My mum and dad split up when I was 15 I'm the oldest of four, my brothers were 11(twins) and my sister was 4.
The break up was really tough on all of us but more so for my siblings than me. By the age of 15 I had a close group of friends and a social life so I spent most of my time not thinking about the break up and just got on with my life. My siblings on the otherhand were treated badly by our dad who like a lot of absent fathers used to arrange to pick them up and then let them down at the last minute. He didn't send birthday or christmas cards and never phoned to see how we were and we were also disowned by our grandparents because they had never liked mum they then chose to blank us.
Anyway because he messed my siblings around so much they eventually refused to see or speak to him, I had already made this choice at the age of 15. By the time I was 22 obviously i'd grown up alot and started to think about my dad and wonder how he was and I just couldn't stop thinking what if something awful was to happen to dad and I'd never had a proper relationship with him so we started to see eachother. From the age of 22 to 31 I had a relatonship with dad and I loved my stepmum if i'm honest I got on with her better than dad.
Because dad left when I was not much more than a child he still treated me as such and he also constantly slagged off my mum, I bit my tongue so many times because I desperately wanted to have this relationship with dad but I couldn't stand him saying things about mum. He used to say that mum had poisoned us all against him (not true) mum never stopped us from seeing dad
and never said a bad word about him (not to us at least).
When I was 31 I told dad that he was going to be a grandad and he turned into the worlds biggest hypocrite, asking what if DP leaves you holding the baby and what kind of father will he be he's done nothing with his life (because DP was younger than me) and then what really annoyed me he said "I've told your grandparents and they can't work it out" (The same grandparents that disowned me and my siblings as children) What the hell did it have to do with them!!!
That was the day almost four years ago that I walked away from dad and never spoke to him again.
Last night I and my sister recieved txt messages from an auntie on dads side of the family saying "You need to speak to your dad" my poor sister was woken up and harrassed by our auntie at 1.00am saying "you need to sort this thing out with your dad he's here and wants to speak to you now" (I think they had all been drinking as it was boxing day). Me and my sister don't even know if dad was aware of what was going on.
But I sent a message to our auntie today saying "I think dads old enough to fight his own battles don't you" and basically told her to not contact me again because in my opinon if dad wants to see us he needs to call us himself.
I feel quite sad today because I do love my dad and I miss him, but I don't want him in my life if all i'm ever going to hear are sob stories about how the break up of the marriage was mums fault and how hard done by he thinks he is, this all happened 20yrs ago.
Also I don't want him to walk in and out of my DC's lives the way he did to us.
I'm sorry to go on and understand that this probably sounds like a rant but i'm so confused and needed to vent.