Considering cutting my DF out of my life, but can't. Help.

[BellaOfTheBalls]

Sorry this will be long to avoid drip feeding!

My 'D'F left my DM when I was 4. He instantly shacked up with someone else (his secretary, although he claims there was no overlap, I have seen it cited in the divorce papers he signed) and they had two children, my (half) brothers who I have a great relationship with. He then left the OW for someone else, they married and by the time I was 15 had moved 200 miles away. The relationship began to break down from there. My stepmother made it abundantly clear from her behaviour that she would rather we were not in her home, arranged visits dwindled and she would regularly make other plans on weekends that we visited.

I moved considerably closer to them (an hours drive) when I was 22, but rarely saw him. When I had DC's, he would visit occasionally but as I don't drive and public transport from my home to his took over 3 hours returning the trips was difficult, plus their home is not child friendly in the slightest. There have been other incidents where we arranged for him to visit, I waited all day with then 3yo DS1 and newborn DS2 all day, but he never turned up, and because he has no mobile phone (or email, FB or internet for that matter) I couldn't contact him. We then moved closer to my DM & DSF (both of whom are wonderful & very supportive) as DH was offered a better job. This meant by the time DS2 was 10 months old he had seen DF three times in his life.

In the 2.5 years since we moved the relationship has deteriorated further, we have see him once in that time and only because we visited him. He claims his business (running a bed & breakfast) prevents him from visiting, but still manages 2 one week holidays in other areas of the country. We speak on the phone probably once every 6-8 weeks. During our last conversation he asked me about the DC's birthdays. They are his only grandchildren and he couldn't remember what dates their birthdays were. DS1's birthday was last week and he has received nothing, not even a phone call. I haven't chased DF on it, partly as I was expecting it, he has forgotten all of his own children's birthdays prior to now and partly because I know he'll give me a big elaborate excuse, apologise profusely and I will tell him it's fine and not to worry about it.

But it doesn't feel fine. It's yet another let down. I've not mentioned it to my DS1 as I want to protect them from it, I don't want them to feel like I have done. I'm hopeless with confrontation, and a complete soft touch. I want to hate him, I want to tell him to fuck off and to never give him another thought but I can't. I thought that made me the bigger person but I think it might just make me a doormat.

These are all normal valid feelings aren't they? My DH gets very protective of me and our DC's when it comes to this and finds it very difficult to discuss it with me without getting angry on my behalf, hence this post. My siblings have pretty much removed him from their lives, but none of them have children & part of me feels like I shouldn't prevent my children having a relationship with their grandfather.

Thanks, if you got this far.

for you.
It's not a nice feeling at all when someone who should care for and about you, doesn't.

I would let the relationship slip away if it were me. He hasn't been a major part of your life apart from biologically and you do have a father figure in the shape of your DSF.

You can't make anyone love and engage with you, even a parent, who we all hope would do both of those things, and I think that you and your DCs will be much happier concentrating on those who do.

You don't have to 'prevent' a relationship forming between your DCs and your F, but I wouldn't go banging my head against his brick wall. Leave it for him to drive the contact and see where that gets you.

you know the saying...

"if you would cross oceans to see someone, but they wouldn't cross a puddle to see you",

well that says it all.

don't bother with your father.

if he contacts you ..okay.
if he doesn't, .........okay.
if he makes to effort to see your dc...okay.

focus on what you have got...not on what you haven't.

don't waste your emotional energy on someone who doesn't waste theirs.

have a good day.

He was a rubbish father to you and is now not altogether surprisingly a rubbish grandfather to his grandchildren. Such selfish at heart people do not change and your dad is a prime example of that selfishness.

If someone else was telling you all this what would your own counsel be?.

Can you elaborate more on why a small part of you feels that you should not prevent your children having a relationship with this man?. The answers to that would be informative.

Societal convention is not enough to keep such a relationship going and I think you still hope against both hope and experience that he will eventually show enough interest to keep a relationship going. He showed no real interest in you as a child and you want things to be different for your own children. Perhaps you hoped when you had children yourself that he would somehow change and become an actually decent human being. That has not happened.

I would say to you that your children need both positive and life affirming role models, not selfish people like your dad whose only interest in life is getting his own needs and wants met. I think that counselling for your own self re your relationship with your dad would also be helpful, you need to find a counsellor though that you can work with so the first person you see may not necessarily be the right one for you.

I found the strength to cut my father out when I was pg with my first child.
I didn't visit him in hospital when he was dying ( which he claimed to be quite regularly) and didn't go to the funeral
No regrets whatsoever

I wouldn't actively cut him out of your life - sounds as though you just need to try and accept him for what he is and take a passive stance. The others sum it up well.

part of me feels like I shouldn't prevent my children having a relationship with their grandfather.

