I am 35, my parents split when I was 2, and after my mum remarried when I was 4, I didn’t see my dad again for 10 years. In the first 4 years of my life, he did things like - forgot to pick me up from nursery, ‘forgot’ to come and meet my mum to collect me at Christmas, sold my mums belongings to get football tickets, never gave my mum a penny of maintenance… you get the picture. He’s the kind of man you would call funny and charming - everyone liked him. But as a partner and father, pretty terrible.
When I was 14 I initiated contact with him and from the ages of 14-18 we had regular contact. He’d remarried and had another child. I would go to their house for dinner once a week, went on holidays with them, spent a Christmas with them etc. Pretty normal, and I loved getting to know my new sibling. However as I got older I got fed up being the one always initiating contact, it was always me getting in touch with him. One day I just didn’t send my regular ‘can I come round on Thursday’ message and thought I’ll wait to see if he messages me, and he just never did. I realise now that this was probably quite childish, but I just felt like he should be the one making amends and making an effort and I never got that feeling from him.
I’ve bumped into my dad a couple of times recently just by chance. He has asked if I will go for dinner with him to catch up. He said he thinks about me a lot and wants to start seeing me regularly again like we used to. He said he thought about messaging me but thought I wouldn’t want to hear from him (this is what he said about not seeing me as a child too. He said that as my mum had remarried he thought I was happy with my ‘new dad’ and wouldn’t want to see him anymore.)
He’s missed out on so much. I’ve graduated, got married, had 3 children - he’s missed out on it all. I never admitted it but it’s always broken my heart that I didn’t see my dad. I always wanted more than anything to have a relationship with him. My mum hates him naturally and would be devastated if she thought I was seeing him again. My husband doesn’t think I should either. But I can’t help but think we only have one dad and if we have a chance to repair our relationship we should. Saying that though I don’t even know if I can forgive him for everything. I think I just wish it had been different.
In my position would you meet him or not? My heart and my head are telling me different things.
Thank you if you got this far and sorry for the ramble. I guess I would just like to hear objective opinions and maybe from people who had been in similar situations.