I'm ready to give up my dad.....

[Vix1980]

A bit of background.. my parents split when i was 4, my mum remarried 3 years later, my dad got with someone else around the same time and although hasn't married is still with this woman, and im now 31.

This woman my supposedly "stepmother" ill call her K, has made me feel so excluded from the word go, her previous husband died years before she met my dad and has 3 kids of her own. Im never invited around at Christmas, if i do she "politely" puts my coat over my lap after half an hour of me being there to signal its time for me to leave, my birthday i share with my dad and we always go out for a few drinks/meal etc. i can tell she doesn't want to be there, Im hardly ever allowed to talk to my dad on my own and she maneuvers herself to be in the middle of us making it so she hears everything.

Ive only recently got my own house before then i lived with my step dad still so my dad felt awkward visiting me there which i understood but never once did he invite me around to see him, or for tea etc. Our relationship has now been reduced to a phone call each week, Ive mentioned to him that when i move in my house i would give him a set of keys in case anything happens to mine (i actually did this as a gesture to let him know how much i think of him and trust him and want him to be able to feel he can come round whenever) K then rang me back and asked didn't i have a friend who lived closer so i didn't have to bother them asking for the keys to get in if the occasion should ever arise.

Ive now just had my weekly call off him and more and more i feel so depressed talking to him, he never answers me, just rather listens to me giving him an update, then i say have you been up to anything - No just working the usual, then i say ok ill let you go then as im sick of trying to make conversation with someone who doesn't want to know, Tonight though he mentioned they had gone out for a meal for K's daughter who was 40, i sent her a card and never even got a text to say thanks, ive invited her to every party ive had, sent her cards for b'days and xmas and nothing, so this just feels like a huge slap in the face. Im actually ready to give up with the lot of them. Ive never actually done anything apart from existing which i think she resents!

I get on with my step dad really well and im glad i have him in my life as my mum can be very flaky and is not someone id go to for help and advice, i dont feel its fair to be made to feel like this by my own dad. He did come round a few months ago to help me decorate but even then it was in silence, he just never wants to talk to me for some reason....

[WriterofDreams]

Men can be really rubbish at talking on the phone, or even just chatting in general. My DH, Dad and FIL all struggle to say more than three words on the phone, in fact, any time I've tried to engage FIL in conversation he just cuts me off. I don't know what it is. So perhaps even without everything that's going on the phonecall aspect might still be the same.

However, I'm aware that your problems are more serious than just the phonecalls. Have you ever tried to talk to your dad one on one about K? It may be that he feels caught in the middle of the whole thing and doesn't know what to do. He should have stepped up years ago and told her to wind her neck in so I'm not saying he has any excuse for how he's behaved but if you want to continue to have a relationship with him it might be worth having a serious chat about it all. Would that be worth it?

[Vix1980]

I have thought about bringing it up but i think
a) anything i did say to him would almost definatly go straight back to K, and she'd make the situation even worse

b) hes not a great talker so i dont think i would get the answer i want, more like a prolonged silence then a look of can i go now please

I hoped it was just the phone calls, as im renovating my house i actually saw him helping me out doing it as way for us to bond properly, but that was dashed when he worked in silence and hardly answered me whenever i spoke to him. i just feel incredibly sad about the situation, ive kids of always known it would end this way but the reality of it happening now has hit me really hard!

[HerHissyness]

God you could have been me OP, if not for the weekly phonecall.

we were banned from our SM/DF house in the 90s, as she made up this great affront, and dad backed her.

My dsis has been over there recently. There are no photos of us at all, none of our DC, only her DC and DGC, oh and a photo of a dog that died a while back.

All the pics we have sent him are apparently in the old office of his above the garage.

Last year was the first time we met on my birthday since before he left my mum (when I was 16) I was just 43. It was his 70th a week later, there was a huge weekend 'do', hotel, the lot. We found out by accident. All we got offered was a cheap chain italian for lunch, oh and SHE had to come as it was a weekend.

We asked if it could be just him and us, dsis birthday is also the same week as ours. No, basically.

So I did something I have never done in my entire life. I decided NOT to go.

All this time I have moved heaven and earth to see him, cancelled my friends so he can see my DS, moved this, been late for that, all so I can be where he needs me to be on the off chance of a meet.

Not any more. Birthdays were 2-3 weeks ago, he's not called, I'm not going to either.

OP, I feel for you, it bloody hurts, I know. I'm older than you, and now see things very much more clearly than I have ever done before.

