Recovering from Parental Abandonment

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So my father left my mother and me back in 1974 when I was four years old. My mother told me repeatedly throughout my childhood that it was not my fault. I figure it was both our faults, my Mom and me. My Dad was just a totally different kind of person. When they split my Mom moved a nine hour drive away back to where my maternal grandparents lived. This is where I grew up. I saw my Dad a couple of times a year, usually spending a week with him in the summers. He never paid support to my Mom or showed much interest in me. When I was a teenager my Mom told me that my Dad had never felt that he had any responsibility for me. This has always puzzled me as I cannot imagine having a child and not being concerned for it's welfare.
Anyway, my father is deceased now. In 2000 I moved to Kingston where he lived. He died in 2002. We were never able to bridge the gap between us. It still makes me sad.

Anybody have a similar experience?

I'm sorry your dad was such a callous man, and you had to pay for that fact.

It's good that you're bringing this out in the open, I believe.

My mother also believes her father abandoned her. She only has vague memories of her father. He died of cirrhosis of the liver when she was about 12. She became a psychotherapist later in life; she didn't even get her Bachelor's until she was 42; she didn't her MSW until age 47.

Not entirely similar but I have felt very much abandoned by my father. My parents divorced when I was 5 and we moved to different sides of the country. I'd see him every school holiday pretty much. The whole abandonment thing was when I went to live with him when I was 14.

He had always filled my head with wonderful ideas of me going to live with him one day. When I did, it was a total nightmare. I didn't know he was a raging alcoholic. He should have said no to me at that time but I don't think he could. He is very likely on the spectrum.

I was supposed to live with him but ended up living with my grandma who had Alzheimer's. Even when she was really ill he still left me there. Even after my serious suicide attempt which he completely ignored. Eventually he let me live with him but was violent at times and allowed my stepmum to kick me out for good on my 16th birthday.

I was very bitter and angry for a long time but now I understand that he was very ill. It was never about me even though he would say it was all my fault. I have contact with him now but don't think we will ever be close again. I wonder if I should make more of an effort now while he's alive but I don't think he would meet me halfway. He's still very ill and don't think he'll be making any big changes at this stage in life.

I don't think you can rely on the other person for any sort of 'closure' usually. The healing has to come from within yourself. Trying to understand my father's situation, writing angry and emotional letters that never got sent, attending Alanon meetings, therapy, revisiting places from my childhood and just working through all the emotions helped me.

Not everyone makes a good parent or wants to be a parent. It seems to be that way for a lot of men, but women can be the same too, though it seems more common for men as they don't have as much control after conception, and it's usually easier for the man to leave as the child hasn't grown inside them. If that makes sense.

I'm sorry you didn't get to sort things out with your dad before he passed but I hope you can be at peace about him one day

Yes. My father left when I was 8 and I only seen him for like a year afterward then that was it. Not a word in almost 30 years. I used to deny it affected me. So much I'd get pissed off if you suggested it.

I realize as I've gotten older just how much it messed me up. It's destroyed my trust, makes me constantly anxious people will leave me, and distance with loved ones gives me unbearable separation anxiety. I have bitterness over all of the life lessons I was never taught, all the examples I never had to follow. And I need these things or I'm lost.

It's the main reason I think I struggle to be an adult- a grown man. I never had anything to emulate really. I have a stepdad, which actually been really helpful during my recent separation from my wife, but we are only 15 years apart in age and used to get into intense verbal altercations that at times really pushed going physical. Though also as I've gotten older I've noticed how much I absorbed from him here and there despite trying intentionally not to for many years.

My best friends dad was a saint for how he treated me when he was alive. It was during those times talking with him, learning from him, soaking up every drop of the wisdom from him that I was fortunate enough to have been able to, that I realized all that I missed in not having a dad. Of course shortly after realizing this, and having such an appreciation for what the man did for me mentally and emotionally, he died suddenly of a heart attack in Nov 2012. I haven't really recovered from that one. I probably never will. I really wish he was still alive right now.

So I've been so lucky I've gotten to sort of lose two dads in one lifetime!

I've been waiting for the feeling to go away, but it just doesn't.

