My father and I have always had a strained relationship. I am the only child and my parents split when I was little, so it was normal for me to have two homes. I lived with my mum majority of the time and saw my father every second weekend.

It’s been going on for a while where I would plead with mum to not take me to my father’s house. I was 12 when I first asked to take me home instead because I didn’t want to go. There’s so many reasons to list why, but in summary; he picked on my weight - subtle digs here and there, roll his eyes whenever I said something and never made me feel appreciated or loved. I’ve never heard him say that he was proud of me despite my achievements. There’s so many more things to go on about, like how he didn’t come to important events in my life, like my 18th birthday, or how he would prevent my mum from swapping weekends around so I could spend time with family. 

My father got into a relationship with his now fiancée 3 years ago. About 10 months ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent surgery and the cancer was removed. She’s in the process of radiation treatment now and is slowly getting better.

Last time I saw them, we went into the city and it was fine. He made some horrible remarks about how much money he makes which made the day turn sour. Like I mentioned before, his fiancée is currently undergoing treatment for her cancer and so she has had to have some time off work up until recently. He made a ‘joke’ about how he “makes more money at home on the couch than she does at work” and how he has “been holding up this family.” This made me so angry because he has never provided for me and he was belittling his fiancée. My father never offered to pay for my books for high school or uniforms. My mother supported me to get to where I am now by herself. The only time he would pay for anything was when she begged him to. My mum is a single parent, who up to very recently had a small income that only went to the necessities and she really struggled with anything else. So, it’s fair to say that I didn’t see much support from him.

I decided to stop speaking to him from that moment forward. I had removed him from Facebook and haven’t had any contact with him since I saw him in January. Monday just gone, I had gotten a phone call around 9:30pm from his fiancée. I was an emotional wreck, talking about my father the last few months has been a major trigger point for me and causes panic attacks and breakdowns. It’s not pretty. She told me that her cancer has a high likelihood of coming back and that she has a 6% chance of survival on the next 5 years.

After that call, I was in hysterics. I had to explain to her why I didn’t want to see them because of my father and I was just told she may not be here in 5 years time. 

tl;dr: My father made my life hell, I cut him off, I found out my step mum has a small chance of living in the next 5 years after speaking to them for the first time in 2 months.