To deserve to know who really went on.

[User643626363]

might be long, sorry.

I am a woman in my early thirties. Never known my father. Which has caused me great distress over the years, but I've always been too scared to speak to my mother about it. She makes it all about her. I can understand she was hurt.

I don't know a huge deal but know some bits. My mum was quite young when she got pregnant with me (19) and my bio father was in twenties and already had 2 kids. One from when he was a teen, no idea who and where on this one child, my mum knew very little and told me even less.

Also a daughter about 2 years older than me from a marriage before my mum, this is where it gets crazy so sit tight!!

so he's with my mum, I've always assumed that him and his first wife were split when He met my mum but I can't be sure. Something my grandma had said made me think he was still married but regardless she was young and obviously besotted by him. At some point he separated and later divorced from wife and he was living with my mum at my grandparents. When my mum was pregnant with me, Ex wife turns up and says she's pregnant, apparently bio dad and ex wife were sleeping together. So he has two babies due within about 8 weeks - wonderful. My mother and him were getting married and had a date set and everything.

anyway, he declared his love for my mother and unborn baby (me) apparently and said he wanted nothing to do with ex wife. My mother kicked him out and did alone. He never got back with ex wife but two babies 6 weeks apart.

my mother said he seen me a couple times in toddlerhood but obviously have no memory of that.

I never seen him but my half sisters did as their mother wanted him to have a relationship with them but it was a bit sporadic. He later married someone else and had 4 more kids with her from what I know, he's still living with this wife and kids.

my mother and his ex wife hated each other at first but have become civil and later friends and decided and ended up living near each other so I found out my school friend was my half sister in year 3 - wonderful. But we were never raised as half siblings or seen each other as siblings.

I'll tell you know knowing your half siblings but knowing your dad but they do totally sucks. Leaves you questioning why they seen him but not me. One of them was a bit awful and would big up her dad around me but run him down to others. They took his surname and I did which I can understand as their mother was once married to him.

Im an adult now and have very little contact with half siblings apart from saying hello to them in passing. Not on bad terms, just not really on any terms other than hello. My mother and their mother are all friendly on Facebook.

and I'm the confused one. It may seem like I know a lot but I really think I deserve more. My mother has always made it shirk how he hurt her which I can understand but she's never given how I feel much thought. I was just expected to accept these kdis I knew were in fact my half siblings. Wondering why I wasn't good enough for him. Wondering why my mother shuts down any talk of him. I found out some stuff from my grandpa but he sadly passed on a couple years ago, I miss him so much, he was a father figure in my life.

to add, I messaged bio dad about 7 years ago he rejected me as said his youngest was going through GCSEs and didn't want to upset her by finding out she had a half siblings she didn't know about. I get that, I really do but I wasn't asking to meet his whole family. I don't know how they've managed to keep me such a big secret when my half sisters knew about me from age 7-9 ish and they would visit. Did it never slip up??

I have so much built up upset on this situation. I try and speak to my partner but he tells me to forget them all and not worry about it. It's easy for him to say, he had much to do with his dad either but he has seen him a bit and isn't in this awkward situation. His dad lives miles away, mine lives 15 minutes away!

I think I would feel better if I had a positive relationship with my mother but it's tense as adults. She's quite difficult for reasons I won't go into!

My word, you deserve a lot better than all this.

You have always deserved a relationship with your dad, although I'm not convinced he deserves one with you.

To have gone through life with you dad dangled tantalisingly out of reach , no wonder your feelings are so confused.

I think you'd benefit from therapy/counselling to help you work through your feelings and achieve a level of peace.

Ultimately, the man who is your dad is someone who seems to have gone through life entirely selfishly, thinking only ever of himself. I suspect his rejection of you was less to do with your teenage half sister and more to do with disruption to his own life.

You need to realise that it is not, nor has it ever been a case of you not being "good enough" for him. He was never good enough for you or your mum, your mum knows as does his first wife. You half siblings taunted you with their relationship with him because was they had with him was so crap, the only way they could attempt to feel any security in it was in making it seem better than your non existent relationship. His current relationship with his youngest children will be entirely facilitated by his wife/partner and won't be anything to do with him.

With people like your dad, it's far better to have no relationship than a shit one. Had you had contact with him, you probably would have cut him out of your life by now.

What you're craving and longing for is a good father and a father-daughter relationship like that you lost in your dear grandfather. You won't find that with your dad and never will have done, he was never the answer. I think if you can separate out your desire for this missing father figure with the the man who biologically sired you, you'll start to feel less confused.

My grandfather was a father figure to me too, he died far too young - it's been 20 years - and I miss him as much now as ever. I try to treasure what I had with him, however brief.

God knows how hard it is for you to live so close to your biological father, putting some physical might help - save on such regular reminders - but I do think therapy is needed here too.

I was going to send you a reply but kat1973 said it so well. I can only reinforce her point that you deserve so much more and need to work on building and maintaining loving relationships with others. It took me 40 years of looking for my dad to finally accept that it wasnt meant to be. Stay strong x

thank you both. Your replied have made me tear up. I've always been made to feel like I'm being dramatic but you are both so kind. I also have two dc, had my oldest at 18 and I think having children heightened this anxiety.

it's not my half siblings fault but they were quite tormenting. But I can't hate them, this is not their fault either, he hadn't been that persistent with them either, but more so than me. It's ironic how our mums have become friends.

I find myself often wondering about his very oldest child. He told my mother he had a child at 17 so they would be into their 40's now I think. I have no idea if male or female or where they are located. He said it was from another part of the country when he worked away at a young age. Would have no idea where to start. I would just love to know if they are okay too.

I miss grandpa so much, I still have granny around but she's glued to the hip to my mum, I feel like they hide stuff!

my mum still says how much he hurt and I get it, I do. But she's happily married with more kids and she's always made what my bio dad did about her.

she even said that if ever met him she'd ask him for all the money he owed her from lack of maintenance (I mean not paying for your kid sucks but I'm in my 30's!) wtaf. She said she would come with me if I ever met him. That would be idea of hell having her there.

honestly, I've spent years hoping he'd reach out (as in op, I did once). But I think that shop has sailed and I need to forget it.

I've always been made to feel like I'm being dramatic...my mum still says how much he hurt and I get it, I do. But she's happily married with more kids and she's always made what my bio dad did about her*

These two sentences really stood out to me. It sounds like a key reason for your unresolved distress and loss is because your experience, your feelings have never been acknowledged let alone validated.

First, by your family and now by your husband.

Well, let me tell you that you are completely justified in feeling as desperately hurt and rejected as you do. It is totally natural and normal to feel the grief and absence of your father from your life and all the confusion that goes with it.

You're not being dramatic. Your hurt is not less valid, or smaller than your mums.

I might be wrong because you say your relationship with her is a difficult one and there are certainly hints in what you've written, but I wouldn't be surprised if much of the anger your mum has for him stems from his rejection of you and her need to protect you when you were a baby. Hugely guessing here, but as an infant you were still very much 'part' of her and it might be that she failed to separate out your experience as you grew in autonomy. In her eyes, your experience was only as infant and was experienced through her.

Given that she moved on to settle with a new husband and have more children, any sense that you continued to feel rejected and lost without your natural father might be taken by her to mean that she massively failed you and she might be unable to face up to that. I could be barking up the wrong tree completely, but Google "enmeshment" and see if it chimes.

I wonder if you need boundaries in your life, in your relationships with your family and extended/half families, especially as you all seem to live in the same area. But boundaries that you choose, not one's defined by them.

Don't know what's going on with the highlighting!