Search the Community

To really understand what is happening, some background information is needed, so forgive me if this is rather long. My dad and I used to be very close when I was little. My parents are divorced, and when I was 12 my dad decided to try to get custody of me. It was an ugly custody battle and there was a lot of other things going on such as my mom's mom passed away around the same time. I could only imagine the pain she must of felt loosing both her mom and her only child at the same time. She didn't hide how she felt which was heart wrenching for a 12 year old to watch. While she wasn't the best mom, she wasn't the worst either, so I told my dad I did not want to go through with the custody battle anymore. I saw my dad as a strong role model, and my mom by herself, hurting. I couldn't leave her. He tried to tell me it was because she kept begging me not to leave her alone, and while she didn't control her emotions in front of me, those words never came out of her mouth. Never. It was how I felt, and he refused to listen. Choosing sides was just wrong, and no one would give in. That started the complications between my dad and I. He started telling me how I choose her over him. How I always stood up for her. There were times I did, but I am not the type of person to let two people I care about talk nasty things about each other in front of me. I also often warned him whenever I found court papers in my mom's room for her going after him for more child support. I often snooped looking for them so I could tell him. I worried about that stuff with him since he ended up filing bankruptcy. Well, we still saw each other quite often. It was bumpy, but we still maintained some kind of altered relationship until he married his third wife when I was 13 (my parents divorced when I was 4). She hated me. She told me she hated me. I had trouble since I was 7 with mental illness, mostly anxiety until I was 12. The anxiety caused me to stop eating when I got stressed to the point of being hospitalized and picking at my skin causing scars. I was often reminded at how disgusting the scars looked and that I looked diseased, as one example of how they talked down to me. This drove a wedge because what depressed 13 year old would actually want to be around that? By the time I was 17, my dad found out I was cutting and tried for custody again, but I refused to go with him. He humiliated me by demanding an emergency court order, showing everyone my cuts in the court building against my will. I was in such a dark place then. My senior year was a nightmare, worse than any of my family knows. That's when I started the drug abuse, which my mom found out about later. I ended up saying mean things to my dad. I let out a lot of pent up anger and so he decided to back off. When I asked him to come to my high school graduation he refused. He also tended to blame me for things my mom did. For example he tried to give me an old car he had when my truck broke down and my mom told him to go die (my mom was taking medication that made her aggressive and loopy for a couple years). I was sent to my room during the argument (I was 17). He blamed me for that. My mom told me he wasn't giving it to me, that he was trying to sell it to her. That kind of broke the rest of the relationship we had. Those were some of the major events anyway. I've tried making contact with him after a little time went by. He often would complain to my grandparents how I never would contact him. I didn't very often, but I made a few attempts at phone calls and text messages, hoping he would do the same in return, but that never happened. I was never sure if I should try more often to expect him to start a conversation first, but talking to him and meeting up with him is always so difficult. He is not always very friendly to me. He still says things like, you don't want me in your life, you always side with your mom, you don't need me to things more like: you are a nightmare to be around, and even recently, I hope your baby doesn't have your horrible personality. So making these attempts is difficult, but I do every once in awhile and I suppose that is not good enough since he goes to my grandparents and tells them how I don't want him around. I've also caught him lying a lot lately. When I found out that I was first pregnant, I wanted an abortion, and I thought talking to my dad and including him would make him feel important and needed. So I did, but I did so making him promise not to tell my grandparents who mean the world to me, that I would tell them when I am ready and wasn't going to until I knew what I was going to do for sure. He ended up telling them and told me that he told them Christmas Eve. At the time he told them, I was still thinking about not keeping the baby, and almost didn't. If he had told them that and then they found out what had happened if I didn't keep the baby.... I don't even want to think of what would happen. I felt so betrayed. I had also told my mom by that point. Her and I have become closer since not living under the same roof. She finally let me 'grow up' so her controlling side is gone. She also came off those meds that made her aggressive, and I couldn't be happier with that. My mom handled the news very well and was nothing but helpful and supportive. She got me to go see the doctor for the first time and paid for it out of pocket since my insurance hadn't kicked in yet. Yet, my dad lied to my grandparents after I told him this and told them how she took it terribly. I never told my grandparents I knew he lied to them, but I did tell them what the truth was when they asked how my mom took it. For awhile, I thought I was so fed up with him at this point. I never confronted him about any of that. I don't know how, nor do I think it is a good idea. I think the best thing to do is try to talk to him more and make him feel more involved, but even after all of that, he still complained. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. He doesn't tell me anything and gets angry when I get upset over certain things he says. He responds to any emotional response with things like, I should of known better than to talk to you about stuff like this, with a harsh attitude. Like he is angry at me for certain topics being too difficult for me to discuss. So when I try to talk to him about specific things or even in general, he gets very angry and defensive at me and I end up in tears, making him more furious with me and yelling at me. I've learned just to try to make contact, but like I said, it doesn't usually seem to go well and some how I end up getting hurt most of the time when I try to involve him or talk to him. I've even gone to visit him while he was on a short term job in the same state as me (2 hours away), but he never came to see me once, or even ask to. Most recently, I invited him and his girlfriend to my baby shower that my best friend is throwing. Instead of telling me he is too busy with his new job, his girlfriend (who is younger than me, which is difficult for me to accept, but I have been), sends me a message to let me know for him. The only thing I can think of is to take more of a stand and put more effort into trying, but it is so hard to try any harder when he acts this way to me. Thanks to anyone who actually read all of this.