This Saturday I celebrated my 30th birthday 4 months after my actual birthday. My birthday is in the summer holiday. So in order to make sure that most of the people I invited wasnÂ’t away on vacation, I decided to postpone the party to 29 October 2005.

On Sunday morning after the party my mother gave me a post-it with www.lostdaughtersunited.org written on it. She had read about this in a womenÂ’s magazine and while taken aback by the article she thought of me and wrote the www-address on the post-it.

I always felt I was alone on this sad cruise of emotions. As I looked at her Sunday morning it occurred to me that the penny might - for the very first time - have dropped for her when she read the article. She didn’t say so, but it felt like she said: I didn’t realize – here go talk to other like-minded girls.

I cannot bring myself to call him my dad or my father, so throughout this story he will be called STH.

My mom and STH met, got married and had me and moved to another part of the country. She was 22 and he was 21. They where obviously both very young – a fact I couldn’t relate to before I turned 21 myself. In (very) short STH wasn’t mature enough and after 1½ year it had to end. After the divorce STH moved back to Copenhagen leaving a lot of promises of birthday cards/presents and Christmas cards/presents behind. We never heard anything. Well almost - My mom got a radio for her birthday though. But she also received the invoice a few weeks later. I think he sent me flowers on my first birthday after the divorce, but I’m not sure.

At this point I wasnÂ’t consciously aware of the negligence, but unconsciously it has had a great effect on me at the time.

A year later my mother met another man and after quite a while we moved back to Copenhagen with him. We can call him JVH.

It started going bad between him and my mom after a few years but to spare me they tried to keep up appearances. I didnÂ’t pick up on the situation. I called him dad from the beginning and thought of him as such.

After seven years in total they couldnÂ’t stay together any longer and I was told that my mother and I were going to move to an apartment by our selves. I wasnÂ’t aware of the situation until then, so I was rather shocked and felt as if the sky would cave in.

As it turned out my mom and I were quite the professionals when it came to living ‘on our own’. Today it is virtually impossible for me to picture it otherwise.

I kept on seeing this stepfather as my ‘real’ father. So even though he and my mom broke up I kept visiting him every other weekend and kept calling him dad.

But because my mother wasnÂ’t in despair over the fact that he wasnÂ’t in her life anymore he tried to get to her by being mean to me. He sent me angry eyes across the room and tried to keep me quiet - and it all made me feel bad about myself.

He had a new girlfriend. I knew her before they started dating, so I wasnÂ’t intimidated by her. We had fun - or so I thought.
They got married and had a son. A few months after a friend of JVH said to me as I arrived at JVHÂ’s home/work that he didnÂ’t want me around anymore since it wasnÂ’t a playground. I turned around that instant and ran home crying. I lost another father who though he wasnÂ’t my biological father was more real than anything.
(Many years later when I was 27 JVHÂ’s wife (at this point divorced from him) told me that she had a saying in the matter that didnÂ’t turn out to my benefit. I had the pleasure of turning down her wish to socialize with me.)

After a short while the fact of JVH wanting me to stay away brought me to the logical conclusion that since he only wanted his biological children then maybe after all these years STH wanted to know me since I was his biological daughter.

I talked this over with my mom. She was taking a class where one of her classmates happened to be a long-time friend and colleague of STHÂ’s sister. We decided to give this friend a letter to give to my aunt.
The answer was like you see it in Hollywood-movies. She had asked STH who apparently had had my picture on display in his apartment all these years. He had remarried but they didnÂ’t have any kids due to a number of miscarriages. I should have recognized the warning-signs by then and saved myself from a lot of pain.

It was beautiful to begin with. I met him, his wife and my two aunts and their husbands and one uncle and his wife and daughter. True to his nature he promised me a lot of things concert-tickets, furniture for my new room at his place and so forth. All I ever applied for was love!

