I am so sorry you have to deal with this. And no wonder you are upset...

Although I think it is a good idea to wait until divorce is final, going on dates while LEGALLY SEPARATED, LIVING IN SEPARATE RESIDENCES AND HAVING DIVORCE FILED is not cheating. Plus your dad makes no sense, mom went on dates after he already left her, so how he possibly leave her because she went on dates? And if she cheated (she didn't, just hypothetically) who cares now>??

Now whatever happened years ago between mom and dad is their problem, it is not an excuse for your dad to have no relationship with his children, you have nothing to do with what happened between them.

Also it is unacceptable that he didn't make sure you and your halfsiblings have relationship. I am on this with your DH, I am sorry your dad is far from being a good father. What he is doing now is looking for excuses why he is a bad father.

I totally feel your pain. It is sad, we want our parents to be there for us no matter what. Frankly I would tell your brother if he finds more crap on your mom, he could keep it to himself. You are what? Young 30s? Tell your dad you don't care what he and mom dad 30 years ago!!! But he is sure a bad father now!

Thanks Po1. He is a bad father. He never paid a dime in support and back then there was no enforcement.

We didn't want a relationship with our halfbrothers. Their mom was physically and mentally abusive to us so we never went over there. After dad and abusive SM#1 divorced, he never saw the halfbrothers again. Their mom moved them away. I only have a few memories of them but what I do remember was resentment... I was only 2 years older than 1 and I would have to sit and watch while he played and I wasn't allowed to touch his toys. My dad was a cop so he was never home. Of course now he says if he 'knew' all that was going on he would have stopped it. Lol whatever! Once we finally told my mom what she was doing to us, we never went back over there. And he didn't fight for us.

Now I know my 1/2 brother (2 yrs younger) has followed in my dad's footsteps. He is 28/29 and has been married three times and has 5 children!!! Wow huh?
The little one (maybe 23?) not sure. He was just diagnosed HIV positive and is living state to state. He was living with my dad for a while but they had to kick him out because he wasn't payin his way...
Unfortunately they both seem like losers to me and I have no doubt it's my dad's fault. Maybe their abusive mother? Not sure but I decided... I can't do anything except just let it go. I hope my biobrother changes his heart and sees that it's not true and even if it is... It wouldn't change anything.
He throw stones when he is no different than what she is being accussed of. I just hurt for my mom. I see my mom as good as gold. She would lay her life down for us and always DID! She has never wavered and to find out this is being started. It just hurts.

And ... PO1 you won't believe this. Lol while dealing with all of this last night. I get an email from xDH about dd. Telling me things she is saying about me. Like she is scared of me. Scared I'll get mad. Scared I'll say no. Scared to talk to me. I'm so glad dd was asleep bc I wanted to ask her about it. I talked to her at breakfast after I was calm... And she said she didn't say she was scared, she said she thought I would say no to something he was wanting her to ask me if she could do. She even said, you're not the one that says NO to everything.
Meaning xDH is always sayin No!
Anyway -- what a night!! Thanks for letting me vent. I just felt trapped like I had no where to turn.

On a flip note, my sister was 13 when all of the divorce stuff happened and she told me that she remembered mom crying all the time and sleeping a lot. I was little and I would go with grandma and brother would be off with neighbors and mom had to find a job (she was a stay at home mom) my sister said she does NOT believe mom cheated because mom was always home and always going going with us kids

I guess for me I just want my mom to get her super mom award back. She held us together with nothing, kept the house, still lives there to this day... I can not think of one time that my mom let me down as a child ...

myfampg,

How horrible! My DS21 finally met his bio donor when he was 18. When he was 16, the dentist found a tumor in his jaw & he needed surgery ~ we thought he was going to lose that part of his jaw & maybe deform his face. I contacted his father & at first he agreed to do a DNA test because he wanted to make sure this was his kid before he got concerned or involved. He scheduled the test but cancelled the day before & hired an attorney. I took him to court & got the court to order the DNA test. The results came back the day after my son was 18. He tried to get the case dropped because my son was no longer a minor but the Judge gave me back support anyways because I filed the case when he was 16. (actually, I filed a case when he was 2 and merged them so it would have been a lot of back support owed.) The stupid thing is that I was not after money... I wanted him to care. I wanted him to come to the hospital & be involved with his son. In the end, the only thing I could force was proving he was the father and making him pay back support. My son attended the hearings after he turned 18, so he knew what his bio donor was saying to the court. A few months after court, he sent my son a few expensive gadgets & met for lunch a couple of times... but he couldn't help himself from telling my son that the reason he wasn't involved in his life was because I kept him away... it was all MY fault.

