{{{{Hereiam}}}}

I deal with very similar issues with my father. I am an only child and instead of being "Daddy's Little Girl" I was totally ignored. Period. I has an honor student and active in sports - he never came to anything I was involved with. I was basically "invisible" to him.

On the other hand, he was extremely verbally *and* physically abusive to my mother, to the point of almost killing her one time. (He was also a raging alcoholic.) This was back in the '50's when divorce was considered a disgrace and there were no women's shelters. My mother had no place to go and provided the most stable life for me she could under the awful circumstances.

Much like you've expressed, I felt like even after my mother *did* divorce my father when I was 17 and he was out of the house, that the repercussions from living in his household with the violence still affected me...and did for a long, long time.

The good news is, I have finally achieved peace where he is concerned. My mother has been remarried for 30 years to a wonderful man who I consider more my "father" than my "bio dad." My father and I are not adversarial but the only communication I have with him are exchanging Christmas cards and I still send Father's Day cards (which has always been a challenge to find a card that *doesn't* say nice things which for me would be lying!)

I also went through a LOT of therapy and "inner child" work to resolve many of the issues which I highly recommend.

I'm sorry any child has to live in this type of hell. I'm sorry for the scars we carry. Looking back, I now view my father as very likely mentally ill but did not seek help and self-medicated with alcohol and probably lived in his own private hell.

Ok, rambling a bit but wanted to let you know I care, I can relate...and offer a bit of encouragement.