I was only two months old when my mom left me with my aunts to continue her job abroad. My father was not financially stable to afford our expenses so mom had to take the responsibility and I understand that. But the thing that makes me upset is they could have showed some love towards me. Even today they have very cold attitude towards me. We have huge gaps. We rarely talk to each other. If we’ve some argument, my mom never minds abusing me both physically and emotionally and I cant help with it. Because of all this I’ve been self mutilating. I’ve had couple of terrible relationships because I feel so needy for love and care that I start trusting anyone who shows even a bit of it and later I find out I’ve been fooled. I need lots of help.

He had been cheating and married this mistress and had 2 girls. After 7 years, they divorced (she’s in prison for drugs now) and he has custody of the 2 little girls. Shortly after their separation, he moved in with gf/soon-to-be wife #3 and had a baby with her.

That’s 4 girls (my daughter being the oldest). My daughter is 13 and she is so angry with him and his actions that I worry about her.

He doesn’t call, doesn’t come up unless everything else is taken care of. He makes excuses all the time and his whole family takes up for him. My daughter is fighting a losing battle. She is angry because he doesn’t do the right thing, and it’s so sad to say, that I don’t believe he ever will.

I want to make it better, to fix it, for her sake. But I think the damage is done. He only pays attention to her unless there are no other things left to take care. AND, she hates soon-to-be wife #3 for obvious reasons.

I just want to reassure her the best I can. But how?

There’s no easy solution. I can tell you really love your son and want to do what’s best for him. It sounds like his biological father is scared/incapable of being a Dad. I’m glad to hear that your son has a good guy in the picture – I sincerely hope that works out well. My mother had a very nice boyfriend for six years. He was always respectful and nice to me. I used to get home around 3pm and my mother would get home around 5pm – that started in Grade 3. She used to worry about it, but there wasn’t really anything else we could do. Her boyfriend worked until 5pm too, but one day he had the day off and my mother asked him to check in on me. In the meantime, I called my mother and asked to go to a friend’s house – she said yes, but forgot to tell her boyfriend. He came by our place and when I didn’t answer, he broke down the door to make sure I was alright. I can tell you that even 30 years later, I am so grateful for that simple act. I just assumed he loved my mother and put up with me, but he showed me that day that he cared about my well-being too. I realized that he had always been nice to me. Clearly, he was not my father, but he did something protective and fatherly. I think step-Dads can be fantastic. (They can also be pedophiles – watch out for that one:) ha ha) The point is, even if the bio-Dad is totally unprepared, it doesn’t mean your son won’t have other men in his life that will be fatherly/grandfatherly. It’s not total tragedy. I’m just saying that if the bio-father ever shows up to see his son years down the road, let your son make the decision about whether he wants to see him or not, and have someone around to chaperone to protect the kid’s interests. It sounds like you are a loving mother:) Good on ya!