It really makes me sad & sick when parents rewrite history. I mean, we all probably remember things in our own light... but to completely rewrite what never happened is horrible. It's even worse when a child that grew up with a parent that sacrificed and did so much for the child because the other parent was a deadbeat, and that child is so desperate to have a relationship with the deadbeat that they throw the sacrificial parent under the bus.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter why he left. It doesn't matter if your mom did this or that.... she did what was important & that is, she raised her kids. He didn't. End of story. He left two families, she didn't leave any. She could be the town tramp... but she stuck around and maintained her responsibility to her children & that's more than he did. (and no, I do not believe she did any of what he said... and I can only imagine how painful it is that your brother would entertain the thought) But, that's his problem, not yours.

Myfam, your mother never lost her 'super mom' title. As you say, who was the one always there, always feeding you and hugging you, clothing you and cheering you on and kissing your boo-boos? Kept a roof over your head and did what she had to do to make it all happen. Sounds like a Super Mom to me!

If she danced a bit to relieve stress and have some 'me' time...she darn well earned that bit of adult interaction.

Seriously, why take whatever this man is spewing out as anything other than a what it is...a guy who messed up with his kids and now is trying to justify his behavior and neglect of his family at your mother's expense. Whatever happened between them happened many many years ago...does not matter why they got a divorce.

Let it go. If your brother wants to believe it, let him. You can't control what he thinks. If he's silly enough to buy whatever his long lost father is telling him for now, just tell him you really don't care to discuss it with him. You feel no need to gossip and speculate. You know who had your back and loved you unconditionally your whole life, you know who never walked away and who her children feel loved and wanted, assured their care and raised them up into productive adults.

Nobody can really take the Super Mom title from her in your heart, she earned it day in and day out, year after year.

your brother is probably hurt the say you are and maybe is trying to find excuses for dad as to minimize his hurt over being abandoned...he'll come around.

I agree with others that your mom is a great mom, and if she went on dates and went dancing after dad left, well good for her!!! I hope she had fun.

I think my brother is looking for something to be mad at mom about so that he won't feel guilty for wanting a relationship with BD.

He is such a piece of work... I am still so angry.

Thanks for listening. You are all right. My mom was amazing and still is.

"Let it go. If your brother wants to believe it, let him."

Your brother wants to believe that his father really loved him.

It's a delusion that seems to afflict sons;

My friend Don's father was a mean SOB.
beat his wife, drank a lot, terrorized the kids.

One night the dad came home & the baby got under his feet.

(Don, aged about 3, was watching from the hallway).

Don said his dad got "that look" on his face & headed for the baby.

His mother, who had endured mental, verbal, emotional, & physical beatings herself, was a protective mother;
she picked up a shotgun, aimed it at her husband, & said, "Touch him & I'll blow your head off."

Don said, "My old man was mean, but he wasn't crazy. He left."

& he never came back, &, since this was the fifties & a divorced woman didn't dare ask for child support lest her ex file for custody, & win, on the basis that their "divorcee" mother couldn't support them & he could, his mother never got a dime for the 4 children.

At times she worked 3 jobs to raise those kids.

& yet...
When Don talked about how hard his childhood had been, *it seemed like he thought it was his mother's fault*.

When he was a grown man with a teen-aged son himself, his father called him, & Don eagerly answered the summons.

Of course, the father never brought up the subject of the divorce, or the abuse, or the money that he'd put in the bank instead of buying milk for his children, but Don was so elated to finally have his father's attention that he didn't ask.

& he never gave a thought to whether it would hurt his mother for him to meet with this guy.

I was telling my friend Nancy about it, about how puzzling it was to me, & she said, "Oh, yes, I believe it. He had 'issues' with his mother, didn't he?"

Nancy raised 2 children with no help, financial or otherwise, from their father, & her son is the same way.

& it sounds like your brother may have the same "condition".

I think the thing to do is not participate in any discussions;
it just gives your brother the opportunity to proclaim, & legitimize, his 'position'.

I wish you the best.

That is such a sad story Sylvia!

