Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Is anyone else estranged from a parent or parents?

76 replies

SantaFio2 · 25/11/2004 14:57

and how does it affect you?

I have been estranged from my dad for the last 2 1/2 years and at first I was devastated. then a few months ago he sent me a letter out of the blue and it started to upset me again. now he has sent me another letter and I dont feel anything, not even angry. i just dont feel bothered and i think i should be.

Am i analysing things too much? and how does it affect your feelings?

really paranoid today

OP posts:
NomDePlume · 25/11/2004 20:30

It's funny, jak, but when I re read my post it seems like a pretty horrific thing, but it's as if it happened to someone else. That might sound a bit odd, but I suppose it's my coping mechanism, has been since I was a kid.

SantaFio2 · 26/11/2004 07:21

NomDePlum you poor thing, he sounds like a monster

I just have this fear that if I ever meet him again he will knock me down and take over againa dnstart manipulating me again, tHATS MY BIGGEST FEAR TBH.

JAKBROWN, AS FAR AS COUNSELLING GOES i AM BEING REFFFERED BUT NOT FOR THIS REASON ALONE...oops caps

OP posts:
fairyfly · 26/11/2004 07:57

NDP, you are an incredibly strong women and your coping mechanism is one in a million. Others would,and do fold. You should be very proud of yourself for creating a new loving family.

Fio i hope you find some peace with this and really do hope you go through with the counselling as you know how much it is helping me.

I am sorry that you all have experienced such crap parenting, it brings tears to my eyes and makes me so angry. I pray to god my children are as strong as you lot when they grow up and have peace with their Daddy.

jakbrown · 26/11/2004 08:16

Santfio2, yes, I'm thinking of going for counselling too, but not directly about HIM. Just the general stress of everything (you will know from my rants on the SN board!). The thing that's upset me is how he's infected the rest of the family. It's as if I'm the nightmare, blacksheep of the family and he's all squeky clean! I could go on and on and on and on and on...

NDP, I was really upset by your post. I think you're amazing for coming through this... Lots of hugs...

SantaFio2 · 26/11/2004 09:33

well jakbrown my dads family divorced me when my mother did, my dads sister walked past me in the street the day after my sister died and gave me the filthiest look ever. With a family like that, i dont them tbh

I am the witch too

OP posts:
SantaFio2 · 26/11/2004 09:35

what i measnt is : my dads family divorced me when my mum and dad divorced!!

OP posts:
jakbrown · 26/11/2004 11:28

I keep thinking, well I don't have any problems in other areas of my life. I don't 'break friends' with people or cause angst. I think I'm a fairly decent person . He, however, falls out with everybody..

NomDePlume · 26/11/2004 11:48

Thank you all for being so nice

Fio, I hope you can resolve these feelings very soon. Please try hard not to beat yourself up over your fathers actions, I know it's hard but we are not responsible for their actions.

We all have something bad/dark to deal with in our lives. I think those people who go through life without any sort of incident are very few and far between.

In a funny way, I feel like what happened to me has contributed to who I am. It's a shitty thing, but I think that I am possibly a better person with the abuse than I would have been without it. I think I am more appreciative of the stable family life I have created with my husband and children. I'm more cautious and don't suffer fools gladly. I would hope that I am more compassionate, understanding and driven as a result, than I would have been at this age if I'd had a normal childhood. I grew up quickly in order to cope. Sorry that this has turned into a massive, slightly self-obsessed post.

Flossam · 26/11/2004 12:02

I don't have anything tot do with my father, he didn't come to visit me from age 5 to 15 after my parents divorced when I was two. I made contact at 15 and saw him a few times, but he sent a letter to me saying that I only wanted him for his money and I didn't even know when his birthday was (who's fault is that then?!). I also found out that he wrote a threatening letter to my mum saying that he would stop paying maintenance, unless he could have access to see me (I was 17 at the time and he had as much access as he wanted).

Carried on in some form of contact with him untill I was 19, when he was supposed to phone me to arrange a meet up. He never did. And I haven't heard from him since. I thought the only time I might feel differently about him was when I have a child of my own. But to my mind it has just confirmed that no contact is the right way to go.

I have a lovely step father, who will be grandpa as far as I and my baby are concerned. He played a much bigger role bringing me up and is going to be a wonderful grandfather. To bring in my father to my sons life will undermine my step-fathers position, confuse my son and also risk causing him pain too.

I hope this makes sense, SantaFio2, and you can see what I am trying to say. Because I think there is a big understanding all too often that we have to have people in our lives just because they are family, when really we are better off (and maybe they are too) without them. I hope you sort things out and can be happy. Hugs to you xx

Flossam · 26/11/2004 12:04

Sorry, that should say 'big misunderstanding' oops

Mosschops30 · 26/11/2004 12:18

Message withdrawn

SantaFio2 · 26/11/2004 16:17

thank you nondeplum and flossam, you both sound very sorted people.

I have a great stepdad too who yesterday told me my dad doesnt know what he is missing and it is his loss and he will die a lonely old man. Most probably true.

it has been lovely to get it off my chest, I feel alot better you all help me so much x

OP posts:
Tortington · 26/11/2004 23:22

i havent seen my mum for over a yearbecuase of an argument.

the thing is this. from my being very young she has been depessed always on mogadon insomniac speaks to herself, has always had arguments with herself, when i was little she took the kettle upstairs and lived in her bedroom rarely surfacing ( my dad died when i was 4 she never got over it) and that was ok becuase my nan lived with us until i was 12 but after that it was a lonley house - am an only child.

