When I was 11 I started to find out/remember alot of the violence that my Dad had put my older brothers and Mum through and I started to become very resentful towards him. Once at around this age we were having an argument on the phone (he had left to live with his (actually very lovely) mistress by then). I said to him "you can't leave and then try to discipline me I have no respect for anything you say, you think I don't remember all the **** you used to pull but I do, I know you used to hit my mum and bully your step kids".
He hung up and did not answer the phone for the rest of the evening. The next day the doorbell rang I went to answer it. All I saw was my Dad's back walking away from the door I called his name but he ignored me and left from my sight. On the floor in a box he had left every picture I ever drew that he had, every piece of art I made, every gift I gave him. In a box on my doorstep. I was 11.
He refused to take my calls and didn't speak to me for 2 weeks after that.
At the time I was totally incapable of articulating that total feeling of desolation and abandonment. Like KMPrim I had been a total Daddy's girl seeing him all the time and had a very rose tinted view until I got to an age where i could challende him and ask questions.
In hindsight at 28 and now in chemical dependancy recovery myself (my Dad died very suddenly when I was 15 which then sent me into a bit of a spin). I can accept that my Dad did love me, he was just fundementally wounded and had totally stunted his own emotional capability by drinking and using. He had never learnt how to be a well balanced and decent person.
My Dad did love me in every way that he was able, sometimes that was more than at other times but it was never less than he was able to. I am sure your Dad is the same KMprim.
In some ways I am lucky that he died when I was so young so that I could start to find peace around it early and also not continue to have my heart broken over and over. The roller coaster, the not knowing, the disapointment of broken promises to the elation from receiving little scraps of validation to the feeling unnaturally smothered on rare occassions when affection was laid on through guilt or a genuine short-lived wave of love. I have romantic relationships with emotionally unavailable men to do that now *rolls eyes* hehehe. I am working on it!!
God writing that made me cry at my work desk!
Hugs xx