother being a good tutor -as in she made me write letter /give out etc.

Hurts me bad. here was I in tears telling him how i hurt i was about writing this letter and him not even acknowledging it. and all he can do is insult my mum.

I said "I'm done" to my mum when she heard what happened.. but realistically, I cant just forget he exists as i had good time for his family. and all i can think is my cousin lost their dad this year and they probably think i'm a cow for not caring anymore.

What more can i do
How can he show so little care.

not really a question here just had to have it out. but any suggestions would be good.

Esoteric_

You say you can't just leave it, but ultimately he's left you with very little choice, OP.

I really feel for you, but you can't force somebody to love you and treat you with respect, and it sounds as though your father doesn't really give a damn about you or your family.

If you DO want to try to salvage something with him, maybe don't mention your mother, and if he mentions her, just say 'Look, I'm sorry but I don't want to talk about my mum, I'd rather get to know you some more,' and ask him questions about his life, distract him.

I don't know if that'd work, but it's all I can think of. Realistically though, do you see him changing? It sounds as though he just wants to cause trouble and if it were me, I'd just cut him out. It's hard and painful, yes, but in the long run it'd probably be less painful than dealing with his bitterness for the rest of his/your life.

LegacyUser

Thanks, that's probably what i do need to hear, that i'm not being over dramatic by saying I'm done with him.
Until this year, I thought he cared, but i guess its just been waiting to click inside that he doesn't.
There's nothing I want to salvage , there's nothing left.
Me bringing up the letter i wrote, and basically confronting him for the first time ever and him throwing it back at me was enough- it's really hurt me. and him causing ruptions between his children is enough.
wow.

a posse ad esse

I suggest not worrying so much about a non-existent relationship with your father which looks like it will not change. Clearly he is self-centred and too egotistical to care and rather immature to be slagging off your siblings and your mother behind their backs. That behaviour is disgusting quite frankly. Whatever disagreements or issues that your father had with your your mother should stay with her and not involve you and your siblings.

If you have a great relationship with his side of the family just continue on as usual. We have a cousin that went through the same sh*te with his father. Not once we ever pressured this cousin to acknowledge a man that clearly did not care about him. We knew what an ar*e this uncle was but not once we let it effect our relationship with this cousin. As long as your father's family are doing the same, there should not be a problem. Be civil and ignore him (as best as you can) when he starts slagging. Don't feed his immature behaviour.

curlzy

J*sus Chr*st. The man is the biggest epic failure of a father and this is how he apologises and makes it up? Seriously OP, your mother did you the biggest favour ever by breaking contact with him. He should be doing everything in his power to make up for all his cr*ppyness but he's not. If I were you I'd follow your mam's example and never ever speak to him again. He sounds toxic.

I'm sure you would have loved to discover that he's a great person and a great dad but unfortunately you're gonna have to face the reality that he's not. He's a horrible person and a very immature and selfish one at that. Please don't continue to try with him, he'll only break your heart. Thank god you've a good mum and siblings. I wouldn't go wasting my time on him if I were you. Just because you don't speak to him by the way, that doesn't mean you can't see your cousins etc. Just socialise with them when he's not around.

TBH I don't think he deserves a relationship with you.

LegacyUser

Thanks for replies.
yer spot on, he doesnt deserve anything from me. but he doesnt want anything it seems anyway. He doesnt actually give a sh*t about me. If he cared about me at all, he wouldnt have a dig at my mam while i was crying, looking for acknowledgement from him.
Its true what they say- the truth hurts. i was distracted for few days after, but its actually really got to me.
I dont want to care about fact he doesn't care- it never bothered me before.. i never thought he did too much anyway, but it has stung now i know its reality.
But saying that, i'm not planning to do anything about it or speak to him about it or any his family about it. When i see them, i'll let them know subtly i dont want to talk about him.

Time to move on.

meganj

OP I wrote a very similar letter to my father exactly one year ago. Our circumstances are similar, he wasn't in my life for the first thirteen years of my life (no contact whatsoever) and when he came back he turned my life upside down. Unlike you my Father kept me a total secret from his family and it was ultimately this secret keeping that led me to write the letter.

I asked him for no contact and cut him out of my life. It was not something I did lightly, it took me six years of counselling and support from family and friends to realise that I didn't deserve to be kept a secret.

I think it's remarkable that you had tried to mend your relationship with your Father given your feelings. I also understand how difficult such a thing can be. In many ways when my Father didn't contact me after I wrote the letter (even though I asked him not too!) I was disappointed, I felt hurt in a way that he didn't want to fight for me.

I will say that after a year I'm much better. It will be my birthday in a couple of weeks and it will be great not to have to go through the drama of him being involved. So it does get better, and even though you might never truly move on or forget him, you will have made a decision based on your needs and that's all anyone can do.

I would urge you to seek outside help, although it sounds like you have a fairly supportive family, sometimes it can be great to talk to someone outside of it, who doesn't have a vested interest, or an emotional attachment, someone who is only interested in you and your feelings.

Anyway, I wish you the very best of luck.

Big Bag of Chips

OP, the sad thing is some people are just not nice people. No matter how much we wish they could be, or no matter how much we try make them see how their actions hurt others - they just are not nice people and will never change.

Your dad, unfortunately, seems to be one of those people. If you want to have some sort of relationship with him you have to accept that about him.

He will never acknowledge the hurt he has caused, because as far as he is concerned, he's the victim. He did nothing wrong. Your mother is wrong, your siblings are wrong, you are wrong.. everyone but him is wrong.

So you need to stop trying to make him see what he has done. Because all your doing is upsetting yourself. You seem to have a nice relationship with him family.. that can still continue, without you having to be 'the doting daughter'. You can have a very superficial relationship with him if you wish, where you don't try to rebuild a relationship that never existed in the first place. You can be polite, be civil, but nothing more. No need to try open up to him. No need to try get him to open up to you or admit any wrong doing, because it will never come about. And the more you hope for it, the more you are setting yourself up for another fall and more heart break.

You don't owe him anything - to be perfectly honest, you don't even owe him the courtesy of being civil to him - but because you are a nice person, you probably will continue to be. And there is nothig wrong with that. Don't change who you are because of him.. just change your expectations of what your father is going to be to you.

LegacyUser

This is killing me.
My brother and sister still not speaking. well my brother wont contact my sis. was her bday yesterday and he didnt text her,. i kept reminding him and he just ignored me saying she'll be alright so today i've been telling him to grow up and cop on. It's been 2 weeks.

The whole situation has me in tears all day because brother is now moving abroad in few wks and they left last time without barely saying goodbye and wont see each other for God knows how long.
brother is not taking his side , its just dad stirred things up between him and my sister.. and now too stubborn to come back and be first to speak.
I had long message written for dad this evening but didnt send it cos i know he wouldnt even acknowledge it and that would annoy me more.

Rant over. nothing else i can do.