I’m sorry that happened in your family-it is far too common...
I walked out on my cub’s biological father as soon as I knew I was pregnant-moved back to the ranch and my family-it was obvious that I’d been naive-he was a spoiled., well off college student who wanted nothing to do with having a child and couldn’t quite grasp why I was totally against abortion.
Getting the monthly child support from him was no longer an issue after I married my 1st hubby-he adopted the cub as his own, and he was a wonderful dad. We had fertility issues and were not able to have other children, so she was very precious to us...
I believed it was still proper for her to spend time with the man responsible for her conception after she was about 10-11 years old-but the few times in my daughter’s life that she spent time with her father, he spent the time telling her how mean her daddy and I were to make her do chores, follow rules, etc.
There is still a small rift and resentment on her part there between she and I that comes from those visits, even though she is has long been an adult-in retrospect, I should have been a bitch and forbade the contact altogether instead of doing what I believed was the Christian thing...
In every life a little jerk must fall.
I once thought it was good for children to have adult connections outside of the family, but after my daughter’s friend’s mother, I no long think that. People have their own agendas, and adults want to meet their emotional needs as well as family needs on your kids.
So much for “mentors” in this day and age.