Current Events > I'm in a super awkward situation... And I know it's dumb. (long read)

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So... My mom and dad divorced when I was about 1. My dad was pretty successful in life. He was promoted to plant manager at some construction company in Florida and we apparently lived in a nice house in Pensacola.

One day, he decided to drive home drunk in his company car. He hit some woman and put her in a wheelchair. Not sure if that was permanent or not. She sued the company for about $2,000,000 in the 80s and my dad lost his job.

This started a downward spiral for him. He started drinking more heavily and doing hard drugs. My grandparents on my dad's side brought him back to their home in Pollard, AL so they could pay to send him to rehab and all that. It's a very small town in southern Alabama and my granddad had built the house they lived in.

My dad did well in rehab, but at some point he went back to doing drugs again. My mom tried to stay and help, but she decided she had had enough. She worked at IBM at the time and her boss was aware of what was going on. Her boss helped her get a position with IBM in Austin, TX to help her get away from him. So, she moved from Pensacola, FL to Austin, TX with me when I was around 3 years old. I just remember getting to Austin in the middle of the night and we unpacked our stuff and lived in an apartment for a few years.

Growing up, I never understood why my mom and dad were so hostile toward each other. My mom never wanted to speak negatively about him in front of me, so I had no idea what was going on. She just told me he had a drug problem and left it at that. It wasn't until my dad had late stage cancer and was in the hospital back in 2018 that I would learn most of this story. After we decided to put him in hospice care, my aunts and uncles on my dad's side filled me in.

As I grew up, my relationship with my dad became more and more strained and distant. I can't remember which year it was any more, but he wrote me a check for my birthday... Then he spent the money (probably on drugs) before I deposited it. So when I deposited it in my account, the check bounced. I had never had a check bounce before, so I was freaking out. I was thinking I was going to prison and would have bad credit for at least the next 7 years, but the bank said I just had to pay a fee and that's it. I told my dad about it and he was super apologetic. He said he would send me some money in the mail to make up for it. A couple weeks or so later, I got an envelope from my dad in the mail. "Cool," I thought.

I got home and opened the envelope. There was nothing in the envelope. He had written me a bad check for my birthday and made up for it by sending me an empty envelope. This was the 1st time his drug issues basically smacked me in the face.

The awkward part is that my dad told me I had a half sister when I was 19. I had no idea she existed before then. I'm not sure if people told me about her and I just ignored it because I was a little kid or if no one told me at all until then. Apparently, my dad walked out on her mom when she was pregnant in college. She's older than me, but I'm not sure how much older she is. Maybe about 8 to 12 years or so, I think. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with my dad at all. When her mom died, she wouldn't let him go to the funeral. When my dad was in the hospital and dying, she never came to see him. And I don't blame her for that at all. The only reason I went was because I felt like I would regret it if I didn't.

So, the awkward part is that my aunts and uncles on my dad's side are urging me to reach out to her so that we can connect and get to know each other. Apparently her son just graduated college this morning. I have this dumb crippling fear that she would see my dad in me and hate me just as much as she hated him. So I'm incredibly hesitant to reach out to her. I think we've spoken briefly via Facebook messenger once years ago and that was about it.

I'm gonna have to do this at some point... Even just from a legal standpoint because our granddad's house and land is going to belong to one of us once our aunts and uncles all pass away... And I don't think either one of us wants it.

I'm not going to be going back and forth to the middle of nowhere in southern Alabama to maintain it or the land and she is living her own life in Washington, DC.

I wish I didn't have this crippling anxiety about this because it's so stupid... I should just reach out to her, but... I don't know what I want to do.

I strongly urge you to talk to your sister. If she doesn't want to see you or she turns out to be a bad person or something else happens, you can just basically break contact. All else being equal, you definitely want to get close to her.

So... Just putting it out there, but it's possible that your dad did mail you money in the envelope. Growing up, I was taught to never send cash through the mail, because it would likely get stolen. That could have happened there.

Anyway, that's tough, suddenly finding out you have a sister. My ex met her dad for the first time when she was 21 years old and found out that she had 5 older siblings. Her dad barely made any effort to connect with her (he's only spent time with her once so far and she's 30 now), but her siblings were all nice to her. So, I say reach out to your sister. I doubt she'll treat you the same as she treated your father.

Do your Aunt and Uncle know her well?

Punished_Blinx posted...

Do your Aunt and Uncle know her well?

Yes

Maybe get a lawyer to initiate contact or something?

CableZL posted...

Yes

That's probably a good sign. I mean if she hated all of your Dad's family she wouldn't be talking to them and I doubt they'd be asking you to talk if they felt bad blood between you two.

But yeah I totally understand the anxiety from thinking of the worst possible scenario. Just remember that you do not represent your Dad and I doubt she thinks you do.