My bio dad wasn’t around until I reached out when I was 17. Since then, there have been multiple periods of time that he’s abandoned me. When I got pregnant with my first child, he was initially really excited, but after a couple of weeks, he disappeared for 3 years. I continued to reach out with no response. 

My daughter was having medical issues, so I asked for that info a few times over a few weeks and he finally responded after I went off, saying that he can have whatever issue he has with me, but he shouldn’t take it out on a toddler. He finally responded and then things were expected to go back to normal.

Last year, I was dating a woman and she wanted us to be Facebook official. He was my friend on there, and given that he’s deeply religious (apostolic Pentecostal pastor), I didn’t want him to find out that way, so I sent him a text. Since then, he ignores me other than to try to FaceTime my children on their birthdays and the quick “Hope you’re having a good (whatever holiday). Love you”

I nearly always repressed my hurt and anger because I didn’t want to scare him away and lead to him to abandon me again, but on Monday I decided to write out a letter explaining how I felt. He responded hours later saying he would call me the next day (which was yesterday)

Yesterday’s call was a disaster. I was told that he didn’t believe me that I had been raped or that my daughter needed medical info when I requested it because he had had similar conversations with my mom. He told me that he felt like me telling him about me being raped and then about how I was dating a woman were just my attempts at testing him to see if he would a) still love me, and b) choose me over his faith. The guy LITERALLY said that me confiding in one of my most traumatic moments was me trying to test his devotion to god. He blamed his repeated abandonment (including the first 17 years of my life) on me. And then he complained that “it wasn’t fair” that I could talk to him about things that bothered him (like having been raped), but that I asked him not to push his religious beliefs on me or my children. I am so angry and feel so invalidated.

I ended up burning that bridge last night after he started in about how, if I married a woman, he would not attend the wedding because in THE LORD’s eyes, it wasn’t a real wedding. I snapped and called him a bigot and told him that he was hardly the authority to speak on the sanctity of marriage given that he and his wife are both on their third marriage and got married less than 6 months after his second wife ASKED for a divorce. My last words to him were “Ya know, this ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ bullshit is just that. Bullshit. I’ve got to go get my kids. Bye.” And then I hung up.

I’m already feeling like I need to apologize for getting mad and going off on him because my abandonment issues and anxiety are beyond triggered. I don’t know how to cope with any of this and I can’t figure out if I’m being crazy and overreacting or if he’s just a dick