What’s to “understand” about this? I don’t get that response.

There’s nothing to understand.

You don’t just bail on your kids and the excuse of a rotten mother/father doesn’t fly unless he’s got those tv/movie style shoeboxes full of returned letters and birthday cards and a restraining order.

My situation had some similarities, though my pops just went and showed himself to be a real POS to his new family so it’s entirely probable I dodged a significant bullet with him. I got riddled with many others but I can’t say his presence wouldn’t have done me much good.

I can’t speak on your situation but the feeling of abandonment subsided within me once I reconciled the fact that him leaving me had everything to do with the kind of man my father was and nothing to do with me.

He left me because that's the kind of guy he is.

He never made an honest attempt to rectify the situation because that's who he is.

I was a dope ass kid with interests that actually mirrored his in some ways, particularly on the creative front, and other interests that we could have explored and shared together and that's his fucking loss because *I* had enough passion inside of me to teach myself and seek out other like minded people I could bounce off of.

He pulled a twofer, actually; we had brief contact when I was 14. He was in the pen and wrote me a few letters and we spoke on the phone a few times. He made a million promises in those exchanges but once his release date came dude was ghost. I got like one birthday card two years later and he had the fucking date wrong and that was it until I tracked him down after I had my daughter and it wasn’t long before he started showing his true self.

I’m fairly certain he’s dealing with some severe mental health issues and that is what it is. I can’t fault him for that and in the end I’m good knowing that I made an effort and that this had zero to do with me and everything to do with him.

Your pops skipping out is on him. Not you, not your mom, and not his issues with your mom. Your child is your child and you either do everything you can to be a part of their lives in whatever capacity is practical and possible or you don’t, but you don’t get to blame a lack of effort on anyone but yourself.

Whatever the case you got to find healing on this front.

Again, I can only speak for myself. Despite having many a Will Smith "I DID THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS WITHOUT HIM SO WHO FUCKING NEEDS HIM?" moments the scars remain. Thing is, scars are manageable. Open wounds are another story.

Hell familial dysfunction/abandonment/heartache is basically the story of my life and something that still nips at my heels now and again. If you ever need to bend an ear or vent without unsolicited advice just to get shit off your chest or want to find a way to cope with that shit… my inbox is open, as is my phone if need be.