Haven't seen my father for 18 years, now he wants to give me money...

[longlegzs80]

This is really F*cked up. Not sure if I ever mentioned in another thread about my father but I have not seen him in 18 years. My mother and father are divorced and he missed out on everything, my childhood, just everything.

 

WEll, tonight he calls and my mother answers the phone and talked to him and was very blunt with him on just what she believes. Which I don't blame her for anything she mentioned. Anyways, he mentioned he wants to send me money to me. But said nothing about being apart of my life, just that he wants to send money to me. It is very strange. The whole situation is very odd to me. Someone who did not give a sh*t about me all of a sudden thinks that with sending me money it is going to make everything better. Screw that sh*t. I hate people who can't take care of their kids or be apart of their lives. Selfish bastard.

 

This is all funny how this comes into play. Last year around this time my half brothers who are 11 and 13 decided to contact me saying that they want to meet their sister and that they are really interested. It was obvious the mother was pushing the whole thing. They did not want to bother with me. Their mother was just interested in seeing if I turned out to be a screwed up kid like her kids did. WEll, I don't talk to those kids because my other half brother who is 39 came to see me but I was not home at the time because I was up at college and he talked to my mom. My mom mentioned stuff he did not like that Cheryl this women with the 2 step brothers said about my 39 year old half brother etc. So, I am thinking he went to Cheryl to bitch her out. I don't hear from her or the kids and really don't care.

 

I just don;t know what to do. I don't want to be bothered and call me selfish for thinking about myself and my life, but with him never wanting to be apart of it really pisses me off. I hate people who are useless and cant' take care of their kids.

[Tony T]

I perfectly understand how you feel but judging others is not a good way to go through life. Unless you have your father's brain implanted in your body, there is no way of knowing all the events, thoughts, chaos, abuse, brainwashing, hurt, ignorance, etc., that may have contributed to your father's neglectful behavior. He may have serious psychological or medical conditions. There are many people who don't know how to express love except through money or other material things. He may have had no money until now, due to health problems or other serious shortcomings he doesn't want to share, and now that he has some he wants to send it to you for no other reason than to show his love. This may not make sense to you but it probably is very important to him.

 

Throughout your life, different people will do things much differently than you. You won't understand their motivation. You won't understand their behavior. But you also won't see the chemistry in their brain or the plethora of their experiences that led up to that bizarre behavior. You are best not to judge. Your anger towards your father only hurts you and plagues your spirit. It does nothing to him. For your very own sake and both mental and physical health, try to get some help to forgive what you interpret as transgressions on your father's part. To the extent that you can forgive your father, you too will be forgiven by others for doing the things they do not understand. It's called karma.

 

Be the bigger person here. Instead of thinking with such hostility, try to develop a spirit of forgiveness towards your father. It won't cost you anything and it can pay off big...for YOU!!! Staying angry at him will only eat at YOU and have no effect on him whatsoever. Even if he was a rotten, irresponsible, totally no good bum who stayed away because he didn't want to support you and your mother, being mad at him won't change that...it will only destroy you over time. Kicking him and spitting on him won't change things either. Forgive him in order to rid your own soul of this great burden of anger. Maybe even give him the opportunity of explaining why he abandoned you and caused you so much pain.

 

When you forgive him, however, the pain will lift for you and your life will change for the better. Trust me on this.

[moimeme]

Tony ~

 

Beautifully said!

 

 

wow.

[Arabess]

Longlegz,

 

My children's Dad (I won't even give him the honor of calling him an ex-husband) disappeared for 5 years. Then, out of the blue he shows up again and wanted to 'rekindle' a relationship with his children. The main purpose he stayed away was due to not wanting to pay child support.

 

I made the decision long time ago my children weren't for sale. He missed the bigger part of their life.....so, the joy is watching them grow has been all mine.

 

When he came back, the children didn't want to see him. They are now 14 (daughter) and 11 (son). I told them that no matter what kind of person he may appear to be.....he was still their Dad and a part of who they were. To push him away would only be a detriment and a possible regret to their own selves. He's done ENOUGH damage to their hearts....why harbor hate and anger on top of that? (My daughter will speak to him....my son still won't.)

 

I totally understand though. It's so unfair for a child to have to grow up with a parent who totally disses them. It's cruel and selfish!!!! I have no idea how the AssClowns even look at themselves in the mirror.

 

However, if your Dad wants to make some sort of 'restitution'....even in the form of money....I would accept it. He's the only Dad you have. You've probably lived most of your life with an empty place in your heart where he was supposed to be filling in. Maybe a piece of that emptiness and hurt will be relieved if you give him a little bit of a chance. NO...he may not deserve it......but you owe it to yourself.

 

Can I ask you a question? I have always worried this 'lack of relationship' between my daughter and her Dad would cause her to have relationship and trust issues as she grows up. Have you found that to be true???

 

Thanks.

Arabess

[ThisGirlNameKD]

I agree with Tony. I didn't grow up with my biological father, but I don't have any hate for him. Some people, because of their backgrounds in life, are not capable of expressing love. Love is not something that comes all naturally. True love and expressing it in healthy ways has to be taught. If you've never been taught to love, you won't know how to express it in a healthy way. Alot of time we applaud the mothers for staying around, and that's just what they do, stay around. But that doesn't make the mother any more emotionally capable to love their child than it does the father. Women can be just as messed up as the men, and though they stay around for the kid, that doesn't mean the kid would fair any better. So it's not about having the parents there physically. That's cool. It's having them there emotionally and mentally and being so in a healthy state. I realized that my father was not that because of his background. So I was better off with him not being there physically, because if he were, I would have been more damaged emotionally. This just all shows that you have to be careful who you make babies with, because you can't make someone turn into someone that they were not from the beginning.

