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oliviahush

I don't want anything to do with my dying deatbeat dad?

OliviaHush
9 years ago

My name is Olivia and I'm a 20 year old college law student from South Africa. English isn't my first language so I apologise if there are grammar errors of any sort. My parents divorced when I was 10 years old after my dad left us for his pregnant mistress. After the divorce, they got married but the rest of the family refused to acknowledge her and her daughter from another relationship excluding her in a lot of family gatherings and celebrations.

I started self harming when I was 12 and attempted suicide 3 times when I was 14. I was later diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. At 15, my mother died from a heart attack at just 37. So I'm kinda on my own.

My father who I haven't seen or spoken to in over 8 years sent me an email just 3 months ago informing me that he was moving back to South Africa after he discovered he had terminal cancer. He says he wants to "make things right" with me. I'd like to think when you get a divorce, you divorce your spouse not your kids. He adopted his stepdaughter but turned his back on me, his own daughter. When he signed away his rights, his family was outraged and disowned him. My mother fought tooth and for him to at least pay for child support.

I don't care if she held a gun to his head, you don't abandon your child. In his defence he says he didn't want a second divorce and thought he owed it to his unborn daughter to give her a family. What about my family? The family he tore apart?. He keeps saying it was a mistake...NO!! Having an affair for 2 years, conceiving a child & leaving your family was NOT A MISTAKE, it was a deliberate and selfish act.

Everytime I went over to my dad's house, my step mother would put me down all the time. There were zero pictures of me in that house. Most of them were family portraits of just the 4 of them. When I asked my stepmother if I could bring a couple of pictures of myself so she could hang them around the house, she refused. She wouldn't let me hold, touch or even play with my half sister when she was a baby but her daughter could.

I'm biracial, my Dad is white (British and Dutch descend) and my Mom was half Arabic and half Armenian. My step sister would make racist remarks every chance she got because "I wasn't white enough", sometimes within earshot of my dad but he would ignore it. My stepmother did the same thing but never around my dad. She would tell her friends that she married my dad so my step sister could have a father and I was just in the way. She cried to my dad about how much easier life would be if I didn't exist so they can all be a proper family. My dad told her that he would take care of it. Then a week later, just days after my 12th birthday he signed away his parental rights. They later moved to England and that was the last time I saw him. I don't even know how many birthdays passed by without hearing from him. There was never any bad blood between my parents and my mom never tried to keep me away from my dad. So we were both shocked.

I was excited about having two moms and I really wanted her to love me but it wasn't to be. She kept telling anyone that would listen that I was a product of her husband's affair and she was helping my dad raise me because my biological mother had abandoned me.

Back to the subject at hand, my dad has sent me emails and facebook messages asking for a second chance! He went on to say he was an idiot for what he did and if he could take it back he would.

There's definitely an element of hate there for sure and I know I should be mature about this but there's so much pain. I've spent 5 years in therapy trying to deal with it and I don't need the extra stress because I need to fully focus on my studies. As parents you are responsible for the life you bring into the world and every decision you make affects them, good or bad. Children never ask to be born, so their happiness, wants and needs come first, NOT YOURS.

Anyway, they're still married. He wrote in one of his emails that instead of taking care of him, she's out with friends, possibly with other men every night leaving my half sister who's only 9 years old to care for him since he can't stand or walk on his own - so he says. I've changed my email address twice, my phone number at least 3 times in the last month and a half and blocked him on facebook yet he manages to find ways to contact me.

Has anyone ever gone through something like this? I'm not looking for anyone to validate my feelings, I just need some good advice.

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