Was anyone rejected by a parent?

[Mooshamoo]

My dad was in my life till I was aged 5. Then my parents broke up and he met a new woman. Once he met the new woman that was it , he didn't want to see me again. He moved to a different country. He sent me a letter when I was a teenager saying he didn't want to see me again.

I naively thought he couldn't possibly mean it. And I went over to see him once when I was an adult. And he told me face to face that he didn't want to see me again. I didn't try again.

He is dead now. I just still feel such burning rage over it.

Me and my brother were in poverty when we were young. I've seen photos of my dad and his girlfriend at this time going off on lovely holidays.

My brothe spent a lot of his teenage years in a psychiatric hospital after cutting his wrists because he was suffering so much. My father was told about this , and he still didn't see my brother at all.

There was a time when we were in temporary emergency accomodation between houses when I was young because I was so poor. He never once asked if we were ok.

I have to accept that my own father didn't give a shit about my poverty and suffering and he didn't give a shit about me.

It's hard to bear. It makes me feel worthless and angry all the time.

I was reading a book about man called Wayne dyer. Wayne dyer had a similar father. Wayne's father left his mother. She had three small boys. His father never contacted them again, and the three boys were so poor that they ended up in foster care. Wayne said he was full of rage to his dad all his life and when he found his dad's grave he went to spit on it.

When he got to the grave he said he had an epiphany, he actually managed to feel forgiveness for his father.
And then his own life improved vastly and he went on to live a good life, and write beat selling books.

I feel like I can't forgive my dad, he let us suffer. It feels hard to get over.

Has anyone been rejected by their parent. And how did you get over it.

I’m so sorry OP that is awful. I don’t speak to an uncle who did this to his daughter, I didn’t even realise he had a daughter until one of his sisters told me one night when she was drunk. I have had nothing to do with him or his second wife since. I really cannot understand how anyone could do this. I hope you manage to heal.

Yes I have it used to really bother me in my teens and early twenties and when I became a parent it hit really hard as I couldn’t understand it! I love my children so much!

weirdest set up was I still saw every family member of his accept him! Soo strange!
Im older now and don’t even think about him never crosses my mind.

If I were in your position I would be researching the legal laws of his country to get everything I was entitled to. Many countries have far stricter inheritance laws than we do and go after the surviving spouse if they feel they witheld information about natural born children.

Yes me, my Mum and Dad split up when she was pregnant with me. He saw me once at six weeks old then nothing. My Mums new partner did warn him off but still he didn't even try.

I met him at 17. He told me then he wasn't bothered about me because he didn't 'know' me, he did see my brother a few times (he was four).

He also told me that he wasn't bothered for the 17 years as he went on to have another daughter so he didn't need me.

I tried. Again and again. He didn't care. He made sure I knew his new daughter was really the only daughter he cared about. That everything he had would be left to her (he didn't pay any maintenance - I also didn't care about having anything)

I gave up in the end. It hurts. I think rejection from a parent is a really hard thing to deal with - they are supposed to love you. Your Mum and Dad being the two people that always have your back and love you no matter what.

I had counselling and that helped but it still hurts.

I really hope he dies before me and I feel free. I don't want him to know about my life and the odd person does pass things on I suspect.

I don't know, OP. I'm in a different situation to you but similar elements. Unlike you my feelings don't turn in on myself i.e. I don't feel "rejected" as such; I know full well that my dad is just a completely defective, narcissistic, abusive POS and it's not a reflection on me at all. So I'm afraid I don't have any advice on that score, other than to reassure you (as I'm sure your logical brain knows) that all of the blame and shame rests with your father, and isn't a reflection on you whatsoever. But I do feel eaten up with hate, anger and bitterness at times. And to pinch a well-used phrase, this anger is akin to "drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die". So I also need to learn how to forgive, or at least find some peace with the situation, and move forward. Easy peasy in theory but I cannot for the life of me put it into practice.

I’m not in this situation- but I always think do the new partners honestly think they have a catch if their oh has abandoned a child? Is that an attractive quality? The mind boggles! I think a lot stick their head in the sand not thinking that dc will eventually become an adult with questions!

