AITA for pushing away my dad as a teenager?

I, 29F, am the result of a teen pregnancy, so my dad was young when raising me. My memories of visiting him are of him watching movies on his laptop, while my stepmom took me on daytrips. I looked up to him a lot as a kid. But really that fun time was my stepmom organising stuff for me. He was cheap, and my mom said if I need anything to ask her, not him, because he would always say 'we'll see', whether it was deodorant or a movie I wanted to watch. I remember him taking me to a show for my 13th birthday, and it felt like a fun bonding experience between us. But a singular memory.

Issues didn't really appear until my dad and stepmom had a baby. At 14, I felt that I no longer had a place in my weekend home as my role of the previous relationship's daughter became evident. I started arguing with my dad more, he would be daytime drunk almost every time I saw him, ranting about immigration. This made me annoyed to visit him, and I started fighting back. Added to that was that every time I did visit, I was made to feel guilty for not visiting enough, comments like 'you should visit more and spend time with your siblings', although I was balancing a primary home on weekdays, weekend visits to a secondary parent, teenage friendships and time to myself. I went from weekend visits as a kid, to bi-weekly weekend visits for extra time with friends, later monthly visits around age 16, and then as my dad and I's relationship became more strained over arguments, down to birthdays. I lived about 1hr away by train.

In my early 20s, I remember 2 times I lashed out at him. A time he scolded me for being bad with remembering my half siblings birthdays, and another time he mentioned that I don't visit enough and that I'm being immature by not being active in my half brother and sisters lives. I told him I could count the times he'd visited me on one hand while I'd visited hundreds, and that all the responsibility was laid on me.

He called me often as a child, and as a child who didn't like calls, I was unresponsive. I rejected him more as I got older, in retaliation for being the one visiting constantly yet being told I wasn't doing enough. Admittedly, it hurt me as a teenager to watch him be a full time dad to my siblings, doing things we never did, while I didn't have a room at his house. I was told to be part of the family but felt like an add on.

Now he never texts me. I text him a few times a year, not for fathers day. He talks to me like a business colleague and says 'keep in touch' but doesn't ask about my life. I make an effort to text him for birthdays now, after 'forgetting' as an angry young adult, but it seems too late. He doesn't ask me questions about my life. I'm married overseas now, and he's never asked to see pictures. I'm sure he doesn't know my spouse's name.

I think I hurt his feelings and was selfish. Reaching 30, I am feeling more sympathetic towards him, but it feels irreversible.

Posted Nov 14, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC · locked

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