NC for this in case any member of my dads family are on here
I’ll try and say as much as I need to without drip feeding but there is so much that I may miss bits out.
Growing up my dad never made me feel like he wanted me. He’d ignore me asking for help with homework in favour of football, would regularly leave me and my brother on the streets to play until after midnight on school nights. And refused to work or help around the house. When I was 8 I was hit by a car, my mum was out for the day and my dad wouldn’t even leave the house as the football was on. When the police went to get him he refused to take me to hospital as I was fine according to him and told me to go to my room and be quiet until he was ready to talk to me. I was ok thankfully, concussion and cuts and bruises, my mum took me to hospital when she came home. He also used to call my brother a puff or a Jessie because he’d play with my dolls or liked baking with me and my mum or grandmother.
As we got older and wanted to invite friends over he would only allow us to invite friends who were “like us”. So I couldn’t invite my Indian friend over because my dad would say they’d make the house smell or I couldn’t invite a gay friend over because he thought being gay was unnatural. I basically realised that if I was different to him then he’d not like me or want me in his life. He was a homeophobic, racist, hypocritical ass – he’d send us off to church on a Sunday with our grandparents then loudly say he hated religion and didn’t want us involved with religion. He’d also often say that this country is for white people only, if we ever went out anywhere and saw someone who was black or Asian or whatever he’d shout at them to go home.
I never shared his views at all. I have friends from all over the world, different cultures and religions and also different sexualities. As long as you respect me I respect you. I believe we can learn a lot from other cultures and that being a multi-cultural society on the whole is a good thing.
When I went to University at 18 I went very low contact with him. My parents split up during my years at University and that made things easier, as I only now had to speak to my mum.
I don’t blame my mum at all; she thought she was doing her best by us by keeping her family together. And she’s since apologised for not leaving him sooner. We have a great relationship.
My brother still has contact with my dad – that’s his choice. But just recently my brother has been saying things like “It’s not fair that mum is involved in her grandchild’s life and dad isn’t” “he’s really sorry for whatever he’s done to upset you*”. He’s also talking about the wider family saying they want to meet my DC and would love to get to know me again – they never stepped in to help in fact they defended him saying his views were perfectly acceptable. They also allowed my cousins to bully me through school as I was “different” to the rest of the family. My brother never talks about his own friends or anything to my dad or his family, so doesn’t actually behave like himself around them.
I don’t want them around my DC. I want my DC to grow up and feel that they have my acceptance 100%, no matter if they are religious or not, whoever they fall in love with. I don’t want them to think that my dad and his family’s views are my own. Plus my life is so much better and happier without feeling like I have to conform to other people’s ideals of who I should be.
But part of me feels guilty. My brother mentions it regularly saying that it’s not fair to them and DC needs a huge family (my DC is disabled, which I’m not sure what my dad would think of) support around them.
So AIBU to not let him back into my life? I text occasionally maybe 1-2 times a year out of duty, but I am careful to not ask questions I don’t want to hear his views on and I never share my own views.
*basically he doesn’t accept what he’s done wrong and whenever I speak to him about it he starts shouting saying that we live in a country where we have free speech and he can say and do what he likes and is entitled to his views.