That's true. I might never recover from the damage, but I can still be okay with the person I am instead of beating myself up for it.

Me too.

It seems like a trust was broken in me in a formative age (4) and that it has affected my conception of humanity. I don't trust anyone.

Just because there's damage--doesn't mean that it can't get fixed.

Yes, there was damage done....definitely. But time does have the power of healing sometimes. It does provide one with the sutures to heal gaping wounds.

My mother is only now, 70 years after the facts, learning this. The pain her mother caused her is still acute--much more acute than anything her father did.

She feels she has a right to suffer. I feel one should allow the natural and man-made processes of healing to proceed.

Yes...Similar in the sense that I woke up one Sat. morning and mother had left my Dad, older bro, and me behind. About a year later, my brother and I went to live with her and it was a mess. I would up going to live with my father when I was nine and only saw here a couple of times between the age of 9 and 16. This one event has had significant impact on my younger years and adult years too. A lot of the way I didn't even figure out until I really started to work through stuff in therapy. I was only a few years ago (some 25 years later) that I was able to repackage it a little bit and get it rest in a little better spot. To this day though, we are more like friends than Mother and Son. I know that it just isn't in her make-up and after about the 100th time of trying to connect and understand it all, I just had to put it down; it isn't worth it. What is interesting to note and actually might bring a deeper sense of understanding is that what I have learned about Aspergers and how it affects myself, my brother and our children, I can see many of the same characteristics in her that are in all four of us. I always wanted to know what was so much better that would have motivated her to up and leave in the middle of the night. I may never know. All the best and Kind Regards.

I don't get that either. As I get older, I realize how fast time flies and I wonder why my Dad couldn't have given me a few more years. Obviously he and my mother weren't going to work it out, and it would have been a sacrifice on both their parts to get along, but it wouldn't have been forever. And it would have really helped me out.
My parents never gave much of a thought to parenting. It was the '70s and everybody figured everything was coming up roses; laissez faire was the rage, especially in child rearing.
I'm pretty sure both my parents are/were on the spectrum. My Mom worse than my Dad.

How many other things you think you "know" about your father are in fact just things your mother told you?
What did you actually see with your own eyes?
Who else can you ask that might remember things - relatives, family friends etc?
Time to read up on parental alienation, if you haven't already.

Well, she didn't go on about him. I think she liked him and was disappointed about the divorce. She certainly wasn't bitter. In fact, on my Dad's intermittent visits she would dominate his attention.
I think my Dad's rejection of me combined with my autism has really screwed me for trusting anyone.

Here is the problem, you're siding more with your mother and taking her story to be the truth when there are two sides for every story. How do you know what support your father did or did not pay? You're father could have been paying but she could of told you otherwise. Plenty of mothers out there who do that. If she was on welfare or got free medical you better believe the state got him on child support.

I've always worried about this happening to myself as a father. My oldest son was told this even though I never corrected what his mother told him that he told me he figured it was bull anyways and sees her as very self centered. My middle child I barely have been able to see I have no idea what she tells him she pretended to be straight to have a kid and get married to get alimony it wasn't until she realized I was not successful and very poor (I used to dress up in dress clothes when most people see me they think I am a professional) when she realized this she just relieved she was gay all a long and just put me on child support.

My youngest is Autistic as well his mother moved away for four years she doesn't have me on child support but she can do so at any time. She tricked me into a scam marriage for immirgration.

I think the sad part is you were never able to ask him the questions on your mind. I would love to give my kids the story at age 18 but I live in a Democrat blue state and child support is till the age of 23 here thus fathers cannot speak ill of the mother or conflict of what she say's ever, or you go to jail in Family Court.

In my case my father always tried to do things with me but being that I was autistic and they denied I had problems I was always failure in their eyes. Eventually I was cast aside and my oldest son is techically the son they've never had.

