{{{{{ hugs}}}}} to you.
glad you have come to the point where you can move on and not allow yourself to be disappointed or poisoned anymore by your dysfunctional family.
Thanks. It still sucks, and I’m still disappointed and heartbroken, but it’s literally impossible to change at all and it’s-he’s-just not worth it.
Lesson learned for my future kids for sure. And what I’m willing to tolerate in a spouse and what I’m not, aka none of what my mom tolerates drom him. At least I can save on my phone plan minutes in the meanwhile until I have a real family of my own since we’ve literally talked on the phone maybe 10 minutes a year at best. Realizing he’s just not meant to be a parent helps, and knowing it’s taken him hundreds and hundreds of friends to find a few willing to think of him as family shows how screwed up his long-term relationships are. He’s incapable of anything more than short-term friendships, and he’s simply incapable of being a parent and never ever should have been. .
I’m sure there’s others out there with a complete stranger for a “father.”
Odd to have a total stranger for a parent, but… meh. Thinking of him as that is less brutal than thinking of him as an incompetent kerk of a parent who wouldn’t know what family was if it slapped him in the face and tries to ruin our holidays.
Stranger is probably all he’ll ever be. Scratch that, definitely all he’ll be. No more false hope of him actually being a father figure even just a little at some point. Never gonna happen with him.
I couldn’t have even told you his eye color until college, and even then that was just because I took our “family reunion” photos and edited them. So much father/child time I still have to think for a minute what color his eyes are. LOL. Betcha $1000 he couldn’t name my eye color even now.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Closing thread. OP seems to have received the advice needed.