Father issues [VENT]

Gosh sometimes I don't know why I go to so much of an effort to maintain a relationship with my father.

We have a difficult relationship to begin with. I also have a very blended family. 2 brothers with both my parents, step brother and sister from mothers partner, 3 step brothers and a step sister from my dads partner, and my dad and his wife had my 2 brothers.

I don't have much family support, due to both inlaws being deceased, and mother having alcohol induced dementia. Then I have an odd/strained relationship with my father.

So my point is this, sometimes it feels as though my father is very selfish and all the effort is one sided. And then they made this big hoohah about us being family, but then not feeling like it.

For instance, I recently found out my second cousin (my dads cousin) passed away, via suicide. When I asked my father about it he had two things to say. One he hadn't told me because it was very difficult on him, and two that they aren't my cousins they are his. Wtf does this mean???? They're not my cousins because they are my great aunts children and not my aunt/uncles?

The other part is this feeling like a part of the family. When I grew up with all these step siblings and half brothers my parents pushed for us to be like real siblings and not to use step etc. Fine by me. But now it feels as though me and my brothers have been excluded.

5 of my step mums kids live at home with them. Which is fine. And they absolutely adore my ds. But whenever I try to make an effort to see them they decline for one reason or another. They want to come around our place, rarely with any of my siblings. Now it May seem lovely that they make this effort, but they don't make it often and it feels like they don't want us to come around.

It was just my brothers 21st and I asked if we could come around to say happy birthday and he could meet my ds. But low and behold they came up with reasons that we couldn't. Then they go and post lovely family pics if him with his birthday cake. WTF? Same happened at Xmas, only my dad came around to see ds, then brothers went and posted happy family Xmas pics on fb. What the hell am i supposed to think?

Sorry for this long vent, just really needed to get some of these feelings out. Hopefully I can calm down and go to sleep now.

:hug: Hun. Vent away. Sometime family is more love, sometimes it's more hate.

Sorry to hear about your cousin. One of DH's friends did the same a few weeks ago. It cuts you apart in side.

Hope things get better for you

X

family cam be so weird :hug:

do they live close enough that you could just pop in sometimes?

personally i'd want to see what's up at their house cause that's kinda weird and Im a devil like that ;)

Yeh I'm not sure if he's ashamed of his new house. He's a bit old fashioned, and thinks the home he lives in proves the kind of husband he is. But they are 1.5-2hrs away, bit far if I go there and they aren't home. Dh thinks I should just pop over one day. I haven't been allowed to visit them since Christmas 2011.