Yes. Three times. My adoptive father when I was 11 and both birth parents as an adult. And my adoptive father again recently when I went to visit him. He told me not to bother going again, There must be something truly wrong with me.

No, there is something wrong with THEM.

My father
My mother is a narc
the rest of the family are either flying monkeys or her fleas
I'm the scapegoat-it all came to a head over a phone bill and I went nc
My father is so scared of my mother he took her side
About a year later,I rang him to try and make amends with him and he coldly told me to fuck off and that he never wanted to hear from me again
He stuck to it-he tells people he has three sons-ive been whitewashed out of the picture
It hurts like fuck-just typing this makes me want to cry,but I've rebuilt my family with people who do love me have my back and would never cut me out if their lives

It's his loss

My df was a very absent one as a small dc. As a teen I made contact. When I had my first dc he was a hands on dgf. His dw seemed a similarly doting dgm. She hit 40 and decided she wasn't really a dgm.
Df backed slowly off. They won big money. Dc didn't get as much as a bag of sweets. He paid zero to raise me. Not a penny for any of us. I backed away.. Not because of the money but who would do that? . I started a new relationship and was encouraged to contact him. I rang. His dw shouted they had no room for any bloody dc. I hung up.. 23 years ago.
His loss.. Easy to live with actually.. He has no idea how many dgc he even has..

Very similar upbringing to yours. He went off to make a brand new life for himself, with a new woman, had another child. No subsequent contact with us, his children.

The way I see it is that some people are really not meant to be parents, but then anyone can have a child. I never had a father, he was just a sperm donor. I am generally fine with it, but there are moments I catch myself thinking, just for a split second, how could he leave his own babies behind and start a brand new life, without even so much as a backward glance at us? How could he just leave my mother to fend for us alone, without any resources or help? But then that passes and I remember he’s just another person, who fathered me but was never my father.

My parents split when I was around six. He was present in our lives ie a weekly visit lasting around 2 hrs but like you OP, we were in poverty while he had a nice lifestyle with his new partner. My Mum used to practically beg him for help with clothes and food for us and nine tines out of ten he claimed not to have any money. I remember we would have nothing and have to watch my mum struggle and he would show us his holiday photographs. The strange thing is that years later when I confronted him he was shocked. He actually thought that his visits were enough. He's elderly now and in residential care. Only one of his 6 children visit him. I don't feel angry with him or hate him because that is pointless but equally I don't feel any warmth or love for him. Nor do I feel at all any less of a human because he didn't love us. That's his problem not ours.

My mum left my dad when she I was 2yr and she was heavily pregnant with my brother and my dad was drunk (he liked a drink)
and he battered her. She had to lock us in my bedroom and then grab our things and we then went to live with my grandparents until she had my brother and could find us a home of our own. My dad stayed in the home they owned together.

He was too into drinking and dealing drugs to care about us. My mum struggled mentally with us and she often had enough and would take us to our dads and only way to wake him up was for her to throw stones at his bedroom window until he woke up. We had no toys there and was just plonked infront if the tv whilst he drank or he would take us in his BMW whilst he passed packages onto various people in all sorts of places. Contact stopped when I was about 8/9 and my dad moved away to other end of country. He married a woman and they lived in an expensive area whilst we grew up in poverty. My mum would have to take us to her parents to be fed, we had no hot water for over a year and my brother was so badly behaved and stopped going to school from a young age. He’s now an alcoholic with mental health issues.

I always thought why me stuck with these as parents and just got myself out by marrying at 19yr even tho he was a shit who ended up leaving me with 2 small children. I have worked hard tho and gone to uni and got a decent career and my own home now. My dad turned up out of blue one day and didn’t say much just kinda hi I’m here and I lost it with him and said wish he was dead. He died couple year after and left me and my brother £100 each his wife got rest.

It hurts and has damaged me and my brother and I get fustrated when other people don’t appreciate how lucky they were to have 2 loving parents but it’s made me try and be the best mum I can to my 3 and always promise them they can come to me no matter what no matter what age and I will always be there for them.

My kids' dad has done this to them. He might as well be dead. The man is scum.

