How To Lose A Dad in 10 Years

As a daughter of a perpetually single mother, I have had a lot of almost fathers.  Men who got involved with my mom, trying to take the place of my absent father, only to fall short every single time.  My biological father was out of the picture due to addiction.  My mother didn't want me to have anything to do with him.  

The first wannabe dad showed up when I was 1.  He married Mom when I was 2.  He was basically the base dad of my very younger years.  Even though he was around, he was never very nice to me and that's putting it lightly.  In fact, he was downright abusive to anyone who had the displeasure of knowing him.  Despite my obvious hatred for this man, my mother had him adopt me when I was 6, shortly after having my sister together.  When I was 8, he and I were having screaming matches on the daily.  We were forced into therapy together and the therapist thought it would be great to have weekly dad-daughter dates.  It was never a good time.  We'd see a movie or ride go carts and fight all the way there and all the way home.  It actually really sucked. 

Luckily, sort of, my mother left him when I was 11.  He emptied our family bank account and refused to move out of the house so we had to live with my grandparents for the majority of my 6th grade year.  He would only call us when he was wasted.  I went so long without seeing him and it was awesome.  I was finally making friends and was way less depressed and self-conscious.  But then he won visitation rights and because I was adopted, I had to go too.  Things were way worse because I had to watch over my sister as well as myself and there were rarely any other responsible adults looking out for us.  It wasn't a pretty situation.  I cut him off the year I went to college and it was the best feeling ever.  

Let's continue... When I was 15, my mom started dating another man.  Let's call him Mark.  At first, I wasn't fully on board with this relationship but I grew to LOVE Mark!  He was so supportive and so good to me.  Whenever I was sad he would get me another classic movie from Blockbuster that had something to do with what was going on in my life.  Saturday School?  The Breakfast Club.  Turning 16?  16 Candles.  Homecoming?  Pretty in Pink.  Other Situations?  Back to the Future, Cry Baby, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, etc.  It was great.  

Mark is also the reason why I survived my first big break up from my first great love.  I was a mess.  My mother didn't really have tolerance for becoming a mess over a boy but Mark understood.  I would pretend I threw up at school and ask him to come get me.  He knew I wasn't sick and was actually severely depressed and would get me from school anyway.  He never forced the conversation but eventually I told him how hard it was for me.  He told me to never settle.  If I saw anything off in boys in the future, to leave.  It was really sound advice and probably why I ended up with such a wonderful man who has never broken my heart.  

Mark continued to be an awesome stepfather figure until I went to college.  He waved goodbye and wished me luck while wearing the Flagler College Dad t-shirt I got him.  Two weeks later, my mom called me at school to say she ended things with Mark.  I was destroyed.  Like, as destroyed as I have seen other kids get when their parents get divorced.  The only comfort I had was that Mark wrote me an email saying he would always be around for me and my sister and not to worry.  He loved us like his he loved his son and he would always be there.  It didn't take too long to find out this promise wasn't intended to be kept.  It started with extremely short basically one way conversations and ended with him giving me dirty looks as I helped his son, my sort of brother, move into his first apartment.  I don't know where the hostility came from but it broke my heart.  

After my mother broke up with Mark, she got with (we'll call him) Jarl.  Jarl creeped me the hell out and had the audacity to ask my mother out before she had even broken things off with Mark.  As far as I was concerned, Jarl broke up my family.  I could not stand him.  My mother, however, was head over heals like a 13 year old with their first crush.  This wasn't something I understood as Jarl was creepy and boring and my mother really didn't know much about him.  For a while she didn't even know exactly where he was from.  It was really strange.  

I resisted getting close to Jarl for years because, again, he creeped me out.  However, my mother decided to marry him and in one fell swoop, all of my student grants disappeared.  Jarl tried to fix this, even though it should have been my mother but every time I would ask for a tax return or a signature for the process of getting student aid back, my mother would tell me to ask Jarl.  I needed that student aid so eventually I caved and I asked Jarl.  