The time has come to STOP trying to please someone who really isn't worth pleasing. Your dad could have made more of an effort, he could have told her to back off, he didn't, for the sake of a quiet life and the odd shag probably, he kept schtum. Pity him, pray that her DC will take care of all the Old age care for him, cos you have kind of been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card there if you want it.

[HerHissyness]

Oh if that identifies me to anyone, then that person would have been at the big weekend, and would have been complicit in the destruction and eradication of the relationship between a father and his 2 innocent DDs.

Shame on them that did that. Karma will find a way to bite back, hard!

I'm so glad that I can look at my mum with admiration, I can see her dignity, integrity, morals, and it must be really bloody awful not to be able to do that.

[HerHissyness]

them those

[Vix1980]

Hiya Hissy, Thank you for your message, I feel better coming and venting on here rather than waiting in a dark ally for this woman to come walking by....

Its horrible to say and think (well actually not to think, it brightens my day a little) but she will be dead one day and i feel then he will be able to talk to me more but it will be too late. maybe its a man thing and as you say hes given in for a quiet life, she has her 3 grandchildren, her 2 daughters and her partner working for her to afford the things she likes - shes retired a few years ago, goes off on holidays non stop. 2 of which pi£££d me right off, 1 was at christmas leaving my dad home alone, although he was working during the day (he works in a hospital) and the 2nd was on his Birthday. I offered to meet up with him then and he suggested we wait till K gets back... i dont understand how someone could leave there partner alone on such occassions to go off with their own family on a holiday.

There are also no pictures up of me either but also strangely of him, even with any of them which i find weird. after cleaning out her loft years ago my dad turned up with 3 books of my childhood photographs, that was the day i realised how bad it was, that he didnt even want any pictures of me in his house. i was only 12 but remember it like it was yesterday!

[piratecat]

oh op, i don't want to go into it, but you could be me too. It's caused me so much hearbreak, depression etc over the yrs.

I just see my dad getting older and wish it hadn't been this way. I feel like he will die and has never spent any time with me, or my dd.

I have managed to make some sort of peace with it within me over the yrs, but it sometimes bites at me and i long for my dad. It's how he is, i can't change it, but sometimes when i see glimmers of him, it makes me so upset.

[piratecat]

as for giving up, it is very hard to know what to say.

My dad's gf comes first, her family come first. and she is the hardest, bigoted cold person i have ever met. unfortunately my dad's seems to have become her!

[Vix1980]

I think its the idea of the relationship i could/should have had with my dad, i always wonder what would happen if she were to die, would her kids still visit him, look after him or would he come back to me and we can bond with each other, but this is all just a fantasy really....

He goes along with what she says cos shes a nag, wont stop going on about her family which is incredibly boring... i just wonder if hes even allowed out on his own but hes chosen this style of life so he can keep it, i really want no part in her life and certainly dont want her in mine, which is really sad...

[HerHissyness]

Vix, in the beginning he used to lie to her about where he was and who he was seeing.

She used to not pass on messages, hide/destroy cards/letters we'd sent him. Then she'd tell him that we clearly didn't love him as we'd not sent fathers day cards...

He flew across the atlantic to see my sis after the birth of her DC. Dad went shopping the first day he was there, no calls, no visit at all to dsis, only popped in for 90 minutes, before heading back to the apartment as he was tired. the next day was the same. A weekend in the US and he spent less than 3hrs with her. It was only to be able to talk about his new GC, and answer the question 'Have you seen her?' with a yes. He ticked a box. My sister was broken hearted.

She's still trying to win his approval somehow, but I don't think that'll last for long.

The thing is these men, our dads, bang on about their family, because they have no interaction with ours. They have nothing else to say. In my dad's case, it's guilt too, she was OW, he left our mum and us for her, so over there in their lovely big house, with the holidays and the cars, they can pretend to be a decent family, our presence reminds them that actually they are filthy lying cheats.

For 20 odd years we have not had that woman in our lives, now Dad is kind of trying to force us to take her in. no apologies, no contrition, nothing. We are supposed to just accept it, regardless of the situation, or the abysmal treatment we receive.

As I said, I'm old now, I'm just out of an abusive relationship, and learning to stand up for myself, enjoying the fact that I call the shots in my life. Now that I have seen what one person was prepared to do to make me bend to fit their needs, I am noticing it in others. I'm saying NO, NO and more NOs. It's disturbing others, but who cares? they have had their time to manipulate and control me. It's over now. I own my life. I run it.