My dad rejected me

[Carly944]

Hi my parents divorced when I was 5 . I remember my mum and dad fighting for a while. Then my dad met a new woman. And that was it really. He didn't want to see me again

. He sent me a letter when I was 16 saying that he didn't want to see me again. I was very young and I thought at that time that he couldn't possibly mean what he said. Everyone I knew at that time had some contact with their dad. So I just found the idea of me never seeing my father ever again, unfathomable.

I had this strong desire to see him. He lived in a different country. I got his address from a relative. I went over to see him when I was in my early twenties. I went to his house. He was polite but cold to me on the day. he said to me that he would see me again.

I went back home and he sent me a letter saying that he had changed his mind, that he didn't want to see me ever again.

I had a bit of a breakdown at the time after getting his letter. it affected me very badly. Even now when I talk to a therapist about it. She says to me "going to see your dad and having him reject you is a huge trauma".

It's sad, you know when I was in my early twenties, I should have been enjoying myself and going out partying.

Instead, I was having to deal with my dad. After he sent me the letter, I never tried to see him again. And he is now dead.

How do you get over a father rejecting you. I still feel so deeply wounded by it. I can't seem to accept it. I've gone to therapy so many times over it and it hasn't helped. I'm still always hurt and angry. It just feels like the deepest rejection. Your parents aren't meant to reject you. I know he didn't deserve me and I wasted my time on him. But I just can't see, to accept what happened. I'm always in pain. I wonder how to accept it and try to heal..? Has anyone been through similar.?

@Carly944 Its shocking isn't it. Its even harder I think to be treated badly by people who are otherwise good - like your uncle. As you say, it is down to that ability to compartmentalise. And I think even mostly "good" people are often keen in the idea of being good people but also want to make their own lives comfortable (keep relationship with brother in your uncles case, in other cases it might be financial, domestic comforts etc). Anything for an easy life in other words. So in order to keep that materially easy life and the psychological comfort of being a good person there is either a lot of self-justification/weird rationalisations that go on or they just compartmentalise.

What I'm saying is (and you know this anyway) it isn't you. Its a known psychological phenomenon. Men are (and this is a huge generalisation) less likely to criticise other men in their in group than women are to criticise women. Sometimes that's a positive (less purity spiralling) but in the case of your uncle he would have had to square his own family values with the fact that his brother (whom he has most loyalty to) had acted in a terrible way. That's a very hard place to be mentally, its much easier just not to face it. Which is probably what he means by "preserving his own relationship with his brother" as a justification for cutting you of. But you could take that as confirmation that really even his own brother knows what your father did was wrong.

This is heartbreaking OP. Agree with all the posts above about how this rejection was nothing to do with you as a person as he never really knew you. Nevertheless, he did reject you and it seems so unnatural. This therefore sounds to me that your dad himself had serious issues which he probably never addressed. I’m going to put some things out here and I don’t expect you to answer them
here, but if it’s useful to bring them or what they bring up to therapy, I hope it helps.

What was his own father like? Or his mother? Maybe he was deeply depressed. Maybe he was abused as a child which woke issues in him he couldn’t face / were triggered by your birth. So he walked away he might have felt to protect you from himself? Are any of his siblings or parents or cousins around for you to find out anything about what his childhood /past was like? What was he like as a father for the few years he was in your life, from your mother’s perspective, you prob don’t rem? How did he meet the new woman? What was his relationship like with your mother? Was he afraid of responsibility? Why did it break down according to her? What is your mum like? What is your mum like in relationships? Could your dad have been traumatized or abused in that situation? Did your dad talk about any of that or anything in the past or his new woman when you met him? You said he was cold- that he can turn off his feelings seems like the way he learned to cope in the world, or maybe his temperament; is there a chance he was neurodivergent? Also, the relationship with the new woman. Maybe she gave him an ultimatum, his past life or her. Lust /love is blind. what was /is she like? Maybe she had some hold over him if he said he did want to see you when you went to see him then didn’t. Did you ever meet her or anyone who knows her? Did he have other children ? What are they like if so? Do you have older cousins who would have been around when you were small and might have feelings on what it was like in your home?

I think the way out of it is to really feel how this rejection is in your body and own and accept it; as painful as it is. also while he totally did reject parenthood and you (which are hard to extricate from eachother for you as the person affected so deeply by this) the way to peace might be to find forgiveness for the unforgivable - not to let him off but to give yourself peace. And the start of that process might be to find some compassion for him - to see the situation as it might have been from his perspective. What happened here is unnatural. if you have any leads on what was going on in his own childhood or past to lead him to behave like this. I hope you’re ok.

