I'm turning 40 this year
and it's starting to hit me like oh shit, 40
I have a less than zero relationship with my dad
he broke out when I was less than a year old
remarried, made a whole new life and I just didn't exist to him

so all my life I heard my mom's side of the story:
they met at work, he was dealing with a chick (the one he married after my mom)
so they break up, he gets with my mom, they get married, I'm born, he bounces
he married the chick he was originally with and they're married to this day

I have a half sister who was born 2 years after me and a half brother 6 years later
I knew they existed, but never met them until I was 33
my dad, I've only seen him twice in my entire life
once when I was 12 and then 33
I've never heard his side of the story

I hated him growing up, or rather, the idea of him since I didn't know him
mom always said the door was always open, she never bad mouthed him, never said one bad word about him
When I met him the first time the only question I had was WTF?
he said "when you're older you'll understand"
the second and last time, was a big family gathering so wasn't the place or time to talk like that

Well now I'm older and kinda sorta understand
as a kid with a single mom she becomes everything
you remember that scene in Malcolm X when he breaks the whiskey bottle over dude's head?
that's how I felt growing up

But being in good and shitty relationships over the years
I've seen and experienced how some women can break your spirit if you let them
and of course the inverse, dudes (me) fucking up perfectly great relationships over immaturity and bullshit

Like I said, I idolized my mom
but now I'm starting to think he broke out cuz he couldn't deal with her shit anymore
"no matter how fine she is, some dude somewhere is sick of her shit" (c)

I'm trying to put his casual abandonment of me in perspective
I always swore I would never ever do that to my seed
I don't have kids, but I know that's one line I'll never cross
When relationships and marriages don't work out
it's the kids that pay the price

until years later etc

thats such bullshit


how he fuck you have a child and dont try to see them ?

>

I'm just saying....

and it happened during the period of my life where i began to humanize my parents.

for years I was just numb to the idea of him - as in, he was never in the picture really so I really felt no sense of "why didnt he love me?" or "why was he never there?" until I was deep in adulthood.

short of it is that moms protected me from him because he was quite literally a pimp/hustler/badass/drug user/alcoholic/bad time bobby.

I have a half sister who was actually raised by him during his peak drug and alcohol phase and its night and day.

she hates him and would gladly shit on his grave

I now enjoy his company (we reconnected many years ago and regularly speak) and understand his flaws - I don't exactly forgive but I see the bigger picture now.

Living is hard shit.

Saw my dad often enough growing up but he had two other boys too who had him in their lives 24/7. Sometimes I wonder how I'd have turned out if I had that same opportunity.

I thought I had my pops figured out and then I got hit with a brick and it kind of made me realize life is hard as fuck.

Not making excuses but my pops was I the hospital and told me he had something to tell me... but I already know that story. Hell, we went through it together but he was too drunk to prolly remember the walk and talk we had.

Life is crazy.

My wife and her father haven't spoke for over 30 years and she keeps telling me she wants to contact him. I tried to smooth things over but my mom told me early on to fall back and let her work on it at her own pace.

good luck.

when you're running the streets being young and dumb you think you're immortal and it's gonna last forever

Then you wake up one day (having dodged baby mama/arrests/STD/lawsuit/bankruptcy bullets)

and it's like shit I'm 40: gray hairs, gotta watch what I eat, exercise, get a good night's sleep, etc

I haven't reached out to him, I still have the same question from when I was a kid. Part of me feels it doesn't even matter now (the I have a career, graduated college, I'm not a fuck up part)

the other part (the WTF is wrong with you part) still wants to know

and as you get older you realize that people can be fucked up.

doesn't fix it, but...

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I will go as far as to say there could be very good reasons why a person is f'd up, but they can still be very fcuked up.

And f'd up people just are incapable of rising to occasion like we want them to.




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

is something kids believe

cuz once you're your parents age, you've probably done enough dumb shit, repeatedly, that you can say "ohhhhhhh."

it doesn't excuse it, but more often than not, people are some combination of selfish/scared/stupid.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

My dad was divorced and I guess I am the second family and my older brother is in your shoes.

I always saw him growing up and we have a good relationship now but he grew up in another state. I know my dad wanted a closer relationship with him and he and my mom tried but his mother just wasn't having it.

I remember him and his half sister came to stay with us a summer and midwway through the trip the mother lost it and demanded they come home early.

His mother remarried and eventually my older brother identified with him as a father figure. Even took his last name. My dad kind of backed off out of respect of the wishes for the mother.

It only came out very recently from my brothers wife that brother felt that our dad should have fought more for him and it has left him with issues about wanting a fathers love.

Yeah it can be complicated but I stand by my 2 visits in 40 years is bullshit.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I am only about 7 episodes in but I think it's kind of irresponsible to have the dude go out and find his biological father and he turns out to be this wise, inspiring damn near perfect father figure.

