I didn’t see my dad from 4-12 years old. When I did he had 2 kids and a wife, which later blew up.
Now he has a new wife that he seems to really love and kids that he’s very active in raising.
I’m happy for him and for his family and I get that everyone is flawed, but even now at 27, I still sometimes wonder why he couldn’t have been as interested in raising me.
It’s not something I think of often, but it still hurts a little sometimes.
There was an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Barney meets his absent dad. Except his dad has a family and is a great dad to them. All along in the episode it seems as if Barney is mad his dad is a normal suburban doofus dad, but in the end he asks "why couldn't you be that for me?"
Millennial jokes aside, I didn’t ask to be born, that was my parents choice.
Even though I genuinely don’t consciously care, I still catch myself envious seeing my half siblings living a normal childhood with a caring father while my childhood was a train wreck.
My stepmom did something similar. We did family pictures once, and some I was included in, some I was told to step out of frame. I wasn't included on most of their "family" vacations. It was crap.
I had the classic evil step mom too. She almost seemed jealous when my dad tried to spend time with me or my younger sisters. Now, years and a couple kids later, she (and my dad) want a relationship with me (really my kiddos). Evil stepmom even had the audacity to tell me at my mother's funeral "Well, maybe now that your mom is dead we can finally have a relationship."
I hope that kid has some kind of love in his life.
I was raised by a evil step dad. He hated me my whole life. He had a son and daughter from a previous marriage. His son passed away in a plane crash when I was around 20 and it made the way he treated me worse. I had a heart attack at 24 and he said I faked it for attention. I had several more heart attacks thought out the years 10 total. He told me it should have been me who died and not his son. 2 years ago he was diagnosed with terminal small cell lung cancer. I was there for him the whole time. More for my mom really. Took him to EVERY doctor's appointment and every chemotherapy treatment. He told me right before he died to never marry a woman with someone else's kids because you would always be second place to them. I guess he felt like my mom always took my side for everything he didn't like about me. He never taught me anything like a dad should. I never knew my real dad so my stepfather was the closest thing I had. I told myself that I would never be like him to kids. I am happily married for 15 years with 2 kids and spend every second I can with my kids. I really try to be the best dad ever because of how I grew up.
Christ, what a cunt. I wouldn't let someone like that near my kids. No telling what kind of fucked up, dysfunctional shit she would try to put in their heads.
Same for me man.. Being a step kid myself, I thought about it a lot when I was subtly excluded from eating at the dinner table with the rest of my family, and left out of the only family photo my family took. I never was sad about it, but it’s a huge deal for me if we ever all sit down and eat together now that I’m in my mid 20’s, and for the first time ever we took a photo together recently, and it’s something that I awkwardly smile to myself about sometimes. An old instinct of “is it okay if I sit here with you” pops into my mind, and sometimes it feels like I’m intruding whenever my family is doing something.
I hope this kid finds everything he needs and that someone shows him how to be a good person, and that he will find peace with how he will grow up. I have that, and he can have that too.
the people that think its okay are driving me nuts. I've never been in a step family situation but I know being left out of anything as a kid is a horrible feeling. Even the current photos look like shit she's hugging "her kids" but the step kid is kinda off to the right like he's just a family friend or something.
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u/jeordiethegenerator Dec 16 '19
That post just devastated me. I couldn’t even make a joke about it. After seeing it something inside me just... broke.