I can totally relate to this. Both my father and my mother denied my problems. My Dad did until the day he died. He thought I wasn't trying hard enough, that I was lazy. My mother even now says I'm capable of things I know I am not. Although she found my diagnosis of autism to be of great insight into my behaviour. My Dad and my Stepmom never accepted the diagnoses, even today my Stepmom doesn't. She is confused by me; we are not close even though we live in the same city. Fortunately my Mom and I are quite close as she's just about the only other person I've got in the world, which doesn't bode well for when she passes.
I think the lack of a male role model in my early years has skewed my relations with men. My boyfriend/fwb and I have parted company. He has found greener pastures. I'm not even sure if I will make an effort to find someone new; probably not; I seem to have terrible taste in men; I expect them to keep me at a distance. Plus it is rare that I find someone I can stand to be around.

Yes - my parents divorced when I was 4. They were both alcoholics. My mom recovered but never stopped "thinking" like an alcoholic and I'm still discovering ways that she manipulated and abused me. I confronted her a while ago about some of the issues from my childhood and she became very upset, said some horrible things, accused me of saying horrible things and attempted to use shame and guilt to deflect responsibility off of herself (typical alcoholic behvior), etc., etc. We're talking now, she's apoligized, I've apologized and, for the first time since my diagnosis, she's trying to understand what it's like for me to live "autistically". We're trying. My father, however, never once told me he loved me or hugged me. He had a PhD in education and did his dissertation on "school climates". He picked us up one or two weekends per month and we would spend the time with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin. He rarely spent time with me and my younger brother. If we stayed at his house we had to be quiet so he could read and/or watch news. He was a very serious person who loved math. He may have been on the spectrum, too. He was very intelligent and almost sociopathic. He rarely showed emotion unless he was drinking with my uncle. When I was 11 he dropped my brother and me off after what I thought had been a normal weekend with him, told me that I was a "bad kid" and that he didn't want to see me anymore. I still don't know what I'd done wrong. I tried to reconnect with him once when I was eighteen and, again, a few years later but he didn't seem to care. He died a few years ago. Guess that's it in a nutshell. Probably doesn't help anybody but it pretty much answers your original question.

I think some people are just not interested in parenting. Both my parents were like that in some ways. My father with absence and my mother with neglect.

Neither of my parents were/are alcoholics. But my stepfather is. "Rusty Nails," scotch and Drambuie. My mother drank more when she was around him and I started drinking young.

I don't know if you find this, but now that my father has passed away the burden of trying to reconcile with him has passed somewhat. There is no one to reconcile with now. My relationship with my stepmother is improving. We had coffee together the other day and it was nice.

I can relate. My Father also left his 3 children when we were all young, I think I was about 5. I didnt see him until I turned about 18 or 19 when I found his sister in the phone book, contacted her and found him. Needless to say while I am happy I did find my dad it hasn't always been such a smooth transition. When I initially found him he was a drug addict and I lived in a drug den for about 8 or so months, I did drugs with him and my uncle and it was basically a fun time but abandonment issues kept arising and since he was out of his mind and I was young and afraid, I moved back to my mothers house. For the next 10 years I bounced back and forth from my mothers and dad's house never really making that connection with my father successfully.

Until I moved back to Mount Shasta lived there for a few years and since I was close to my dad we hung out occasionally and tried to carve out some father, son relationship. My sisters basically don't have a relationship with him and do not know if they ever will. Personally I think my dad is a good guy he just got caugt up making some bad choices in his life. He doesnt do drugs anymore except for smoking weed and drinking, (I can't smoke pot because it makes me paranoid) but he has been off of hardcore drugs since 2004 I believe. We fight sometimes but mostly use sarcasm to cover up the pain from the past. Even if he was into going to family counseling I do not think he would go and I don't blame him. Will we ever have a normal relationship like before all this crap happened? I dont know. however, I really can't die without atleast trying to do everything humanly possible to have much as a normal relationship with my parents. my mother is defiantly no Angel either but atleast she didnt abandon her children like my father did.

Sort of. I was never sad from them splitting up as my father was just a bastard I didn't like. He used to give me second hand presents for my birthdays, like used walkmans. He didn't give child support either. He was an obese, tall Egyptian bloke with a loud, booming voice. I remember when I was 9 years old he pointed out to my mother that I was fat. "Smudge is fat, she needs to lose weight. Smudge is fat". I felt so ashamed I walked quietly into the main bedroom and curled up into a ball in the corner.