My Dad and my DD a problem I haven't figured out yet...Mods please move if posted in wrong spot!... - Page 2

[Ldavis24]

Originally Posted by Spring Lily 

I just wanted to add 2 things to all the great advice above. It's interesting you describe your self as a little girl, because when you say that you don't know how to explain to DD that he won't be around and doesn't care, I think that is really you (as a little girl) asking that question, and then you (as an adult) still struggling to answer it.

Also, it is great you're starting to realize you need to let it go. Part of that is going to be letting go the dream of what you wanted your father to be like as a kid AND as a grown up. That means grieving. It also means accepting that he is who he is and that has nothing to do with you. Nothing you have ever done made him treat you this way, and nothing you could ever do would have changed him. Another part of letting go means you accepting that no one else can ever fill the hole he left in your heart--you are the only one who can fill that hole, by giving yourself all the love and acceptance that he never did.

thank you Spring Lily. These very thoughtful words touched me.

DD is going to have a great time with the grandparents she has. Many of them! The only burden she needs to deal with is being spoiled rotten by all the people who love her and dote on her!
 

[elmh23]

My father has never been involved in my life.  I visited him when I was 8 and 14, not staying with him but only having lunch.  Recently he contacted me on Facebook and I told him that I am not in a place to have a relationship with him and don't need his negative presence (I've been dealing with a lot of abandonment issues lately.)

My children do not know anything different than one grandfather and two grandmothers.  DD started asking about why I don't have a father when she was about 4 and I told her matter of factly that my father isn't a good father and so we don't see him.  She's excepted that.  But I didn't say anything until she asked why, and I would do that same with your child.  MANY kids don't see their grandparents due to distance or their grandparents are dead or just absent.