OK. So, it's a long story, but basically my real father has been in my life for the past 8 years, mostly over the phone. When I first found him, I found my aunt first and she had to ask his permission if I could have his number. At first, he only called me from blocked numbers. I felt like he was analyzing me and he actually stated at one point that he wanted to make sure because some children are vengeful, etc. I shrugged that comment off.
Our first few meetings were all about how his heart got ripped out by my mother and I was taken from him, yadda yadda. I shrugged it off.
He never really calls me to ask how I am doing. He has another family. He barely visits me even though I'm a 2 hour drive, never takes me out, isn't really present in my life at all. I realized through therapy that the reason I don't express my feelings to him and feel like I'm a little girl in my relationship with him is because even though I was taken away from him in a divorce, the child in me feels abandoned by him and rightfully so. It's difficult for me to tell him how I feel because I'm holding onto what little I have of him for dear life in fear of him abandoning me again if I hurt his feelings. Whether that's rational or not, that's the child in me that can't rectify that because he isn't being the father he is supposed to be. All this time, I have been deifying him instead of demanding that he give me a proper father-daughter relationship.
He doesn't make me feel like I'm a part of the family. None of them ever call me, text me, or email me to see how I'm doing. When I have gone to visit them over the holidays in 2009, they wouldn't take me with them to have a family dinner with his wife's mother. My dad's reasoning was that she took a long time to even warm up to him, that she knows about me, but that he wanted to protect me from any bad thing she might try to say. I shrugged that off too, but in therapy, I realized how hurtful his decision actually was. He should've stood up for me in that situation and taken me anyway.
When I've gone through troubling relationships since he has been in my life, he tries to act all fatherly in that he's "skeptical because of what I went through last time", yet he always remained neutral when I was being abused by men instead of acting like a real father I feel like. All this time, the last 8 years, I feel like he has been making me feel like I have to prove myself worthy of his love. My mother was awful to him in their marriage, so as an adult, I do understand his skepticism, but come on! I'm sure he doesn't intentionally do that, but what the hell? I feel like he doesn't really care about me that much. After all, his actions of not being present in my life are all I have to go off of, right?
Which brings me to the part I need advice about. There was a lot of question because my mother cheated on him all of the time. He did mention briefly in the past that there is question in his mind whether or not I'm his biological child. I've started to uncover that in therapy. I forgot about the conversation for some reason for years. So, here I am. I want to ask him why in the hell he didn't do a paternity test back then. I want to tell him how awful he makes me feel as his daughter. I want to ask him for a paternity test, but how do I do that? Who's responsibility is that to cover the cost?
Instead of calling him about all of this, I've been avoiding him. Not only that, but he only tried to call me once in the last month so what's the point anyway. Ugh, this is really frustrating. I don't want to make myself vulnerable to this guy if he isn't even my father. And if he turns out not to be, what will that look like? Will I want him to still be a part of my life and his family? I am scared to death that I would never get the truth out of the mother whom I've had to go no contact with because she was never a mother to me. This sucks!