I am like F that dude is a junky who abandoned his child. His character should be waaaaay more fcuked up.

I wonder if that changes as the season progresses.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>I wonder if that changes as the season progresses.

Nah... it's not the reason at all.

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.

>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.


Both my Dad and my Uncle are photographers, half-brother works in Radio. Both things I am/were into at some point.

I never missed or pined for him cuz he was never really around in the first place.

some folks aren't meant to be parents. that seems to be the case with mine. he had a daughter that's now in college. she lived with him until her teen years. something happened and she ended up living with her mom. he never called her after she stopped living with him. just like he never communicated with me.

I remember seeing him twice. once when I was 12. the next time in my mid 30s. went to his funeral a few years ago, but only cuz my mom wanted me to go. no tears shed. no feelings either way.

I will always be in the life of my kids. I fail to see any other way. I get that folks get tired of other people's shit, but I can't fathom their mom doing enough to make me decide to stay away. maybe I'm naive on shitty relationships, but the kids have to be worth the trouble of dealing with moms.

The dude that is supposed to be her dad has kind of been around but never introduced as her dad to her.

Its interesting because she doesnt care to have a relationship with him. She figures if he wasnt around all these years, why start now. Its no skin off her back.

her sisters (the second one supposedly shares the same dad) and her youngest sis (has a different dad) have tried to reach out and built relationships with dad (or at least their families).

My wife is just kinda like meh.

We both know how difficult her mom can be, but she's still like tahts no excuse. We've (her in her dad) have been in the same space and he hasnt introduced himself.


My guess knowing her mom , is that her mom wanted it that way. Her mom has never formally told her who her pops is either

mines stayed away till he was completely sober
so basically until I was 12 I would see him around either sober and in the depths of withdraws or high out of his mind in the street

I said bad is worse


but that's really convenient for me to say

if he's bad, he's making things worse. adding more drama to the pot.

Or in the case of a current set of circumstances where the variables are more predictable.

In hindsight the best I can say is that things probably wouldn't have been much better with him around since things were pretty bad without him and the daughter he had after me reports a pretty abusive situation.

In my case my best guess is that it's a wash, but I'm sure plenty of other circumstances have a greater plus/minus ratio.

well easier may be the wrong word choice but fuck it

the lengths, hurdles, and bullshit an unmarried father has through to get a modicum of fairness from, supposedly, an impartial AG/court is depressing

And if said father has a BM that uses that system to (subtly or directly) impact something has small as discussing grades, or bigger...I fully understand and won't blame guys for saying peace given a history of being beaten down by the system

I've known a few guys that has taken that stance because their BM was on that b.s. and they fell into this income gray area where no organization is taking their case pro-bono but after the AG finishes docking his pay, there's no disposable income to set aside.

honestly, I think it's lazy thinking to say you have to be there for your kids. especially in some these guy's scenario where being there requires taking time off from the 1-2 jobs they're using to take care of essentials and travel to pick up/visit the kids and the money they don't have to do so.

One of the guy's in question is a friend. Dude was given an extra $150 from his job because of some rewards program that was a one off. I remember him saying, "I can take $150 and finally get my wisdom teeth pulled and get an update prescription for my glasses, I can put it aside towards getting a lawyer, or I can make my daughters happy for a moment and visit them, especially the youngest since she refuses to talk to me since I haven't been able to see her".

he decided to go see his kids and I can hear him telling me that seeing them will stem the tide but for a moment. It won't change a thing unless he gets a lawyer on his case.

since then his bm basically shuts down any conversation that rubs her the wrong way (information on doctor visits, school/grade info, etc) because any hint of criticism she takes as a personal assault on her ability as a mother. she always ends the call with "You don't like it, take me to court!".

I've recently paid for a lawyer on his behalf with no repayment necessary but if it wasn't I didn't do it, there was no one else in the position enough to help him out.

and he's a lucky case

>I'm trying to put his casual abandonment of me in perspective

this is where i am. my mom just up and left when i was 3. years later she wrote and apologized, citing alcoholism and "not being ready" her reason for leaving. having been through alcoholism and being deathly afraid of reproducing, i can understand why she wanted to go. her decision wasn't at all justified but it has been put into perspective for me

I'll beat him up if you want me to

I'm a totally different country in which every aspect of my life is challenged on a daily basis but to bounce? Even for a set period of time to improve my situation? Not even close to an option. My situation is so bad that leaving for a second is suggested to me by friends and family on a regular basis.. I even hate that I have to split time with them so I'm totally incapable of comprehending how one can justify, even a flawed person, leaving their offspring in the cold.

twice in your life?

On the other hand you didn't create it so trying to find understanding is for your benefit but as a parent? Zero fucks given for him..