Name changed for this, but I do post regularly. I don't really know the point of this post. But I just really want to get my feelings out there.
I don't know whether this is the right board to post this on either.
My parents separated when I was young, I was around 4. My mom soon met somebody else, and although I still saw my dad regularly and we had a good relationship, the man she had met quickly became an amazing extra father figure. He really helped bring me up.
They married, had 2 children together (my lovely siblings) and I eventually started to call him dad. My mother was/is problematic and throughout my childhood, she started to paint my biological dad in a bad light. Leading me to not really want to see him for a good few years. This was purely down to her brainwashing me.
Throughout this time, there were a few traumatic events created by my mother, through which my step-dad was my only sense of normality. He was/is a great man and he, compared to her, was very stable and 'normal'. He would take me places, play with me, and just generally speak to me about anything and everything, which my mother never did. He really took me on as his own.
Time went on and when I was around 11-12 my mother had an affair which I was sadly aware of, and made to cover up.
I was quite troubled as a result of my mother's behaviour growing up, (emotionally, not behaviourally) and this led to some arguments and friction between me and my step-dad.
But what children don't argue with their parents at some point??
They worked through the affair eventually and tried again.
Sadly a few years later they did both settle on getting a divorce. It was a relief for both of them and it went smoothly.
We mended our relationship and he confided in me about things my mother did that he didn't like, and I did the same, we were very close to each other throughout this time and we really helped one another.
He moved to his parents while he saved for a new home as we stayed in the family home, and soon after he moved out, my mother moved on again.
The new man moved in very quickly and as a result, I moved into my partners home at 17.
After I had moved out, my step dad became very short with me, and even one time sent me a message detailing that I wasn't actually his child and therefore not his responsibility anymore. It upset me beyond belief, I still struggle with this comment.
I fell pregnant soon after moving out and gave birth to my child at 18.
During my pregnancy I went no contact with my mother, our relationship had always been tricky, and I did not want the stress.
When my daughter was just over 1, I started speaking to my mother again and we gave our relationship another go. She was still with the 'new man' who wasn't so new. And she soon started to refer to him as my child's grandad.
I visited my mother weekly, and this meant that my step-dad got to meet my child, when he would come to pick up my siblings. They were on good terms, and co-parenting pretty well.
He would jokingly say that he doesn't know who to introduce himself as to my child, and it made me really upset that he was just out of the cusp of being a grandad. He would have been an amazing grandad. He was always such a brilliant dad.
We were speaking again, and he offered to help me out during a rough patch in my life. He still considered me one of his children.
After a year or 2, things went sour again with I and my mother's relationship leading me to cut contact again in 2022. It was a no brainer, to protect my mental health, and to protect my child and partner. I do not grieve my mother since going NC, but I very sadly have to grieve my step-dad.. and he is still alive.
He will no longer speak to me since I went NC with my mother. He thinks things are too awkward and he doesn't want to be stuck in the middle. I send him cards on Father's Day, birthdays and Christmas. But I seldom receive one back.
I send texts too, but now the most I get is a reaction. Never a message back.
I miss him so much, and I rarely let myself feel these emotions as it physically hurts.
I've found myself googling whether step-parents do this ??
Whether after the separation, do they still count their step-children from that marriage as their children? Or do they just leave them behind?
I've thought about sending him a letter - similar to this post. But I think it would hurt too much if I got no reply.
Recently I've been thinking about him a lot. He goes about his life with his 2 biological children, his new partner (who is lovely. She has texted me many times saying she has told him to uphold the relationship and stop being silly, but to no avail) but I am left behind. I feel broken.
I am grieving a person who is still out there, living their life. But he has left me behind.