It was my father's birthday yesterday. I've been LC and then NC with him for at least 10 years. And I'm embarrassed to say that I'm struggling to remember why. I guess I'm writing this as a mental exercise to try and explain it to myself and also to see if there are other people in my situation whose parents weren't great, but that who probably wouldn't reach the "Stately Homes" level of awfulness.
He and my mother divorced 25 years ago when I was 16/17 and it was a really awful time. Obviously very few divorces are civilised but this was horrendously hostile and poisonous. It was never a really happy marriage - as my mother describes it, my father was serially unfaithful - and the eventual end of the marriage was his relationship with a co-worker who he subsequently married not too long after the divorce was finalised. He then went on to have two more children saying that he felt having them was a "chance to get it right this time". Obviously this was really nice for me and my older brother to hear.
I stayed with my mum but moved out of home (after my father had left) at 17 to live with a much older boyfriend and its clear to me now that (unhealthy and sexually coercive) relationship was just an escape route from a home that was desperately unhappy and a mother that was incredibly bitter. My brother went to live with my dad but as his new wife already had 3 children it was made clear to my brother that he wasn't welcome and, feeling that he'd burned his bridges with our mother (it really was a "pick sides" divorce), went into the army at 19. My brother has never been very resilient so this was not a good choice; he was discharged for mental reasons after about 18 months, ending up back with my mother because my father made clear that there was no place for him in his Second Chance Family home.
My father did make an effort to keep up with me post-divorce. Without wishing to sound arrogant, I was the "clever one" in my family and I think my father (and my mother) felt and still feel some reflected glory in my achievements - as they probably should - but I suspect that made me "worth" keeping contact with, whereas my poor massively underachieving brother got the cold shoulder.
I should probably say here that my mother isn't great either. I do maintain a relationship with her (although my brother is now NC with both of our parents) and I wonder if part of my hostility to my father is that he "left" me with her. My mother suffers from clinical depression and I suspect some other (undiagnosed) mental issues given the horrendous and thoughtless things she says to people. She's also now a compulsive hoarder and I'm now spending a decent chunk of my time trying to manage and help her through that. Of the two of them, I would say that my father was the one I was closest to when I was growing up, which is I suppose why it was so hard to be effectively replaced.
My father periodically (annually probably) calls and leaves a voicemail. He is not aware that he has a grandchild (my son is 2.5). He is not aware that my brother is now married. My husband saw my father (although not vice versa) at a concert recently and came home saying that I'd be sorry if something happened and we hadn't ever put things right - which is true. But I don't know how to put things right -it feels like too much time has passed now - or even if I want to.