[moimeme]

People are so wierd. We all have sympathy and empathy for the poor little abused kid while he's a kid. However, same little kid grows up into an adult with issues, never having had any help for his problems, but we still expect him to act as though each passing year somehow heals him and magically turns him into a functional adult.

 

This rarely happens. A man wouldn't vanish from his own child's life unless he had some serious issues of his own. He can't be expected to have been as wise in his youth as he might be now. He might not even be wise now - but he's at least starting to feel some sort of regret for what he's done. Maybe he fully expects to be hated and figures the least he could do would be offer money.

 

I wish people had more sympathy for troubled adults. Hating someone with a problem will never help that person.

[longlegzs80]

I know I should not hate him. But, I have so much anger in me and hatred that it seriously is affecting me. And last year when I had the involvement of the half brothers, I was going to the school consellor to talk out my problems and just to get help to better myself. Which it helped and made me think alot.

 

Anyways, I just find it weird after all these years. Some parts of me want to know my half brothers, but have no relation with my father. I don;t think I can handle that part. I am just trying to get enough curage to call my 2nd oldest half brother who made the attempt to talk to me in MAy when he came to the house. But, it is so hard. I am so used to having my own little life, that I just push everyone away who is in it. Its almost like I don't care to even get to know my other half of the family. And I have to say I am truely scared, because I don't want to make the attempt and then they shut me out of their lives again.

 

WEll, ARABESS asked a very interesting question. I don't know how your daughter is affected as far as her relationships if she is in any yet, but I find for myself, I push people away. Been told that too. I push people who want to get to know me away and I live the same lonely life that I have been living because I isolate myself. And I think with my father not being there, yes it has affected me. That along with my mother and my father who are both depressed people, makes me depressed and that is why I am the way I am. I can say I don't know how to love or never recieved it. Want it but scared of it. Kinda odd, but I don;t know how to love or know what it is like to be loved by a male or a father figure. So, it can be different with your daughter as far as how she handles the relationships. But, I find myself if I do find someone interested in me, it is always older men. Which I am not attracted to, but if I do find someone interested in me, I always find my feelings to be strong for them and then get my feelings hurt when they leave me or just use me for sex. I guess I just want to be wanted. But, knowing how to love is something I don;'t know how to do. I can also say I never have been happy either, and it could be because my family is all depressed people and it could be heriditary, but I never experienced happiness or joy out of life. I can say in some ways when I read the thread from YES about going through the motion of life....I feel the same way. And yes I am jumping around here, but I just feel like there is a huge emptiness that needs to be filled and with me not finding it I just do the same thing everyday which is wake up and wish I could have some fulfilment in my life. I don't know if this is because I don't know my father and think of him as a complete stranger or not knowing my half brothers.

 

I guess I am so used to my regular everyday boring life that I kinda am used to it, and with my father all of a sudden wanting to come in and my half brothers it just makes me kinda nervous and stressed out. I don'; tknow if I want them to be apart of my life after all this time. So, I don't know.

 

Sorry about such a long thread. Hope it all makes sense.

[Arabess]

Moimeme,

 

You have such a compassionate heart. I suppose we should all strive to understand other people better. Sometimes I DO try!!

 

However, I've had some really frigged up experiences in my past and I don't believe they can serve as my excuse to not take responsibility of my actions. My Mom grew up as a little girl in basements while her parents were sent to concentration camps. She grew up determined to give her children all the love she didn't receive when she was a child.

 

I have a hard time understanding why ANYONE would have a child they didn't intend to support emotionally and financilly. How can they turn away from the one person who not only loves and needs them....but are an extention of themself?

 

Maybe I'm way off base here.....but parents who diss their responsibilities are hard for me to undertand.

[longlegzs80]

I totally agree with ARABESS. I can't understand and find it really hard to forgive someone who has not been apart of my life for all these years. I guess you have to be in a situation like mine or somewhat similar with a one parent home for anyone to really understand. And have a father who finally realizes that he missed his whole daughters lifetime growing up and I would think feeling kinda guilty.

 

Everyone wants me to forgive him, but I can't. AS much as I want to get to know my half brothers and even my father, I really don;t want it to change my life. I like the simple life that I have now, just what I am used to. Plus, I don't want any problems between my father and my mother. He is the type of person who will start trouble with her and she or myself don't need the stress.

 

I really don't know what I want. Well, I can say I want to be happy and experience that once in my life. But whether my half brothers or my father are in my life or not I want to be happy and figure out what gives me pleasure in life. Because I have no reason to live.

[moimeme]

People who cannot muster compassion are unable to imagine themselves so badly damaged that they cannot function 'normally'. However, that is exactly the problem for people like longlegz' father. Whatever has happened in his life at some point rendered him unable to be the wonderful man she needed him to be. We don't forgive people their weaknesses because we completely fail to understand that people do not choose to be weak.

 

I will say this until I'm in my box: you are not everyman. Can you climb a mountain or run a four-minute mile? No? What would you say if someone who could said they simply had no sympathy for anybody that can't do what they do? We are all differently abled, and that ESPECIALLY means with respect to our resiliency, strength, ability to cope with difficulties. It is unfair to expect a blind person to read. It is equally unfair to expect an emotionally crippled person to behave as though they are 100% normal. They cannot.

 

Longlegz, don't you think the fair thing to do would be to at least let him explain why he abandoned you and why he is trying to pick up the pieces now? There may be any number of very good reasons this happened. Isn't hating him without even hearing him out like condemning a man without hearing any evidence?