Pushing OH to reach out to his father

[incognitopurple]

He last saw his dad as a baby, what we understand is that his mum prevented their contact (believable as she has form for this) and she and OH emigrated when he was little. They were very young having OH

OH, in 20s, is now back living in England and has been for a few years and doesn’t have much family nor a strong relationship with his mum. Last time he contacted his dad was via email and that was several years ago, as far as we know he doesn’t even know he moved back to the UK. His dad however has always kept the same email. They live several hours away from us and he has a family of his own and generally sound like lovely people from the last message exchange.

I think he would love to but he seems apprehensive whenever I broach the subject and says he doesn’t feel successful enough in life yet to introduce himself to him and that it’s a really big deal, and it feels easier not to think about it much. Fear of rejection I think. Totally incomprehensible to me as I grew up in a nuclear family with parents who have been together since the beginning of time! So I don’t have much empathy as I cannot relate. I don’t want to put pressure on him but also, life is so very precious, right? Not only a potential father to him but another set of DGP for future DC, all those happy times.

How could I be more supportive with this?

The way to be supportive is to stop hassling him and accept it is not your decision to make.

Totally incomprehensible to me as I grew up in a nuclear family with parents who have been together since the beginning of time! So I don’t have much empathy as I cannot relate. The whole point fo empathy is understanding the other person - I haven't had my face punched in but I can empathise. I would suggest you do more reading about the topic and work on your empathy.

@carefullycourageous the word you’d be looking for is sympathy not empathy….

op has good self awareness - you can’t understand what it’s like. Just be quietlynsuppprtive if he wants to take it further but absolutely not up to you to push it

Presumably if they have exchanged emails his dad could reach out to him. And he hasn’t. That in itself is a kind of rejection. I agree you should stop mentioning it to your OH. And start working on accepting that your fantasy multi-generational family for future DC just may not be in the cards.

@Discovereads thank you, appreciate your honesty. You are very right! Sometimes you need others perspectives, so thanks everyone.

No, I mean empathy.

In general, 'sympathy' is when you share the feelings of another; 'empathy' is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.

Leave the poor bloke alone. His moms a nightmare and his dads not interested. Nuclear family or not, you should understand this isn't really a choice he can make. There's no happy ending.

I would be a bit wary of pushing this as unfortunately some people's experience of 'family' is very different from the norm. You mention that your OHs parents got together very young My parents were very, very young when they got together. My mother had two children by the time she fifteen, my dad was two years older.

I didn't have parents, I had two squabbling, emotionally unformed children as guardians and the resulting damage done to us children has lasted a lifetime. We were used as weapons in their fighting, each trying to win the victim spot. Is that what your partner's mother was doing?

In hindsight, my parents had no emotional attachment to us children. We were a burden caused by their ignorance and as a consequence were effectively orphans. None of us have relationships with each other or with wider family. It's a complete dysfunctional mess and I believe unfixable.

I'm not sure the happy family scenario that you wish for will easily materialise from email contact and as another pp has pointed out the father isn't falling over himself to reconnect. It may need theraputic intervention particularly as your partner already feels unworthy. Perhaps counselling would be a better suggestion so that he can process his upbringing?

My OH was in a very similar situation to your OH when I met him 28yrs ago. Happy to talk further about specifics if you message me privately.

Sorry for being curt with you, I didn’t mean fantasy in a nasty way- in rereading my post I was a bit harsh. It is sad our DC didn’t have grandparents but I think it bothered me than it bothered the DC as they had aunts and uncles to compensate! So, support him in the sense of being there for him and show him he doesn’t need to chase down a disinterested dad. His dad knows how to contact him.

‘Pushing’ is a terrible idea, ‘supporting’ is the way to go. None of this is about you.