But thankfully, it doesn't always work out that way. My husband could have been Don. Except he was a little older when Mom took the frying pan to Dad's head when he started to beat older brother for something trivial... Dad left too, and didn't show up again until 10 years (and 3 wives and 4 other kids) later. At that time, Hubby and older brother were star high school football players, and Dad wanted to take all the credit while somehow not wanting to reveal to wife #5 that these were the first 2 of his 8 children... What a piece of 'work'...

At least Hubby was old enought and smart enough to figure out who was who and what was what. Who had raised him and always done the heavy lifting. Who had beaten him and walked out and now wanted the 'credit'. Who had finally shown up (in a Jaguar convertable no less!) at 'the big game' with a new wife and no advance warning. (Seems Dad wanted Hubby to convince Mom to give up her rights to child support...)

Thankfully, Hubby had the good sense to say something to the effect of "Yeah, I remember you - sorta. Been a long time. Gotto go. Bye."

Your brother may get it someday Myfam. Or he may not. I'd suggest merely that you say "You've heard one side of the story, and only one. You might want to talk to Older Sis and Mom before to decide whether or not what you heard was true."

Myfampg - my father left my mother for TOW (my SM). My mother never said a word to us about this, but I inadvertently learned this as a kid. I never said anything to either of them about it (I thought my mother didn't know!) and, by the time I was an adult, cheating decades in the past was not on the top of the list of problems that I had with my father.

Anyway, he felt the need one time to bring this up with me - and he told me the exact same line of BS that you heard. It's funny to me how similar the stories are - my mother too was supposedly cheating with a baby and other kids in the house. It must be a standard excuse for cheating men - no doubt your father and mine were out telling the women that their wives "didn't understand them."

I wouldn't waste time worrying about the cheating lying sperm donor, but I can understand why you'd be angry at your brother. It is probably hard for him to accept that bio-father is/was such a lowlife that he just walked away from his kids, and brother wants there to be some reason or explanation other than the truth - that bio-father is a cheating lying egg-sucking lowlife. Maybe tell brother one time your opinion and then let it go. If brother is bound and determined to try to have relationship with this man he will do so - and then he will have to find out the hard way who can and who cannot be counted on.

"brother wants there to be some reason or explanation other than the truth"

exactly.

Just a quick follow up. I spoke to my sister in law. The key to my brothers heart.
She said BD is rejecting my brother in an odd way. He claims to want a relationship so my brother (stationed on the other side of the country) came in to town a while back and went to dinner with BD. They had a great conversation, lots of laughing. My brother described it as very laid back and easy. The background is that my dad has always been the way cool dad. He is very nonjudgemental. He doesn't care what anyone does. He lives by the philosophy that, it's your life, whatever you decide, I'll support you. Really awesome right? Well. It would be awesome if he stuck around for a while. He just falls off the planet and you have to be the one to call him to say HEY where did you go? It was this way growing up too. His parents were this way. It's inherited no doubt.

My mom and stepdad on the other hand, expect us to do our best and make the 'right' decision and they will tell you when they think you are wrong. They demand respect, they don't like laid back behavior (lazy as I call it) such as cussing. I can cuss like a sailor and to this day my
Mom and stepdad will say 'be a lady' but BD wouldn't flinch. He really has no standards and holds no one to any standard where mom and Stepdad have high standards and expect you to behave in the manner in which they raised you. So my brother apparently enjoyed the laid back, no rules conversations he has with BD. But... BD won't return his calls. My brother has tried calling and left messages, texted etc and nothing back except a Facebook comment that said I'll call this weekend and he never did. So I think my brother is going through a mad at the world phase and his wife agrees. He has some guilt about not being their for his own daughter and said, how can I expect her to want to get to know me one day if I don't give my own father a chance. I can't expect to be able to tell MY side of the story if I'm not willing to let MY dad tells HIS side of the story.
But it's not working as he had planned. He got a bunch of excuses some lame story about mom cheating and then no return calls.

I think my brother is coming around. I'm sure it's just hard right now. I went through this too. it's just a hard reality.

myfam,

My nephew had a similar father situation, showed up occasionally, eventually stopped showing up.

When my nephew was almost 18, his father showed up on his doorstep and said he was in a 12 step program and that part of the program was to make amends to people he hurt, get forgiveness, etc.

Nephew said to him, You weren't there when I was a kid and needed a dad. I'm an adult, I no longer need one, so you're just wasting my time.

Father said he needed to get his forgiveness, nephew said, Find it somewhere else, you're not getting it from me.

Nephew is now 30 years old, hasn't heard from his father since.