She Was Excited For Her Dad’s Visit During Her Pregnancy, But After Her Miscarriage He Made An Excuse Not To Come
Shutterstock
Divorce can be really hard on children. In some cases, they may lose touch with one of their parents, and that hurts.
In this story, one woman had a complicated relationship with her dad. He was in and out of her life after her parents got divorced.
As an adult, she told her dad the good news that she was pregnant, and he seemed happy and wanted to visit. Then she had sad news, and now she doesn’t think she can forgive him for not being there for her.
Keep reading for all the details.
AITA For refusing to forgive my dad for abandoning me?
I (29F) have a tumultuous relationship with my dad.
He didn’t take part in raising me since he and my mom divorced when I was 2 and we moved away, but we’ve been in and out of contact my whole life.
He would send letters and then move, change his number, set up visits to us and never show up, quit paying child support, etc.
We’ve talked on and off throughout the years but it always ends in arguments.
She had good news followed by bad news.
I can be pretty subborn and argumentative, so I don’t tend to let things go if I don’t feel like I have closure.
This is where I’m starting to feel like the jerk.
A few years ago in the Fall, I got pregnant and was stoked. I told him the news after being out of contact with him, and he was very excited too and booked a trip to come visit me around Christmas.
Unfortunately, it was an extremely rough pregnancy for me. I got hyperemisis, lost 20 pounds, and had a miscarriage. I miscarried about a month before he was scheduled to come visit.
Her dad no longer wanted to visit.
When I told him the news, he seemed sad at first, but then he stopped talking to me for about a week.
About a week after I told him, he cancelled his trip to visit, saying he had Covid. (The trip wasn’t for another 4 weeks, so I was confused but didn’t push it).
When the time for him to visit rolled around and I hadn’t heard from him much, I saw him partying with his new girlfriend at a bar.
She just wanted to see her dad.
I got extremely upset and blocked him on everything without saying a word to him.
My miscarriage was also complicated and I had to have two surgeries to avoid getting sepsis.
The whole thing was incredibly traumatic, and I was very hurt by him not showing up.
But she recently reconnected with her dad.
Fastforward to today, I’ve established contact with him again. He reached out to me on LinkedIn of all places, so I got worried something was up.
Nothing was up, he just wanted to talk.
He didn’t ask how I was doing, he didn’t ask if I’m okay, he just wanted to “talk to his daughter”.
We made small talk over a few weeks until he brough up my miscarriage off-handedly and I kind of went off on him.
She doesn’t think she can forgive her dad.
He keeps saying he can’t fix the past and he made mistakes, and he also tells me he was working a lot and that he had it really rough.
He keeps saying he doesn’t want to argue and he just wants to talk to his daughter, and that makes me feel a bit bad.
My dad has also told me that I am a jerk and no explanation he gives me will ever be good enough for me.
Never Miss a StorySign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
Am I the jerk for refusing to forgive my dad for abandoning me?
Maybe her dad thought she wouldn’t want him there since she was going through a traumatic experience, or maybe he felt uncomfortable dealing with the drama. Regardless, not showing up hurt her.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person calls the dad “clueless.”
Another person gives her something to think about.
This person can relate.
Another person tells her to lower her expectations.
She’s not wrong to be upset at her dad, but she should definitely lower her expectations. Basically, if he actually does what he says he’s going to do, she should be pleasantly surprised instead of upset when he bails on her.
Enjoyed this story?
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
