AIO for finally cutting off my dad after he missed every important moment of my life and then showed up expecting credit for the ones he did not ruin?
I (24F) am going to try to write this as plainly as I can because every time I have tried to talk about it out loud it comes out either too angry or too sad and neither of those feels like the full truth.
My dad (51M) left when I was seven. Not dramatically, no big fight that I witnessed, no single moment I can point to. He just became less and less present over about a year and then one day he was not there anymore. My mom never spoke badly about him in front of me which I respect her for but which also meant I spent a long time filling in the gaps with versions of him that were more generous than he probably deserved.
He would call sometimes. Birthdays, occasionally. Christmas, maybe half the time. When I was nine he promised to come to my school play and I told everyone in my class that my dad was coming. I watched the door for the first twenty minutes of the performance. He did not come. He did not call until three days later and said something had come up at work. I told him it was okay because I did not know yet that it was not supposed to be.
When I was twelve he went through a period of calling more regularly and I let myself get attached to the rhythm of it. We would talk on Sunday evenings and I would spend the week collecting small things to tell him. It lasted about four months and then the calls got shorter and less frequent and then stopped without explanation. I kept picking up on Sundays for a while before I accepted that the calls were not coming back.
My mom worked two jobs for most of my childhood. She was tired in a way that was visible but she showed up to everything. Every play, every parent teacher meeting, every early morning when I had a bad dream. She is the reason I know what it looks like when someone decides you are worth the effort.
I got through high school quietly. Did well enough, stayed out of trouble, tried not to need too much from anyone. My dad resurfaced when I was sixteen with a new partner and what seemed like a renewed interest in being present. We had a few dinners. They were stilted and strange, like spending time with someone you are supposed to know but do not. He asked questions about my life in the way that people do when they are trying to appear interested rather than because they actually are. I answered them and went home and cried in a way I could not fully explain.
He did not come to my high school graduation. He sent a card with fifty dollars in it that arrived four days after the ceremony.
When I got into university I called to tell him and there was a pause before he said congratulations that I have thought about more times than I should have. He came to my orientation weekend, which surprised me, and for a brief strange period I thought maybe things were shifting. He took photos and posted them and wrote something about being proud. I saw the post because a cousin sent it to me. He had not posted about me before that and has not since.
University was hard in ways I did not expect. I struggled in my second year with my mental health badly enough that I had to take a reduced course load. I did not tell my dad because I did not know how to explain a crisis to someone who did not know the baseline. I told my mom and she drove four hours to spend a weekend with me and did not make it about herself once.
I graduated last year. My mom was in the front row. My dad came, which I had not fully expected, and brought his partner and her two kids who I had met twice. He cried during the ceremony. Afterward he hugged me and said he was so proud and that he always knew I would do it. I stood inside that hug and felt completely hollow because I kept thinking about all of the times I had needed him to show up and he had not and how he was now attaching his pride to an outcome he had played no part in building.
At dinner afterward he made a toast. He talked about watching me grow up and the young woman I had become. People at the table who did not know our history smiled and raised their glasses. My mom looked at her plate.
I did not say anything that night. I smiled and thanked him and went home and sat with my boyfriend for a long time without saying anything.
About three months after graduation he called to say he wanted to be more involved going forward, that he felt like we had lost time and he wanted to rebuild. He said he knew he had not always been there and that he wanted to do better. I asked him why now and he said he guessed he was getting older and thinking about things differently.
I told him I appreciated him saying it but that I did not think I had it in me anymore. That I had needed him at seven and nine and twelve and sixteen and that I had learned how to not need him and that unlearning that for someone who might disappear again was not something I was willing to do. I told him I did not hate him. I told him I just did not have room for a relationship that had always cost me more than it gave me.
He said he understood, which surprised me. Then he said he hoped I would change my mind someday. I said maybe.
That was eight months ago. I have not changed my mind. My extended family has had a lot of opinions about it. His sister called me cold. A cousin told me I would regret it when he was gone. My mom has stayed out of it completely which is the kindest thing she could have done.
I do not feel cold. I feel tired in a very specific way that I think only people who have spent years waiting for a parent to choose them will fully understand.
I did not make this decision out of anger. I made it because I finally accepted that loving someone from a distance is still a form of love and it does not require me to keep standing at a door that has been closed more times than it has been open.
AIO?