Seeking advice
I am approaching two years since my non paternal event. For reference, my bio dad knew I was out there since my mother was pregnant with me. I found out about him when his adult son reached out after just having found out about my existence. Both of his kids did not know about me and only found out because their mother told them I existed.
I have felt myself pulling away and wanting a lot more distance. I worry that during the first year I immediately jumped in. I spent the holidays with his family that year. I attended and hung out with them anytime they offered.
I am now realizing I have a lot of resentment and anger that I don’t believe I acknowledged. I was raised by a mother who was emotional and sometimes physical abusive. The role I played growing up included taking care of the adults in the household and trying to keep the peace. This has made it to where I will disassociate or detach if I feel that I need to put others needs above my own.
Within the last few months, I have felt a shift in myself. An anger that when my bio dad and his family for the first few months seemed to want to constantly be involved in my life. Texts and invitations to hangout. Then within a few months it changed into infrequent check ins from his family. He remained in contact but with less follow through and now going weeks at a time without trying to see or hear from me.
I have resentment towards having to see how well his two other kids were raised by him. He has supported them financially. My little sister he had bought horses for and continues to offer for her to do things like take his horse trailer to college. I am happy to see that my younger siblings are taken care of. But, I also struggle with the immense pain of feeling less than and resentment that he won’t do the same for me. I have always had 1-3 jobs at a time to support myself through undergrad and law school. I have never had a parent who offered to support me and instead I was expected to support my mom even financially when I was in undergrad.
There was one point where I was in a limbo period of moving from one place to another within the last year and a half. My bio dad offered that I could stay with him but only if I paid him $700 a month for the spare bedroom that no one was using. For reference, he has a 3 bedroom house and only he lives in the house. He said he needed to charge me because it wouldn’t be fair to my siblings. This was confusing to me considering that he supported my siblings for 18 years of their lives and now onwards. I don’t expect him to financially support me or anything and I have been able to make a successful life for myself. But, it’s hurtful in the sense that I have expressed an interest in engaging in those same hobbies with him and his other kids and feel like there is no desire to try and consider me in things.
All of this to say that I find myself becoming more annoyed, resentful, and angry over things I did not initially have a problem with him about. I don’t know if it’s normal to almost have these feelings be delayed. I feel ridiculous for pulling away and becoming more emotional over the situation when I am approaching the two year mark. It’s emotionally exhausting and I feel myself just becoming more and more of a shell in the situation. It feels like it has reinforced beliefs I worked really hard through therapy to get over as a young adult before I learned about my bio dad and my family’s secret.
Please give me advice on how not to feel the anger and resentment and to be able to continue to move forward without feeling this need to withdraw.