Having a hard time processing a difficult event that happened over Christmas.

Someone contacted me that I haven’t heard from in over 20 years. My mom‘s ex-husband. They got divorced when I was really young like 3 or 4 years old. No this is not my biological father. Allegedly, he was very abusive to my mother. One of the reasons why she left. For many years after the divorce it was the typical story of him saying that he will be there for birthdays and Christmases but never showed up. No phone call. Left me very traumatized along with having trust and abandonment issues. Now given my mom wasn’t perfect either. Had her own issues. Lied. Supposedly told her ex-husband that I was his but found out during a blood test that I wasn’t. My mom had lied to me for many years about her drug and alcohol abuse. Along with other things. Wasn’t really that good of a person. So I have my own trust issues around my mother as well. She died in 2017 from cancer. Fast forward to Christmas 2023. I get a phone call from her ex-husband. Says that he’s been wanting to contact me for years. Says that there are things that he’s wanted to tell me but hasn’t been able to. Said that my mother made it very difficult for him to see me. Kept me from him. Says that he doesn’t want to badmouth the dead, but there were things that happened that he thinks I need to know about. Wants to meet up and talk face-to-face. Told him if he wants to travel to meet up in my hometown that’s up to him. He says that he wants to be here for me now, and have a relationship with me. So New Year’s arrives. I thought maybe I’d hear Happy New Year’s from him. Nothing. Just like when I was a kid. Three days later no happy new year. Haven’t heard from him since Christmas. Just like when I was a kid. Why should I have any trust in anybody? Why should I have faith that someone is going to actually be there for me and not let me down? I have never had a positive person in my life that I can trust to be there for me. Everybody always lies to me and lets me down. I am seriously about ready just to block his number. It’s like you had your chance and you blew it. Why should I try to trust people when I just keep getting traumatized and hurt over and over again? Should I just block his ass? Or should I see if he contacts me and gives me some BS excuse on why I haven’t heard from him since Christmas? Idk what to do or think. But one thing I know for sure it is not my placed to contact him. If he wants this supposed relationship and to be here for me now then he needs to be the one to reach out, not me.

SandWitch · 26-30, F

Don't be surprised if he turns out to have an ulterior motive for getting in contact with you. He might be flat broke or he might need a place to live, but in either case he should be avoided like the plague.

If he was your biological father, both he and you would have a very hard time staying away from each other despite the family's dysfunction 20 years ago. Because he is not your biological father, there is absolutely no intrinsic energetic connection between the two of you, other than him being your mom's partner at the time which has nothing to do with you.

Nobody unrelated to you shows up out of the blue after 20 years unless they either want something from you, OR they want you to do something for them at your expense. Curiosity killed the cat. Don't play that game with him.

SW-User

@SandWitch I appreciate your honesty and input. Thank you for reaching out and commenting. I’ve thought about all of this as well. One of the reasons I’m having such a hard time processing it and figuring out what to do. That’s why I reached out and put up a post on SW. Wanted to get some other opinions to see what outsiders thought of the situation. Thanks again 🙏

SandWitch · 26-30, F

@SW-User
Oh, you're welcome! I'd like to say that I'm just an inexperienced skeptic who hates men because my mother hates cats and women who don't look like her, but unfortunately I cannot use that purely speculative approach to paint all men with the same brush in coming up with my comments.

What I've written about came straight from my own playbook. Just because your case sounds uncomfortably familiar to me, doesn't mean we can use the same brush to paint men with!

All men are not the same, but all men whom are misogynists all have the same thing in common when it comes to their perception of women at all times, even if the women they are targeting are not their own children but are the biological children of the woman they married. A misogynist has no scruples!