Later and whilst i was an adult the talking to herself turned into not using the phone becuase people were listening, not using the telly for the same reason, she told me there was a radar honing in on her, she told me once my uncle came and talked to her - and he was in sri lanka at the time, she said a van was outside her house listening to her. she phoned me at xmas time desperatley upset about the people listening to her - i drove 300 miles the next day to get her and 300 back to bring her down to stay with my family. i begged her to stay, i moved my daughter out of her room to share with her brothers.

my nan is still alive she doesnt contact her either and this kills my nan who is 86. my oldest son always favoured my mum as his favourite nana and i had to explain to him that nana was ill becuase her husband died years ago she was still upset about it.

i got social services mental health team onto her who visited 6 times told me she was feeding herself and they couldnt see anything wrong and were dropping her case. that woman could die and no one would know til the smell hit them

i am going up to oldham and taking my youngest son as earlier this year we went up for a wedding and he wanted desperatley to see his nan and i said no. i said no becuase i didnt want her to shut the door in his face and be devestated. but a firend told me that it would be better that i let him and i dont look the bad bastard. tell him to go for an hour and wait outside for an hour. so i am

so its a difficult one, mothers plainly a nutter no one will help her and i am her only child -but there comes a time when you just have to cut the shit.
the winters are the worst especially when it gets dark and when its too icy to go out, when she is trapped in a house that has radars beaming onto her, that has vans outside in a house where the telephone is a source of paranoi and the tv is never turned on. where there is no form of comnicationto the outside world at all.

but the nasty things she said wont go away. she said "your fking kids ruined my life" i replied " well mother you have the rest of your life now ..enjoy it" she pushed me out of her house, and i never rose to her bait once, my voice was always calm. the thing is the sense of absolute relief i felt afterwards, between me entering the house and not being spoken to and returning to ask why she didnt speak to me i sat in the car distraught crying uncontrollably - when i left her house after her shouting i felt villified and just and proud of myself for not reacting the way she wanted me to, i was not happy but most certainly happier than not knowing why she was ignoring my family

and since i have done all i can for her from a distance with social services. so if she dropped dead my conscience is clear

fostermum · 27/11/2004 18:01

when my girls dad left he saw them every day for a month bought them everything they wanted then he met some one else,they got ivited to his wedding as long as they sat at the back and left before his new wife turned anound,(i found this out after the event or they woudnt have gone)since that day he hasnt spoken to them,past them in the streets with out speakingnow they have children of there own he writes to them demanding grandads rights!and cant understand why they all told him to f..k off

SantaFio2 · 29/11/2004 06:13

custardo and fostermum

OP posts:
saintnikcolas · 03/12/2004 00:23

how are you fio???

saintnikcolas · 05/12/2004 18:40

bump for fio xxxxxxxxxxx

hercyulelog · 05/12/2004 18:59

Havent read other messages but i havent seen my father for 12 years now. I feel relief and am totally at peace with this.

SantaFio2 · 06/12/2004 09:56

I am fine nickola, thanks for asking :)!

but after pestering and threatening me for months my so called father still hasnt posted me the documents to sign my share of the business over to him. i just dont get him, he is an attention seeking twat as far as i am concerned. he drives me mental

how are you nickola?:)

OP posts:
saintnikcolas · 08/12/2004 15:59

oh sorry to hear he is still being a prat fio, so is my dad im going to send him a xmas card with a photo of me and dd saying on the back "just thought id remind u what we look like incase u forgot!!"

SantaFio2 · 09/12/2004 07:40

nickola, you are naughty:o

I still havent heard anything about signing the business over sigh

OP posts:
nikcola · 02/01/2005 21:51

hi fio how was your xmas xxxxxxxxxxxx

nikcola · 03/01/2005 18:49

bump

nikcola · 20/02/2005 16:35

hi fio just wondering how you were? xxxxx

alux · 20/02/2005 17:07

It has been 12 yrs since I saw my dad and had only seen him about 3 times since 1978 when he left my mum with 6 children ages 12 and under. When I got married 6 yrs ago, I sent him a copy of our wedding photo (He lives in the US) and a birthday and Christmas card. All unacknowledged. The last straw (for him) was when he told me at his mother's 70th birthday party that he was only there (in the country) because of her. I responded that I was only at the here (at the party) because of him. (not her - as she was the MIL from hell.) He always valued him mom more than his wife or children.

When I needed him as a child he wasn't there. As an independent adult, it makes no difference if he is there or not.

I have lately fell out with all my mother and my 3 sisters. It is a long story and right now I am working through the confusion of where I stand in their scheme of things.

In brief, I brought an unruly nephew into my home to teach some self discipline and he has shown that he has no intention of changing a single thing about himself. He has bided his time and manipulated his mother and grandmother to seeing dh and I as ogres. I am currently 7 mos pg and no one seems concerned about how I feel, just how he feels. I suppose they expected me to discipline him with their set of rules, not mine, in my own home. Sorry.

It is more important to me that I have a husband who has supported me through some very difficult times and shows me even more now that I am pregnant the depth of his love.

Oh, they are getting back nephew real soon. Not soon enough imo.

Swipe left for the next trending thread