Relationship with my dad (sorry, long)

[AwakeCantSleep]

Back story: my mum and dad never married and split up before I was born, after 3 years together. I'm from one EU country and my father is from another, but he lived close to our home for my entire childhood. I saw him regularly, and my mum encouraged it. I'm in my thirties now, he is 77. He has two older children from his first marriage.

Trying to cut a very long story short, I have never had a close emotional bond with my dad. I am not sure why this is. I've had a very loving and supportive upbringing, surrounded by close relatives. My mum and I are very close.

My dad returned to his home country when I was 19. Since then I have rarely seen him. We don't have regular contact.

This last week my mum and I went to visit him in his country for the first time. I have found this quite difficult. I just can't get over the fact that my dad never told his own mother (who passed away years ago) of my existence (illegitimate child, she wouldn't approve). I only found out about this in my twenties (having received presents supposedly from her, by him, throughout my childhood).

I now feel unable to love, or even really like him, because he was ashamed of me, a kind, talented and intelligent girl. Even now it makes me feel deeply inadequate.

I have two issues now: a) am I being unreasonable to not want to have a relationship with my father? And b) am I being unreasonable to disagree with my mother who thinks that I should be more involved, and also that the lack of a bond and relationship is partly my fault?

Thanks for getting this far; it feels good to have written all this down for the first time.

Just to add, I'm not a new user. I for some reason couldn't reset my password so had to create a new login.

Its not your fault, you are the child. Even if you're grown up now.

Have you had any help with this? Counselling?

To an outsider, the contact he had with you until you were nineteen outweighs not telling his (Catholic?) mum that he had an illegitimate child.

But you and your dad never had a close emotional bond. Does he have that with anyone? Older men, particularly if they were brought up in hard circumstances, were trained not to connect, not to show emotion. My mum's just died. My dad had a red rose put in the coffin with her because she lost the rose he gave her the night they met. How loving, caring, romantic is that? She spent years thinking he didn't love her. If she could have just known that he loved her, decades of suffering could have been avoided. He's a bit older than your dad, but not much.

Choices here for you:

Go on as you are. Suffer because you feel you were unloved. Miss the later years of your father's life and never have the chance to try to help things 'get right'.

Get help. Sort out your head and make your own decision about what you want from this relationship. Fairly quickly. Life is time-limited.

Suck it up and try to be the dutiful daughter even though you don't feel it. Not easy.

Thanks very much Left. I am very sorry for your loss. These must be very difficult times for you and your family.

Hmm, you've hit a chord there. My dad has a much closer relationship with his two older children, especially his son (9 years older than me). Both children grew up with him living at home for a large part. You are right in that he probably doesn't communicate emotions well at all, and also doesn't realise the impact his actions (or lack thereof) have on me.

He has form for not telling people about me. His mum has now passed away, but just this past week when I was visiting it turned out that he didn't introduce me to various people as his daughter. They would swear that he only has two children.

I've never had counselling for it but I'm considering it now. Because of the way things have gone in the last 20 years or so I don't think my issues with my dad will ever be fully resolved. The best I can hope for I guess is a state where we don't miss out on each others' lives but equally don't pretend to be best friends when we really aren't.

My mum hasn't been helpful in this (when she usually is very helpful) as she has many happy memories of him and their time together. She used to have a close bond with his older children, too. So I guess I'll have to get through this one on my own.

Thanks for your advice, it has been very useful to get an outsider's perspective on this.