I posted about this once before but things have moved on a bit and I need some advice.
Brief history- my dad wasnt around when I was a kid. He split from my mum when she was pregnant and made no effort to be involved. My mum got together with a total shitbag when I was 8, an abusive, violent tosser who ruined my life. My dad wrote when I was 16 and I was over the moon, I felt like he was going to save me. We wrote back and forth and we finally met when I was 20. We started meeting up and I was at his house a fair bit. And then he dropped the bomb that he was moving hundreds of miles away to further involve himself in the cult he is in ( they believe in aliens and wear robes etc. more on that in a min). I was really hurt and things went downhill from there. He said insensitive things sometimes, such as when he showed me a 'writing' the cult had done about depressives (Ive struggled with it since my teens) which was upsetting, saying that depressed peopl often dont wash proprly etc, i have no idea why he gave it to me to read. He and his wife left me in tears at the dinner table once by getting so heated talking to me about not taking sick leave at work, it was clearly their major cult beliefs coming through, they wre completely oblivious to how they were talking. They have a whole bookcase of folders in their house devoted to it all. It was all very hard to adjust to and get my head around, as well as the fact that he has been so absent from my life. He started to feel v distant from me and occupied with other stuff, and not so interested in me.
Things went downhill from there, I felt wary and sometimes uncomfortable around him, and I cut contact as we had a big row. And then a few years later I had ds and thought maybe we should talk. I made contact and things were going v well, until earlier this year. He came to visit in March and was slagging off my step brother, calling him a 'nob', saying that my step brother said he didnt want to talk about their cult stuff anymore with them and has distanced himself. He also described how he kicked my step brother out at age 20 because 'there was too much testosterone in the house' and even though SB wasnt ready to go he kicked him out anyway. Listening to all this made me even more wary of him.
Anyway. In the spring I wrote him a long email chatting about ds starting nursery and stuff. No reply. A month went by and I got increasingly upset and wrote to him saying I cant have things being up and down, its too upsetting, and why had he not replied? He just said he had been busy with an extension on his house. Then I got an email months later asking what I wanted for my birthday. I felt uncomfortablr with recieving anything and didnt know what to do. He suggested visiting for ds birthday a month later but I felt so mixed up and upset over eveything, I made an excuse.
I have been churning this all over in my head for months and months. I dont know if I am coming or going in this relationship, he blows hot and cold and I feel unsettled by the cult side of things.
I dont know what I get out of this any more, I am considering cutting contact to stop my turmoil.
Having my own dc has made me even sadder for my own childhood and parents. I remember how I felt as a child, so alone and just wanting to be loved, and that feeling of being a pathetic unwanted loser has never left me, and I feel such immense pressure to be thr best mum to my ds, it eats me alive.
Pleas help.