DF is in his late forties. He moved to London from Yorkshire where we live when I was eight to pursue an acting career which has never amounted to anything other than a few adverts and extra parts. He's practically living in poverty down there in some shitty bedsit in a bad area. Before he moved he always had middle earning jobs and was able to afford luxuries. I saw him every weekend but soon after he moved that became one weekend a month before eventually turning into 2-3 times a year when I was about 11. I always stuck by him and his pipe dream until I had my own DC...
Have 3 DC. He saw the eldest about 4 times in the 15 months before DC2 was born, he's seen DC2 about 3 times. Never met DC3 who is now 15 months old. He promised (completely unprompted) that when DH returned to work after paternity when we had DC3 that he would come to visit and stay for a couple of weeks. I was so excited, thought it would be lovely for DC to bond with their GF who was always a stranger to them when he visited because the gaps between visits were so large.
When it came to the time of his visit I messaged him to find out what date he would be coming. He said money was tight so he wasn't sure yet. Now, it costs £20 on the coach which he always gets and he stays with my GM for free which she absolutely loves and has no issues with. We would happily have paid the £20... So this started off a bit of suspicion but I left it. Messaged him a fortnight or so later to find out if he knew when it'd be yet and he then said he'd come down with a chest infection so couldn't until he was better. Didn't hear from him until two days before Christmas when he informed me he still had the chest infection (three months on!) and would be missing Christmas... I was very upset obviously. Two months later he said he now had a non-alcoholic fatty liver and was waiting on test and scan results. In June he said the levels of something or another in his liver had come down but were still quite high and he had high cholesterol. Then a couple of weeks ago was the next I heard about it.
My GM came to visit and she reluctantly told me his liver was all better and now his only issue was that his pee wasn't flowing properly 
. She acted as if telling me was some big revelation, she said she'd call him as soon as she got home to let him know she'd told me. She also said she's been very concerned about him and has been losing sleep. She's not getting any younger and lives alone, she really misses him obviously... She said she thought he was hiding something from her but he swore he wasn't (and she does not take swearing on something lightly.) Shortly after she left I got a text from him to tell me she'd got it wrong and that his liver was still fatty , I'm not sure how she'd manage to get something like that wrong tbh...
I don't know much about fatty liver but DH said his Dad has one and lives with it perfectly normally, works long hours and so on. So I'm not sure how much it'd stop you travelling... I think the fact he still lives down there is ridiculous anyway. He has no quality of life down there and I highly doubt he's going to get his big break now in his late forties. He's completely missing his GC growing up, missed more than half of my life and his DM isn't getting any younger. I know it's his life and he doesn't have to be involved in his GC's lives but it makes me incredibly sad that he wouldn't want to be.
I've considered that he could be in a really shit position financially and is embarrassed about it but he's sent the DC vouchers for their birthdays with a moonpig card. The only other thing is that it's a really serious illness like cancer or cirrhosis of the liver and he's playing it down/lying to us. But I really don't see why he'd keep something like that from us, especially from his DM who is a holy woman and really wouldn't take lying lightly. Also I'm very dubious about my GM getting it so drastically wrong like that, it's a big thing to get wrong- the difference between him being better and still being ill! And it's not like her to get things wrong (she's not elderly enough for memory problems and doesn't have dementia.)
I have no idea what's going on. It's worrying but also frustrating. I've lost my patience with it all, a long time ago tbh. I just want to have my DF around and my DC to have a GF. My DM's DP suddenly died earlier this year at 50 and seeing his young DD have to come to terms with life without a Dad really made me want mine around. I asked him to visit but he said he couldn't because of the illness . None of this is like him, he certainly never would have missed Christmas and it's looking like this will be the second Christmas missed. April will be two years since we last saw him...
Wdyt? Is he lying? What can I do? I'm not a fan of confrontation and he's very passive aggressive which just winds me up. It's not viable for us to visit either. We'd have to get the train which costs a fortune, spend 3 hours on the train with 3 young DC and then have to fork out for a hotel which we don't have money for. Whereas he just needs to think about himself and pay the £20 coach fare.