I (19M) moved in with family (maternal grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins) when I was eight years old. My mom had just died and my dad (47M) said he couldn’t cope with raising me. I rarely saw him after that and our relationship was mostly once a month phone calls that lasted less than five minutes typically. It messed me up pretty bad and my grandparents put me into grief therapy as well as therapy to help with abandonment because that’s how I was feeling at the time.
It was my grandparents and my aunt and uncle who put the work into helping me heal from my mom’s death and to not carry dad’s choice around with me all the time. When it started to work I stopped wanting to go back to my dad. It made me realize that living with him could never feel like home to me again because it would always be unstable and uncertain for me. Because what would happen the next time it became too much for him.
Contact between decreased when I became a teenager and he didn’t even acknowledge my teen birthdays. Then when I was fifteen he showed up for a visit after three years of not seeing him and he brought along a woman who he said was his wife now. He told me he had grown a lot and healed and he was ready for me to “come back home”. I said I wasn’t ready for that and would never be ready. There was a fight between all the adults. My dad and his wife left the house without me but he went to his lawyer and started a custody fight for me. Me and my therapist were spoken to and I had to talk to the judge and a court appointed therapist before they ruled over the custody dispute. My grandparents, who had been my legal guardians since I was eight, won and I was allowed to stay at home with my family.
The judge ordered reunification therapy for me and dad and that was to be completed until I was eighteen and no longer under the control of the courts basically.
I resisted therapy and didn’t really want to work on my relationship with my dad. He spent most of therapy acting like it was some big surprise that I wasn’t sitting around pining for him and eager to go home with him. There was lots of stuff talked about and I wasn’t really a part of any of it by choice.
Something I decided all the way back then was I did not owe him my reasons and I didn’t think he deserved them. But ever since I turned 18 the pressure has been on me way more. I told him I didn’t want a relationship and I wanted to be left alone. But he wanted answers and told me he would not give up and would never stop looking for them. He’s always trying to DM me on social media or showing up at my family’s house where I still live.
He tried to invite me to his house a few times but I turned him down and that started off a whole new wave of demanding answers. He told me he needed answers for his younger kids who are probably younger than three. And he needs answers for his own peace of mind because he can’t understand my refusal to live with him again and he brought up how the last time we really talked I begged him to take me back and cried for him.
I still don’t want to give him answers, and I still don’t feel like he deserves them either. They really should be pretty clear anyway. But I know I’m not interested in starting over or rebuilding bonds between us. My grandparents told me it was up to me and they would support me regardless but that maybe giving him some kind of answer, even if I lie about my reasons, could at least get him to back off.
I’m trying to be mature about this and I have him blocked so he can’t text or call me. But no contact is difficult when one side doesn’t understand the no contact part. So I’m here for advice because this sucks and I’m trying to be mature like I said but I’m so ready to tell him to fuck off and forget he had a son like he did for years.
Comments
Welcome to /r/relationship_advice. Please make sure you read our rules here. We’d like to take this time to remind users that:
We do not allow any type of am I the asshole? or situations/content involving minors
We do not allow users to privately message other users based on their posts here. Users found to be engaging in this conduct will be banned. We highly encourage OP to turn off the ability to be privately messaged in their settings.
Any sort of namecalling, insults,etc will result in the comment being removed and the user being banned. (Including but not limited to: slut, bitch, whore, for the streets, etc. It does not matter to whom you are referring.)
ALL advice given must be good, ethical advice. Joke advice or advice that is conspiratorial or just plain terrible will be removed, and users my be subject to a ban.
No referencing hateful subreddits and/or their rhetoric. Examples include, but is not limited to: red/blue/black/purplepill, PUA, FDS, MGTOW, etc. This includes, but is not limited to, referring to people as alpha/beta, calling yourself or users “friend-zoned”, referring to people as Chads, Tyrones, or Staceys, pick-me’s, or pornsick. Any infractions of this rule will result in a ban. This is not an all-inclusive list.
All bans in this subreddit are permanent. You don’t get a free pass.
Anyone found to be directly messaging users for any reason whatsoever will be banned.
What we cannot give advice on: rants, unsolicited advice, medical conditions/advice, mental illness, letters to an ex, “body counts” or number of sexual partners, legal problems, financial problems, situations involving minors, and/or abuse (violence, sexual, emotional etc). All of these will be removed and locked. This is not an all-inclusive list.
If you have any questions, please message the mods
This is an automatic comment that appears on all posts. This comment does not necessarily mean your post violates any rules.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
He is putting you in a no-win situation and the worst part, he can’t see how this affects you. Along with your whole life, he cannot see the affects his behavior had on you and the attachment damage it caused. No matter what you say, he’ll turn it around on you. You are trying to be mature but he is emotionally immature. You can say what you wrote but in a very direct non emotional way. “I’m not ready to have you in my life, it’s not my job to make it make sense to you”.
You don’t owe him anything. He left you when you were a child. You lost two parents instead of one. He was selfish and thinking only about his own feelings and happiness. He wasn’t there for you when you needed him and now that’s convenient for him he wants to be a family. I’m sure he can figure out why you went NC. You explaining yourself to him is just a way for him to open a dialogue to further your relationship. If you are not interested in that then it’s pointless for you to explain yourself. You don’t owe him, his wife and his children anything. He needs to learn to live with his sh*tty life choices.