Can't remember my dad, my mum left him when I was 8 months old, he was an abusive asshole from what I've been led to believe.
I apparently used to scream the house down when he came to get me, the last time he came for me I was so worked up that my mum refused to let me go, and we never seen him again.
I used to wonder why I wasn't good enough for him, or even how that could be possible at such a young age, but now understand that it was his loss, he wasn't good enough to be my dad and I'm better off for him leaving.

Mine father fucked off before I was born and I’ve never met him. I have been through curiosity, indifference and general confusion and then pure hatred once I had my own children: having my own made me realise what a completely morally bankrupt man he is/was.

I’m still angry but it doesn’t consume me. It’s not an ‘active’ anger if that makes sense? I just don’t want to know him. He can’t be a good person.

My father has rejected me more recently.

Parents split when I was 5 and he collected my brother and I EOW and I lived with him for a few years as a teenager at one point.

He was hard to please and at times would not be in touch for a few weeks if I hadn’t followed his advice about something but we’d always end up in touch again.

When he retired he moved abroad and got married and it’s like he replaced his whole family with the new wife and her daughter.

He did keep in touch with my daughter though.

When my mum died he contacted my brother and offered support etc but nothing for me. A few days passed and I sent him a message saying I needed him. I was struggling and could he please please just offer his daughter some comfort.

He read the message and ignored it and never contacted me again.

no explanation. He speaks with my adult DD and my brother regularly though.

I think he felt I was saying he was being a rubbish father and was so insulted I’m now just dead to him.

The pain of believing I was just not worth a phone call to help when I was so in pain is something I will never forgive him for. I’ve spent 5 years with a niggling doubt that I must be an awful person if my own dad couldn’t even comfort me.

Yep me. During cancer and my DC having mother of all battles with MH. They struggled with me challenging them, but finally admitted "we can't speak to X (sib) as we speak to you as we will lose a child". I may be six figures down, but I have broken history of dysfunction for my children and that is priceless. My family my world. Do not be bitter but grateful for chance to change. Difficult, ongoing but so important.

Ps when I told my father that during my cancer all I needed was him to say "don't know what to say but love you". He answered "it's all about what u want and you need". Honestly tough but you are better than this, learn and he kind.

You are healing by not being like him, by understanding impact of behaviour. Pls speak to someone. By forgiving then forgetting him, you are there better person. BW

Different circumstances to yours but Richard McCann is an author and motivational speaker and writer

His childhood was marred by being the son of Wilma McCann who was horrifically murdered by Peter Sutcliffe when he was little. There was the added stigma of the press referring to Wilma as being a prostitute.

He faces immense hardship growing up and sadly his sister couldn't overcome the trauma and eventually killed herself when she was an adult.

Richard now has a family of his own and has had to conquer many negative feelings and emotions in his life.

His books and his talks are well worth a read in helping you overcome a troubled childhood and the complex feelings of relationships with family members.

My father was never very interested in me and left with his latest light o'love when I was eight. Talked about what "sweet kids" her daughters were. He had the nerve to write to my mother decades later on what would have been their wedding anniversary (they'd been divorced longer than they were married) asking her to facilitate him "getting to know me" - as if she'd have gone along with that stupid, underhanded idea! I took great pleasure in writing back that he had his chance to get to know me when I was a child, and he wasn't interested, and btw did his wife know he was pulling this shit?

No loss when that fuckwit died a few years ago.

I am so sorry for all of your experiences. Much different angle to yours but I've lived with a father that was always emotionally removed from any responsibility as a father. He would live his own life until he ran out of money and cocklodge at our family home. I'm angry at my mother for allowing us to live under the same roof with him where he checked in and out of all duties as a father and husband. He never loved us or cared. He ducked off back to his home country, sold all his inheritance, went off with other women and then had the audacity to come back home once all of his money finished and guess what, my spineless mother accepted him. Whilst he was doing that, we were living in poverty and he was dining in restaurants with prostitutes. Me and my siblings caught him with ow so many times even before he fucked off . No wonder why I have anger issues and hate his fucking guts and angry at my mum for not kicking his sorry ass.

THEY are wrong, NOT you. Poor, sad, inadequate people. You are worth ten of each of them.