Just see about your uncle @Carly944 - would he talk now that your dad is passed? If you explain the impact this has had on you, in a context of coming from the common ground of a mutual love if you like of trying to understand your dad.

I've met my father's brother james, and my father's brother is exactly the same as my father, he is cold and cruel and uncaring.

I spoke to james once when I was a teenager. I asked him for help.

I asked him to please get my dad to get in contact with me, that my life was very hard.

James wrote back to be my email, and told me that it was my fault that my dad wouldn't speak to me, because I had been a nasty child

. I pointed out that I Had been a child when my dad stopped speaking to me. But my uncle still blamed me.

That shows you how cold my dad's family are.

They are cold people.

your uncle’s response most definitely had the effect i imagine he intended- to stop you asking more questions. There’s no such thing as a natty child. I imagine there was a disregulated child who needed connection. The fact you say they’re all cold. People are not born cold. They close up as a coping mechanism to survive in a cold/painful situation / childhood.

I'm sorry but I think you bit naive of how abuseive some families can be,

My uncle is not a uncle in any way shape or form to me.

I had to speak to my uncle a couple of times after my dad died.

Every time i spoke to my uncle, my uncle was nasty cruel and abusive to me. He insulted me and he was cruel to me.

He told me it was my fault my dad wouldn't speak to me, because I was nasty.
I said tohim, well why wouldn't dpad speak to my brother then either.?

And I again said that we were young children when my dad abandoned us. how could it be our fault.

Knowing that my dad abandoned me is one thing. Going over and getting blamed for it by my uncle, when I was an innocent child when it happened, is too much for me to bear.

My uncle is horrible.

We don't speak any more at all now.

Of course there's no such thing as a nasty child.

It's just easier for my uncle to think

"They were nasty children," that's why my brother left them

rather than him thinking

"My brother abandoned his two children".

He is a horrible person

Is there any chance that you are not biologically his?

My dad did the same to me..
Time heals. I invested in my step dad instead and realised I didn't need him

When he died. I went to the funeral but honestly didn't feel anything other than pity fir hik that he missed out on his grandchildren etc

He had detached himself as yours has. Its his way of coping with a failed marriage

That wasn't my intention and I was wondering whether that may have been the situation whereby her father might have felt that way (which would be on him not her mother) but the OP has indicated that isn't the case here. Sorry if that was triggering for you in some way.

Only hurt people hurt people intentionally. I so hope you find the answers you need to try and make some sense of what seems to makes no sense at all.

Sorry if that was triggering for you in some way.

The OP has said this isn't the situation but it was merely a suggestion as to why a man may have acted in such a way as so many do feel like this as unreasonable as that may be. The OP is looking for answers and it was a suggested one. But I do apologise if it hit a nerve for you.

No.

He was married to my mother for many years before she gave birth to my brother, than to me.

We were born while they were marred t each other

After my parents divorced, he met a new woman. Once he met the new woman, he just cut us off. he stopped talking to both me and my brother.

He just moved on. He is far from the only man who has cut off his biological children.

He didn't reject YOU.
He rejected the idea of having a child and his past life.
He didn't know you when he made those decisions and statements.
This is very much a him problem and nothing you could have done would have changed that.

I'm so sorry to read that OP , I had similar from my mother so I feel that pain

Not sure I ever got over it but I came to terms that it said more about her than me
I decided not to let her ruin my life so set out to be the best I could and not give her another thought

Please continue the therapy , make the most of others around you who love and value you .. live your best life and a quiet "fuck you " now and again has done me ok 💐❤️
Take care of you

I think what added to my trauma is , my dad cut me off. I was completely innocent. I was an innocent child.

Then just had the second trauma of dealing with my dad's family later on. When I saw someone my dad's family much later, they blamed me.

They said it was my fault to make it all sound better to themselves

They said "oh we heard you were nasty to your dad when you were a child that's why he wouldn't see you.

I said "first of all I was a child'

". And second of all so your saying that if child is nasty to their adult dad,

that dad should never speak to them again for the rest of their entire life? That makes no sense at all"

My dad's family still see my dad as having done no wrong whatsoever

Tough advice alert.

