I suspect my mom has alienated me from my dad. It feels like mind games were played at my expense.
I was a baby when they divorced. My dad quickly met someone else (I think it was the lady who babysat me because I remember her in my life, babysitting me when I was about 1 1/2 or 2 years old (I do have memories of when I was a baby and toddler). My mom has told me my dad left her for the babysitter. But this was changed to "I don't know." later on.
I don't recall her being pregnant or my oldest half-brother as a baby. But I didn't know what pregnancy was or where babies came from. He's just 2 years younger than me. My mom, recently, told me that my half-brother was adopted by my dad and his wife. This was never mentioned or confirmed so I never asked but my mom said I should ask my brother this. Are you kidding me? My mom was in a weird in-your-face mood at the time. Sometime after that she said that she doesn't know if he's adopted.
When I was at my half-brothers wedding, my dad's wife's mom said she wanted to go talk to my half-brothers sister. This dumbfounded me. I'm the only girl my dad has ever had, as far as I know. Apparently this other sister is from my dad's wife's relationship before him. But I never heard of this girl. Ever.
Over recent years, I have discovered other things in my mom's side and dad's side I didn't know. My dad's side seems the most mysterious nowadays. I've noticed they never talk about anything in the past.
When I was a kid, my mom remarried and we moved out of province for a couple years. I visited my dad once or twice during the summers. When I moved back, my mom divorced.
A few years later, when I went to my dad's for my birthday they got into a fight when he was supposed to drop me off. I don't know what they were saying. I think it was that my dad wanted to spend extra time with me. He might have said something that my mom took the wrong way.
After that fiasco, I distinctly remember being told I wasn't allowed to talk to my dad or his side of the family. This crushed me for a long time. Years. I was very close to my granny. I loved spending time with my half-brother and always considered him my actual brother. I had another half-brother that was becoming attached to me. He would cry and cling to me when I would have to go back to my mom's.
My mom flipped back and forth on her reasoning why I can't contact my dad. She told me my dad doesn't want to talk to me anymore. She's said I'm not allowed because they can't get along during the brief pick up and drop off times. She said my dad wants to keep me at his place and keep me from my mom. She's said some ugly things that he's done to her before they divorced. One story goes that my dad thought it was more important to buy coffee for his co-workers than diaper rash cream. But it's all between my dad and my mom. My dad rarely, if ever, says anything bad about my mom. He makes some jabs, but nothing malicious.
My mom isn't perfect and neither is my dad. I remember my dad being strict and we knew when we did wrong. My dad's wife was more abusive and used humiliation tactics for discipline, mainly on me than my brothers. So, that left me a bad impression of her. I was actually glad I didn't live with her. I always felt she had some sort of grudge against me and only acts nice to me to please my dad. But I was very scared of her. It didn't take much to set her off.
I would complain to my mom about it and then she would use this information to remind me of why living with my dad or just visiting him is the worst idea. She would rub this in whenever I said that I wish I could see him.
I'm sorry if this is long, I'm trying to make it as short as possible.
One day, when I was 16, I asked my mom if I could try and call my dad. Oddly enough, she said enthusiastically, "Yes, that would be good. I'm sure they would like to hear from you. I never said you couldn't call them.".....What? I spent 5 years not seeing or hearing from him. Spent years upset over it and then she made it sound as if I choose not to call him. My dad's family seemed to think so, too.
Since then my mom has been very interested in hearing gossip of the crazy things my dad's wife does and says and how she parents. I'm in my 30s now and my dad doesn't make much of an effort to contact me. Just around the holidays and drops off presents. His visits are brief. I once held a BBQ and invited him and the family over to try out the new BBQ he bought for me. His wife was very hasty about it. Apparently she scheduled something else, another visit to a friends that same day. This seems to be a pattern.

My dad will only visit when it's most convenient for them. I don't drive and they live about an hour out of town so there isn't a good way for me to visit unless they are willing to invite my ex (whom I get along with). But even when we were together and did go out there to visit my dad he never made too much of an effort to go out of his way to see me. When he did it was awkward but nice. When I did go over to his place with my own family, he would always be working on the farm and not spend any time with me. Again, I would have to go out into the farm and seek him out. I wonder if he was like that with my brothers. But probably not. They are hockey nuts and I hate hockey. That's the only time I've seen my dad really make time for us as older kids and adults. When he lived in the city with my brothers he always took us places and spent time with us. I don't know what happened during that hiatus away from them.
I was never asked what happened or why I wasn't contacting him. His wife keeps making statements about how I should call them more often. But they don't call me. I call them. I'm now tired of a one-sided dad/daughter relationship.
I feel very left out of that part of my family. I was excluded from giving any speeches at my oldest brother’s wedding and completely not invited my 2nd brother’s wedding. I haven't seen all but one of my nephews and niece.
I’m close to my mom and her side of the family. But there are things my mom says and does that makes me question the part I played with their divorce. I don’t think It’s right that she slandered my dad as much as she did. I would never tell my daughter hateful things about her dad no matter what. What I experienced as I grew up definitely shaped how I parent. But I wonder if my mom was right.
She now says she didn’t want me contacting my dad because she said that when I was a kid I would try to phone him and he wouldn’t want to talk to me and then I would get upset. I don’t know the situation behind this. I know there was a time when I tried to call my granny in the hospital and we got the wrong number and this scared me and I cried. But I can’t even think back and try to remember this time.
I feel like some of what she says rings a bell but I don’t know if it’s an actual memory or a product of an implanted memory. Like, as if my mom was trying to brainwash me. She did admit that she didn’t want me to be with my dad because I was hers. This sounds possessive. My mom has admitted she didn’t want kids before she had me. She claims I was a handful. I don’t think I was. I wasn’t in trouble with the law or anything. But I know from when I was a teenager and how she views what my daughter was like as a baby, she tends to exaggerate. She could barely stand being around my daughter until she was school aged.
Again, I’m sorry for the length. As I’m typing this I’m pondering. Still trying to figure things out.
When I was a baby, I remember falling and hitting the floor. I remember it like it was a dream but I felt the stinging pain all over and screaming and crying and just feeling betrayed. My mom says I fell off the change table. But I remember seeing my mom and her holding me and then her dropping me. I remember having a sense of being not wanted by my mom. But there are some good memories of my mom with me. So, she hasn’t been a monster towards me. But I just feel there are some secrets that I don’t dare want to ask my dad. I’m afraid of getting in trouble or saying something my mom has said that isn’t true and may be hurtful.
Was my mom alienating my dad? Should I just give up in pursuing contact?