Aloha,

I have a 9yo daughter who is just heartbroken now because her birth father has decided he doesn't want to bother with her anymore. My first instinct when I became pregnant was to move away and have no contact with him. I decided that was wrong, even though he has a history fo wandering in and out of his children's lives [No, I didn't know this when we first became involved] He has never put forth ANY effort in their 'relationship' Since she was born I have had to make up for his lack of attention. We moved away so she wouldn't feel rejected. I made sure they saw each other once a year. When we tried to see him more often he wasn't interested.

Yet, when I would take her back to visit, his friends would make comments about how I took his kid away. Apparently he didn't bother to fill in the part about us living a few blocks from one another and him not bothering to see her in 8 months unless I paid for us all [including his other 2 children] to go out to dinner.

Ask your mom her reasons for not having your father in your life. Remember that anything he says has to be suspect because he wants to make himself look good. Don't settle for just one side of the story. How are his other relationships? How does he treat/talk about women? If he is disparaging, it's a good indication that he has issues with women. Don't put him on a pedestal just because he wasn't there and you're not around him. He can present whatever image he wants to you.

My daughter recently said to me that she thinks it's better never to have known your father than to have him reject you. It tears at my heart to see her so broken. And this happened because I did all I could to keep the 'relationship' between them going. Now she's old enough to see what kind of person he is.

Maybe your mom was trying to spare this kind of heart wrenching pain. Give her some credit - she was the one who was there for you. And if you had a good step father, be grateful that your mom loved you enough to find you a good dad and loved you enough to deal with the consequences of her actions. She knew when she made that decision that someday she would be seen as the bad guy. That's a hell of a sacrifice. She really loves you.

Blessings