You will not get what you are looking out of this. You want something you won’t get: justice, truth, an apology, validation.

My sister had a very tough life. Initially at the hands of my father but mostly at the hands of herself. She refused to let go and move on. She held on to childhood trauma and let it define her. Everything was always everyone else’s fault. She made the bad things that happened to her the defining story of her life. She had plenty of time to write a new one, but didn’t. She mentally repeated the wrongs done to her daily, lived in the past. She never recovered until she passed away a couple of years ago.

You have let your father and uncle’s actions define you. You have blamed them for everything wrong in your life. But from adulthood, you are responsible for your life. You are responsible for what you do now. Get help but bit by bit you need to build your life up one small change at a time.

But do not wallow. Don’t look at the bits of your life you don’t like and think “this is all his fault”. When you take responsibility, you will change your life for the better and see him for what he is: irrelevant.

He chose to walk away from your life when you were five - he hasn't changed his mind.

You're choosing to let this take over your life - it may not be what you want, but its out of your control.
Your life would have been different - but if it had included growing up with warring parents, it could have been a lot worse.

I agree with you in one way. That we are responsible for our adult lives.

But I disagree with you in other ways. People with bad childhoods can't just choose to move on. If they could they would

I've tried so much to be able to move on. I wake up every morning sweatjn after having nightmares about my uncle. I'm a Wreck.

I look at my cousins who had really nice happy childhoods. They have great adult lives now.

Then I look at my brother, who had same bad childhood as me.

he is a complete mess. He has just been admitted into psychiatric hospital for care. He is severely depressed.

People can only go through so much trauma

He didn't reject you, he failed you. He was the parent, he was suppose to love you, care for you, provide for you and mind you, but he failed you. Unfortunately meeting you again only reminded him of his own failings and wrong doings, he could have owned it, apologised and tried to renew a relationship with you or do what he did which was to break your heart again and ignore all the hurt and pain he caused. From what you said and what he did, be thankful he wasn't in your life because he would have caused you constant heartache. He didn't deserve you then and he doesn't deserve you now, even with him passing.He lost out and he was completely at fault. It could help to write a letter to him, letting out all the hurt and anger and then burning the letter. It really does help, then you have to let him go. He had caused you too much pain already, don't let have anymore.

Reading that again I think that's very harsh of you to your sister.

Some people cannot overcome the trauma they went through as children. Your childhood plays a huge part in who you become.

The people that I know.

The ones that had good childhoods are all happy and having lovely lives.

The women that I know that had bad childhoods, child sexual abuse, or absent fathers, or abusive father's,

are now struggling in their adult lives.

Thanks for that thatnimblegoose. Yeah maybe I'll write a letter in it with all my hurt and anger in it, then burn it.

I had a difficult childhood. I’m not going to go into the detail of it.

The advice I gave above is what I learnt. Healing doesn’t happen until there’s a mindset shift. Half my siblings learnt that and half of them didn’t. Nothing works, including therapy, until you accept responsibility for your adult life.

Therapy that coaches you to empower yourself is key here. That supports you to find who you are and an identity outside of what happened to you.

I will always be shaped by my difficult childhood. I accept that. But there’s also a me here who has interests and goals.

It’s really common with childhood trauma for people to spend their entire lives reliving it and blaming it for everything that’s gone wrong. Therapy to process it won’t work unless you change your mindset before going into that room. It doesn’t have to be a seismic shift but just a little thought that I need to be responsible for what happens going forward.

It gets harder as you get older because your personality just becomes what happens to you.

Believe it helps, but keep remembering you and your brother did nothing wrong to deserve what your father did. It was all him, and shame on your uncle for what he said and did. Be kind to yourself, unfortunately some of us, are unlucky with the parents we get in life. It's not out fault, it's just the way it is, and nothing we do can change that but we can change how it impacts us.

With due respect, you don’t know my sister. I did.

Of course it’s more of a struggle. It’s not fair. It’s shit. It’s hard. Learning the tools to emotionally recover and re-build a life isn’t easy. And triply hard if you grow up poor.

What do you want from this? It has to be something you can get. Healing you can get. An apology, you won’t.

You know why you’re getting nightmares. And it’s dreadful. But you have to after the things you can get. Not re-live the moment the awful things happened, trapped in the past.

I’ll always be ‘damaged‘. Someone once called me damaged goods. But I love myself now and show myself kindness and understanding. I accept responsibility for my choices and that made my recovery longer.