Jarl continued to be my mom's suggested go to person for the remainder of their marriage.  He had access to everything.  My social security number, credit reports, tax information, etc.   It was endless.  I still felt off about him but at this point I was learning how to be an adult and I still needed help and it just made sense to ask my parents.  And because my mom married him, one of those parents became Jarl.   

Unsurprisingly everything ended between my mom and Jarl as sketchy as they started. My mom found out Jarl stole her identity to co-sign a loan for someone else's kid.  Nothing was ever co-signed for me or my sister.  Not long later, she got a note that he left to go to school in another country for a program that is extremely available where we were from.  We all know he just moved in with someone else because only a few weeks later he was back so suddenly to get his stuff from our home.  I was there to supervise and get in between if he tried to talk to my mom.  It wasn't my place but it never was honestly so I was used to it.  My mom even recruited Mark's son, who I see as my brother, to take the dogs and hide them until Jarl left.  It was so inappropriate and ridiculous.

Jarl eventually ignored my mother's request for a simple divorce and fought her for our house in court that she bought and paid off.  Even during all of this, I was trying to convince my mother to report Jarl to the police and the BAR Association to get him arrested and his attorney license revoked for fraud.  She kept refusing.  I have no idea why.  At the end, I never heard from or saw him again and he got a good chunk of money to settle, but luckily didn't get the house.  

Wow, that was exhausting.  And he probably will steal my identity too the second I can make my credit alright again. Jarl, if you're reading this, I'm watching my accounts closely.  Be smart because you know I don't let things slide like my mother.  

Finally, when I was 19, I got in touch with my biological father.  I was not looking for any kind of relationship with him.  I was done with dads.  I just wanted to know my heritage (23 and Me wasn't a thing yet), health risks, etc.  Unfortunately, my biological father wanted a real relationship with me.  He insisted.  I said I would give it a shot but it would take a lot for me to really see him as my dad.  

Miraculously, after 6 years of him showing up to visits, college graduation, my wedding, etc., I started calling him dad.  Almost instantly, my calls suddenly went unanswered and never returned.  No texts either.  Nothing for 6 months.  I made peace with the fact that this was another failed dad experiment.  Then of course he contacted me in December asking what I wanted for Christmas.  I let him have it.  How dare he push me into a relationship I don't want only for when I finally get attached he bails and expects a Christmas present to make it better!?  No way.  I was over it. 

I talked to him twice since then about a decade later.  He never apologized.  I didn't hear from him at all the entire time in between besides a couple birthday cards with cash I donated to charity.  The last phone call was extremely unpleasant with him spewing hate for people in communities I care about.  I stuck up for them.  It didn't end well.  He actually sent a text after apologizing which was surprising but it wasn't worth continuing anything for.  

So that's it, all the dads were gone withing 10 years.  Adopted dad was around 9 years + like once a year visits.  Mark was gone from my life within about 6 years, 2 years after my mom broke his heart.  Jarl was gone within 9 years, thank god.  My own flesh and blood father ditched me after 6 years.  

Naturally, this pattern made it incredibly hard to trust my mother ever choosing to date again after Jarl left.  I begged her to stay single.  To run guys  past me before marrying them.  To take a second and think before allowing another deadbeat into our lives.  I was told I was being selfish and that she can make her own decisions and that she didn't want to be alone forever blah blah blah.  She can make her own decisions but she sucks at it and what she doesn't understand is it affects more than just her.  

This fear of my mother someday meeting someone again became all consuming.  I couldn't stop worrying about it.  Every time she mentioned a man in passing I felt like I was having a heart attack.  Yes, I was grown but I was grown when she met Jarl too and that whole thing royally fucked me up.  Between this fear of someday getting a new step daddy dearest and my mother's erratic behavior, I decided to step back from the family for a while and go my own way.  

Today, I live far away and I still have PTSD flashbacks regularly about these men that were in my life.  Nightmares too.  It's hell and I don't know when I'll ever recover but I guess writing about it is a good start.