Hi i'm Martina, married couple kids etc, to cut a long story short I didn't have the best upbringing but i've turned out ok I think lol My mother had me very young and on my 6th birthday my father decided to leave and haven't seen him since then (i'm 41) They had a very turbulent relationship and she only told me a couple years ago she thought he may have abused me. I have missed having a father in my life and always thought about him but funnily enough the past few years I have been pretty much at peace with it that i'll never see him again and got on with my life.... until recently... a cousin I never knew I had contacted me through Facebook. Apparently my father had 2 brothers whom have both passed and he is in regular contact with my cousin. She is very excited that shes found me as I am as neither of us have 1st cousins. But after the shock wore off and as time has passed (only 4 weeks) I have found out that my father hasn't contacted my cousin (because she is in contact with me) - which I think is something I didn't need to know, and that she has a son who is in jail for aggravated robbery, my father has also been accused of child molestation twice but never jailed and has stolen from nearly everyone he knows! Not only that but he's been living far up north (about 5hrs drive away) all this time and not once did he contact us or help my mother financially.
I have been very down the past couple of weeks trying to process all this and even though I think I have every right to feel this way I want to get past it and get back to happy again. At the moment I really don't know what to do a part of me feels like I want to meet my cousin but I am also afraid (as she has no filter and is very straight forward) that she might say things I don't want to hear.... but she is family.... arrrgh I don't know. I definitively don't want to meet him I feel like I would be very dissapointed. I thought for all these years he stayed away for our own good but it seems as if he is actually a horrible horrible man... and I have half his genes.
Thoughts please? And thankyou in advance .
Hi i'm Martina, married couple kids etc, to cut a long story short I didn't have the best upbringing but i've turned out ok I think lol My mother had me very young and on my 6th birthday my father decided to leave and haven't seen him since then (i'm 41) They had a very turbulent relationship and she only told me a couple years ago she thought he may have abused me. I have missed having a father in my life and always thought about him but funnily enough the past few years I have been pretty much at peace with it that i'll never see him again and got on with my life.... until recently... a cousin I never knew I had contacted me through Facebook. Apparently my father had 2 brothers whom have both passed and he is in regular contact with my cousin. She is very excited that shes found me as I am as neither of us have 1st cousins. But after the shock wore off and as time has passed (only 4 weeks) I have found out that my father hasn't contacted my cousin (because she is in contact with me) - which I think is something I didn't need to know, and that she has a son who is in jail for aggravated robbery, my father has also been accused of child molestation twice but never jailed and has stolen from nearly everyone he knows! Not only that but he's been living far up north (about 5hrs drive away) all this time and not once did he contact us or help my mother financially.
I have been very down the past couple of weeks trying to process all this and even though I think I have every right to feel this way I want to get past it and get back to happy again. At the moment I really don't know what to do a part of me feels like I want to meet my cousin but I am also afraid (as she has no filter and is very straight forward) that she might say things I don't want to hear.... but she is family.... arrrgh I don't know. I definitively don't want to meet him I feel like I would be very dissapointed. I thought for all these years he stayed away for our own good but it seems as if he is actually a horrible horrible man... and I have half his genes.
Thoughts please? And thankyou in advance .
Martina, consider this for a moment- what if you just could not go wrong, no matter what you chose?
What if you had sense that whatever you chose will be just perfect for everyone involved....will you still need to ask someone?
you really don't have to ask anybody for suggestions....read your post, you will know exactly what to do.
"I definitely don't want to meet him"... And then you fuzzy the water with over thinking and ask others! Nobody knows you better than yourself. sit with yourself....not thinking too hard, instead feeling what it arouses in you....if it is not nice feeling, trust it. If it is peaceful, fluttering exciting feeling trust it.
But you must find your own answer.
Even if someone gave you the best answer in the world, it is still someone else's. Go trust yourself, you will do the right thing.
You have all options open to you. See her, not see her, or see her later, just get comfortable on face book first. All options. You don't have to act now. You can buy time and see how your inner response changes over time and act accordingly.
About half your father's genes....nobody can chose what parents family they drop into...relax!
We can paint ghastly pictures of people based on patchy information....to know a real person is very arduous task, it takes time, openness, insight a ton of other stuff..we rush to judge....stay put, he is doing whatever direction his karma is flowing, you are doing exactly the same....as am I and everyone else. Life is not black and white. Relax more.
Breathe easy.
'Bad' People are not all that bad and 'good' people are not all that good. Collectively, we are a fine mix of entire spectrum coverage of base to sublime....all of us. Just that some impulses due to myriad reasons come to play in some and not in others. Be thankful that those impulses are not raging in you...
You will make the right decision. I trust you, you must trust yourself to do so too.
Love
Thankyou Jnani I have been very confused but I will try that, I will sit by myself and think about the situation and see how it makes me feel. Martina
Heyyyyyyyyyyy Martina, you don't have to sit alone, we are all here too! (((((((((((hugs)))))))))))) Don't forget that your mum's genes will have had a bigger play in your genetic make-up as you are female! Forget your dad, don't even go there, what does he matter?
Choose to move on 🙂
We often fall back on genetics as way to understand ourselves, but genes are only part of the equation. We are a mixture of our paternal genes, our maternal genes, our upbringing, and our experiences. There can never be two of us, we are sublimely unique. Trust your uniqueness and your inner knowledge of YOU. Best of luck moving forward!