I miss my father but don't want to lose my mother... Should I take my feelings to the grave?

Hello

I'm a 28F in search of any advice, I will try to include as many details here as possible.

My mother and father divorced when I was 6 and their coparenting was never the best, think constant fights (in and outside of court). They basically hated each other and always tried to push my sister and I against the other parent.

When I was around 10 they had both remarried and were living happy lives, I went on to live with my dad and stepmother when I was 12. They treated me very well and gave me structure, something I didn't really have with my mother, (we were always fighting).

Years went on, I finished high school and went to university, all was well.... little did I know a storm was brewing.

My mother's husband at the time (now ex), decided he wanted to go back to his home country, and asked my mum if my sister and I would like to experience life abroad, I was 20 and halfway through university but my father encouraged me to go.

So I went, to a country far far away from home and that's where the nightmare began.

Shortly after moving my mother started to bad mouth my father and say how she hated him, I tried to keep the peace but patience is not really my thing. The fights got worse and one day she said: cut him out of your life or I will make you homeless in a country you have no connections in.

21 year old me panicked, tried to think on why she would do such thing..... I had no choice but to agree with her demands as I feared for my life.

I cut him and his family off, it hurt deeply in my soul, but I did it to survive.

You may be asking yourself: why wouldn't I just go back home? I couldn't, I couldn't be the failure, the one that gives up, I wouldn't be able to stomach people's judgement. So instead I put myself in a cage.

My mother and her husband divorced during the pandemic (2021), and I was desperate to get out from under her claws. And I did, when she went back to our home country after the divorce.

I decided to stay as I had established myself here by then, had a great job, friends and a fling.

In 2022 I met my knight in shinning armour (my husband 28M), and he started to help me see just how horrible my mother had been to me over the years.

My father was a great father to me, but he also had his own flaws..... which now I know were mostly due to my mother's crazy behaviour.

And for the longest time I have wondered: should I try reaching out to my father after all these years? What if he wants nothing with me? What if I lose my mother and sister in the process? I am afraid of opening old wounds, but I don't know if I want to spend more years of my life in regret, knowing I might have chosen the wrong parent and wondering what life would be like if I had never stopped talking to him.

He is 62 now, and I hear from friends back home how he is doing at times. It hurts me to think he never got to walk me down the aisle or do a father daughter dance or witness me become a mother.

I need all the advice I can get.

Thanks

A desperate daughter