I shed many tears in my teenage years. I wrote many a letter to make me feel better. I always ripped them up.

Long ago, I realized he was nothing but lies. And he was never my father.

I only think of him now him when I read an article like this…

To All the Brave Kids Who Broke up with Their Toxic Dads

But there was a time in my life when his toxicity was really bad for me.

The one time I really needed him, he made me feel bad for it and honestly couldn’t help me. That was my senior prom. I needed $150 to pay for my limo, or buy a dress and prom tickets. I couldn’t do it all. I don’t remember his exact words but they were something like this:

Your mother can’t pay for it? I give her 75 a week for you for child support. (This had only been the last few years, not my whole life, and ONLY because it was forced on him by the court. Not because he thought he should).

Do I look like I’m rich? (No, you were a cab driver…you certainly were not rich…but you also didn’t even look like you would want to help your child who you never helped with anything).

You only call me when you need something (one time before that many years before I called him for a ride home from the movies…both these times, were two of the few moments he “tried” to be in my life…i.e. he showed up and apologized about not being in my life…told me he loved me, took me out, bought me something and then never called me again).

I cannot afford it (gee imagine if he lived with me!)

Blah blah blah. That is how it went…we talked from his car…he didn’t even get out of the car to talk with me. I got in. I practically begged! I was working. I made $6 an hour for 12-20 hours a week. I couldn’t afford it all on my own.

I can’t explain how demeaning and disheartening it was to sit there and beg him for money to go to the only senior prom I would ever have. Even then I didn’t ask for things, I worked for them. He eventually gave me some money after making me feel bad, but not what I needed. So I bought tickets, borrowed a dress and my date drove his dad’s car.

We had a good time. It didn’t matter we didn’t have the limo. I had a good night despite his expected disappointment.

But that and many other reasons were why I decided he just wasn’t my father. He was just a man who got my mother pregnant many years ago.

And I had the chance to tell him that one day in my early 20’s when I’d finally had enough. He wanted to talk to me.

I happened to stop by my mothers on my lunch break…he showed up to reluctantly drop off the forced child support from the courts, for my brother (I was over 18 so he didn’t have to give me anything anynore). He had been fighting her, stopped paying and claimed he couldn’t afford it.

Despite my resistance, she told him I was there. She convinced me to talk to him when he asked to see me. After all he was my father, and despite his wrongly placed blame, she always tried to convince us to keep giving him a chance.

Here’s how that conversation went.

Him: how are you?

Me: How are you? What? Why are you refusing to pay child support for your son?

Him: That’s none of your business.

Me: My mother and my brother are all my business!

Him (yup he said this): Does that kid not look like he’s well fed? I’m not giving your mother my money so she can spend it on herself.

Me: Of course he is because my mother takes care of him no thanks to you.

Him: Who do you think you are talking to me that way I’m your father!

Me: (something snapped) My father? You think cause you got my mother pregnant 22 years ago that makes you my father? You are just a sperm donor.”

Him: fuck you!

Me laughing

As he walked away he looked up to my mother’s window where she was of course listening and he pointed. “You did this!!”

“No,” I said. “You did this, and someday you will realize exactly what you’ve done.”

Neither my brother or I have spoken with him since. Where is he? He’s around. He has another family. A daughter, a grand daughter. He lives in the same city, only a few miles from where I grew up. He has a life…I wonder how many people know what type of man he really is.

But they wouldn’t. They would believe him that my mother “took us away” or “kept him away.” Because he’s peretuated that lie his whole life to relieve himself of the guilt and shame he should feel for having walked away.

What really happened? He chose, everyday he made the choice, to pretend we didn’t exist.

I don’t know that man who was my sperm donor. To me he is a disappointment, a disaster, an embarrassment and a toxin that I could never live with.

I let him go many many years ago. But letting someone go doesn’t mean they didn’t make an imprint on your life. In my younger years, the imprint hurt often. Now the imprint is a reminder of how great my life has been inspite of his absence.

I am stronger, more independent, and caring than I ever could have been with a toxic man like him in my life.

I had other men in my life, uncles and cousins, but it wasn’t so until my son was born that I found out what a father really is. All my husband had to do was cradle my son for me to see the fatherhood, the magic and the love in his eyes. And everyday he is there, everyday he supports and encourages his children, helped/helping to potty train, taking them to dinner when I’m having crazy moments (lol)! Watching a moving and cuddling on the couch. Showing his daughter what it means to be there and to be loved. Showing my children what it means to respect and love their mother.

Going tide pooling on a field trip with his son even though he hates, hates, hates the outdoors and the ocean.  Because, just because, he’s dad.

It wasn’t until I had my own children that I really understood what I missed out on by not having a dad. The simple things you’d never think, that a mom just can’t bridge that gap, that I never knew I had lived without…thankfully because knowing would have made it worse.

I’m ok. In fact I am better than ok. I won’t pretend he didnt hurt me many times over, but now his memory is just that; distant and past. It is only when I read an article like this or I’m writing about my life that he comes up. Now, I would laugh before shedding tears that I shed many years ago.

Now, my husband does these things, bridges the gap, fills the hole that I can’t as a mom, as a woman, that I wouldn’t even know to fill because my own never did it for me…that is a dad.

And you sir, my sperm donor, you were never my dad.

When I read the article about ridding yourself of your toxic dad, I realized I had done that many years ago and never looked back. And what the author wrote was right, I am worth more than he ever had to give.

And…so are you.