Dadbeat Dad

My father has been a deadbeat for all of my life. I never got a single penny out of him and neither did the rest of his kids. My mother divorced my Dad when I was about 6 years old as she had found out he travelled to Malta to have an affair with another woman. At around the same time, I had started first grade in school and had separation anxiety. I was a "daddy's girl" and seeing all the other kids with their Dads on their first day of school, I wondered where my father was. This damaged me as a little girl.

You see, my father excels at making children but fails to actually parent his kids and be a father figure in their lives. For many years my mother struggled with supporting me and my brother financially due to my father refusing to pay child support. I was a pretty unhealthy kid growing up as I had multiple health conditions. I needed to get surgery on my nose due to not being able to breathe properly for many years. Of course, my mother had to pay for this herself as my father refused to chip in even a little bit of money. He always wasted his money on other women rather than his own children's primary needs or health needs. I had become used to his behaviour after many years but I started questioning myself. As his kid did he love me at all? My father had money so it's not as if he couldn't support me financially. He was greedy and believed he had no responsibilities of providing his children with even basic needs.

I did not see my father regularly after my parents had divorced. I would see him once every fortnight. Some days me and my brother would stand in front of the windows in our house waiting for Dad to come pick us up but some days he wouldn't even show up. As a kid, you start to question if you are the problem, if you did something to cause him not to love you. But the truth is, my father never loved himself. I have come to understand this in my adulthood and no longer blame myself for his neglect. It has damaged me emotionally and scarred me as I have depression and many phobias.

At about 12 years of age, during the most critical adolescent period, my father and his new wife brain-washed me against my mother and our cultural background. I was regularly told derogating stories about my mother and Russian culture which made me reject my culture and my mother. This in turn had alienated me and my mother from each other and I ended up having no second parent in my critical years of growing up. Although this was temporary, it deprived me of the care involvement and presence in my life of another parent. I was also taken away by my father and his new wife from my mother, brain-washed that she does not love me and used as a weapon against my mother. I was used as a pawn by my father to get my mother to agree to certain conditions that freed him from all responsibilities of fatherhood legally. This had significantly damaged me, my relationship with my mother, and my siblings because my mother was devastated and ended up in hospital believing that I was part of this cruel, ugly game.

During all these years, my father had fabricated too many lies about everything to make himself look good. Today, I am 21 years old and everything that I have; first car, vital educational needs, primary needs, and health needs, were all covered and provided by my mother and my step-father, who fully replaced all responsibilities of my own biological father. My father to this day knows this, is not ashamed, has no honour and no dignity, and his simple response is "whoever married your mother automatically takes all responsibilities off my shoulders".

I want to reach out to those who are like me who have been hurt by toxic, irresponsible parents, that you are not alone. You need to focus on the bright things in life. Although I was deprived of a father figure in my life, God sent me another man (my step-father) to come into my life, who equally raised me as if I was his own child and made sure i had all the care, guidance and love I deserved. Neglect and emotional abuse is a crime perpetrated by abusers. This is the biggest pain that many kids are affected by and thus it is very common for those kids to turn to drugs and alcohol in order to block this pain, and can commit suicide. Please know you cannot change your abuser by harming yourself, but you can make a choice to succeed and live a proper life to ensure you do not become your abusive parent for your future kids.