Trying to phrase this sensitively but what is the good of maintaining a relationship when there is no input from him? Your dad wasn't cut out to be a family man - not his own family, anyway. I'm afraid that appears to extend to his GDC too.

Once your DCs are old enough, if they are curious about their GF they can hear about him and decide if they want to contact him. By the time they are 15 or 16 your F may not be around any more in any case.

This wasn't your doing. You shouldn't feel responsible for trying and failing to draw a grown man into your life. There are two sides to every story, sure - but sometimes people in our lives are quite happy to be one-dimensional. He made his choices a long time ago.

I don't think cutting him out of your life would help you quite honestly. What you crave is a closer relationship and some evidence that he cares but, from the potted history you've outlined, it's clear he only cares for himself leaving a litter of used up and worn out children and women in his wake. So you have to see him for what he is rather than what you wish he was and lower your expectations.

FWIW one of my grandmothers was very distant. Like your father she had a fondness for the opposite sex that resulted in various children and failed marriages. Unlike your father she was a rather violent and aggressive woman. I think I saw her two or three times in my whole life (she died when I was in my late thirties), never received a birthday card, she didn't attend my wedding and so forth. What I would like to reassure you is that I don't miss the woman in the slightest. She wasn't part of my life at all so there was a genetic link but no relationship. So your DCs won't suffer.

I don't understand what is so magical about this concept of 'grandparents' that people put up with shit parents in order to facilitate contact between their parents and their children.

Seriously, apart from the name 'grandfather', what value will he add to your DC's life?

As far as I'm concerned you only get to be a grandparent if you put in the hard work as a parent first. If you can't be arsed being a parent, then you can sod off about wanting to be a grandparent!

I think that's harsh HayDayQueen. Becoming a parent often happens when people are at the peak of being young and stupid. Just because they mess up with their own DCs it doesn't mean they can't learn from the mistakes and be a better grandparent to DGCs twenty or thirty years down the track. This man's clearly no good at both roles but you take the point....

Yes, but having the chance to be a good parent doesn't stop when a child grows up. He fucked up earlier, and he could do SOOOO much to make up for it to his daughter, but instead he's STILL messing it up as a parent, even now! Unless he tries there, he shouldn't have the right to try to be a grandparent.

Huh. Personally I think your kids are better off without a "role model" such as this in your life.

You cannot force people to love their family. Stop trying.

You say that you shouldn't "prevent" your children from having a relationship with their grandchildren, and that is true. But that's not what is happening here.

You cannot force your father to be a grandfather to your children.

Just let go. It sounds like you are desperately trying to give him a chance to prove that he isn't just a cheating sack of shit, and can actually be a good parental figure given half the chance. I think you are being too naive.

Both my grandfathers died before I was born, so I never missed them. I'm not convinced your children are going to care either way whether they see a rather selfish man once every 2 years or not.

I have other older male figures in my life who have been utterly fab, I would shift the focus away from feckless dad to someone who is a genuinely good role model.

part of me feels like I shouldn't prevent my children having a relationship with their grandfather.

They haven't got a relationship for you to prevent.

I know my DH and I are lucky. We live close to our DGC and see them lots.
If they lived at the other end of the country we would see them as often as we could and we would be in frequent contact.
(Their parents would be happy with this - honestly!)

Your father didn't act like a father, isn't acting like a grandfather, and I highly doubt he's in the slightest bit bothered.

Don't do anything dramatic, just don't do anything. He'll soon drift away.

Thank you everyone.

I think you're actually all spot on in different ways. I am desperate for him to act like a father, like a grandfather. I have one of these little wobbles every year, usually around Father's Day when every year I send a card, get very little response & then try not see all the various "my dad is so wonderful" comments on social media. I feel like it's me sometimes; that I must have done something to make him behave this way. I feel very torn. I love my DF and therefore want to maintain our relationship, but why should I nurture and maintain a relationship that is not on an equal footing. If I was to "cut him off" I wouldn't want to make a big deal about it.

I had some counselling in my teens that touched on the relationship with my DF, and last year around this time (Fathers Day is tricky every year!) I approached my GP about further counselling to try and gain some perspective on it, but because my overall mental health was pretty sound I couldn't be referred & so would have to go privately which we just cannot afford.

I guess I felt I should maintain the relationship with him & the DC's partly through social convention but also in part because my FIL is 250 miles away and not in the best of health and my DSF is somewhat standoffish with them. He adores them and calls them his DGC but his behaviour towards them is different to the way he behaves towards his own DGC. But I agree that maybe my DF is not the best male role model for them to have.

Thank you for letting me rant and not making me feel like I'm being pathetic.