He seldom kept these promises and there wasnÂ’t much love. It was more like co-existence. His wife wasnÂ’t to keen on me as time went by. When we were going to our second concert the (the first one never happened) he encouraged me to invite a friend. I was rather reluctant since I knew that he might cancel at the last minute. In the end I agreed to ask her since he was so decisive about the matter. But as I had predicted I had to call this friend and tell her that there wasnÂ’t going to be any Tina Turner-concert for us anyway. Not fun coming to school after this having to explain that I hadnÂ’t been lying about there being concert-plans at all.

One time I went to bed at a ridiculously early hour because I thought that if I had gone to bed he couldnÂ’t call and cancel the events on the following day. I was right - he didnÂ’t. But the phone did ring - my mom answered. It was my aunt who called on his behalf since she knew that he wasnÂ’t going to keep his promise nor was he going to cancel.

Some time after this he turned up at my motherÂ’s office asking her to tell me that he couldnÂ’t see me anymore due to his wifeÂ’s traumatic miscarriages.
My mother told him to face the music and come tell me face to face in the evening - with my mother present. He didnÂ’t agree to that. And she knew that he didnÂ’t have the guts to carry out the conclusion he had preferred - namely to tare me down once again.

As I recall I heard it from my mother. I donÂ’t remember what happened afterwards.

These two stories of two fathers turning me down have this one particular fact in common. I didnÂ’t get the message from them. This meant that I didnÂ’t get a true chance to react as I felt - by screaming, crying, yelling and by doing so hopefully carve a big hole in their heart so to speak. They both got away with it.

I have asked myself a lot of questions throughout the years and written a lot of letters to STH which I never sent primarily due to my respect for the fact that he was also the little brother of my two aunts. And as much as they understood me and my pain I didnÂ’t want to do anything that might make them sad. The reason why my letters to JVH never got sent was that I didnÂ’t want him to think that he got to me.

I donÂ’t know what might happen in the future. Whether or not I get to know STH again it will be on his initiative IF I allow it!!!

All I do know is that I still know my two aunts and their husbands very well and they where sitting at my table surrounded by 35 friends and members of my mothers family on Saturday at my 30th birthday party.

3 comments:

Hi, IÂ've known my dad for 1 year now after not having had any contact with him for 15 years.. My story resembles your story, especially in the way that my dad promises me the world, i.e. furniture, trips, schooling abroad, to meet my half brother who is 15 and whom iÂ've never met, nothing happens though.. we do speak on the phone quite often, but when he does get the chance to see me we go to a reastaurant and eat.. nothing else happens.. i donÂ't really feel that i get to know him.. iÂ'm still afraid that he will disapear again so i donÂ't dare to tell him how i really feel. i couldÂ't bare not having him again.. iÂ'm not sure what is best for me.. take care all of you girls!!
Malin

Hi Malin

Thank you for your comments.

The weird thing occoured to me as I wrote my story. I am quite content with things as they are - at least I think I am.

It has now been 16-17 years since he told my mom that he couldnÂ't continue knowing me. By now I donÂ't care as much. I know that IÂ'm better of NOT knowing him. I know his siblings and have a strong bond with them.

We hardly ever talk about him. And they know that if he at some point wants to know me they have to consult me first, since IÂ'am not sure that I would like to know him ever again. I know that he canÂ't bring anything good to the equation.

I am glad that I donÂ't have to relate to him and the whole issue over dinner. It is impressive that you can cope with that kind of relationship.

All the best :o)
Heidi

I have thought some more...

It seems that the fact that I was let down by STH & JVH shows itself as a pattern in all my relationships since then - with frinds as well as boyfriends.

So I might be content with not knowing eather one of them. But I am really concerned with the fact that I actually allove every one I know to participate in the friendship with only 25% while I allways give 100%.

This has to stop. I am fed up with it, and is time for a  change.

I CAN HIGHLY RECOMMEND Â'TRANSFORMATION HEALINGÂ' if you want to break the Â'unbreakable patternÂ'.


Best regards Heidi