Absolutely no effort but “harmless” Father
I’m 29F and I have zero emotional relationship with my father. I’ve been enmeshed with my mother my entire life so any relationship I’ve had with my father has been through my mother.
Any knowledge or information I know about him or his life I’ve been told from my mom. Any thoughts or feelings he had towards me were communicated to me via my mom, seemingly without his permission. I have no memories of conversations between us that weren’t just extremely surface level small talk or maybe explaining a random fact. I never went to him for comfort or help.
He had a passive role in the family and was also a victim to my mom’s volatile outbursts. I feel sad for him. For years I only saw my mother as the “victim” in their relationship, because I absorbed my mom’s story of her being the only active caretaker in the family. Which of course was true to some extent, but our enmeshment only allowed me to side with her.
I cant help but be hurt that he never took a genuine interest in getting to know me as person.
I’ve been very low contact with my Mom for the past year and my Dad has never reached out to me.
Guess I’m just looking for similar stories. Anyone else have a Dad that’s a stranger ?