half siblings

[chatterbox54]

I have two half sisters from my Dads first marriage. Only one of them wants to get to know me. The one who doesn't says that she wants to put the past behind her and just deal with the here and now. That is her right but I think it is a shame. I get the feeling that the sibling who does not want to get to know me feels that seeing me would remind me too much of her past which she would rather forget. I feel she is punishing me and all I have tried to do is hold out a hand of friendship to her

it's not that you are a 'bad guy' you just sound like it is all about you and what you want, with no consideration for your half sister's reasons and life experiences.
That is all.
Also, you didnt tell her when your dad died.
For me, that would be unforgivable.

We all have the right to participate in a relationship with whoever we want, I just don’t see why you would take it out on an innocent party, which the children generally are. My DD has nothing to do with her father,my DS very little, my DC have done nothing wrong to deserve being ‘ignored’ however, we all have our issues. It hurts me as that’s all I ever wanted, my DC are not bothered in the slightest.

That’s my ‘experience’ four the receiving end of DC being ignored through no fault of theirs. My DC are adorable adults, they didn’t deserve this. The children are always the victims of adults unreasonable behaviour.

As an aside, ex P went on to have another child, my DC can’t be bothered with her, and it’s nothing do do with their dickhead father, she’s a spoilt precocious brat, and they don’t actually enjoy her company. His gf is a drama queen but I like her and we get on. We know what she has to put up with, so DC aren’t harbouring any ideas like happy families.

OP i think you’re a good person, who is just trying to forge a relationship with ‘family’, nothing at all wrong with that, but for your own mental wellbeing, I’d just leave her tonit now.

You are not the bad guy.

Your parents created this situation between them and now that they are gone all of the children are left feeling their way through the aftermath. I think people are just trying to help you to come to terms with the likelihood that this can't be fixed, not by you or by either of the siblings, and that its not your responsibility, or your fault.

It is of course immensely painful, but I think you should take comfort in the connection you have made with the one sibling.

I totally recommend counselling.

It’s really not about you, but you certainly seem to think it is and you have to stop. You could respect your parents wishes to not see your other half sister, why can’t you respect your half sisters wishes to not see you? She doesn’t want to know you, presumably for lots of reasons related to having a terrible dad who was then an absent dad. Irrelevant that her sister can handle knowing you, the older one was probably affected more by your dad’s issues.

I have had counselling before and it was useful. I did let them know of their fathers death so I did what was the right thing to do. The sibling who I am in touch with said she felt sorry for me because I lived through his drinking and problems and she did not and she did not know what was worse, an absent father in her case, or in my case a father who never abandoned me but was absent in other ways due to his addiction problems and wanting to be in the pub more than at home. But I cannot understand any father who would say he only has one child (me) and forgot about the other two. At the time it made me feel special like I was the cat who had got the cream , but in reality it was a dreadful thing to say. After my mum decided she could not handle the daughter in her life because of the daughters issues, my parents never spoke about her ever again because my dad went to Alcoholics Anonymous and they encourage the addict to write to everyone they had harmed and say sorry, my dad wrote to his daughter and apologised for everything and to her sister and they understood. When I met the two siblings together last year for the first time, they both felt that my mother was a very dominant woman who persuaded their father to cut contact and he was a weak man who just went along with it and I believe that too. I do not think if he would have cut contact of his own free will. I too was forced to cut contact with my extended family on my dads side because my mum did not like them, but now that she has passed away, I can do as I please and contact has been resumed.

That sounds really positive, chatterbox. It sounds like you have moved things forward positively in many ways for yourself and your family. That's a big achievement considering everything you've had to work through.

yes and I had an old passport that belonged to my dad from before he met my mum and I contacted the sibling who is interested in me and said I have this passport and would you like it because it really means nothing to me because it is from a time before he met my mum and had me and it has the names of the kids in it and I said I was sorry she never came to his funeral and this was my way of making it up to her although as I said before it was not my decision to make whether or not she came to the funeral, it was my mums and she never mentioned the other siblings or suggested they ought to know. I wonder how she would have felt if she had a parent who had died and she knew nothing about it. Some people who have had bad parents could not care less if they are alive or dead but they still have a right to know

I await the siblings response as I sent her the message on messenger. Hopefully she will say yes and I think she will because as I said to her the passport has no sentimental value to me whatsoever and it will to her so it is pointless me keeping it.