How to let go of the anger

jigglewiggles

Hi everyone, I really don't like airing my personal business like this, but my anger is really consuming me, and I believe it's causing me to lose motivation and even self sabotage.

My father......he was always absent from my life. When he was visiting me as a child, he would watch football and tell me to bring him another beer, and yell at me to be quiet so he could hear the game. His parents made up for his lack of parenting, but then my grandma passed and my mom was in financial hell. My father got remarried and had a son by that time, and that's when his wife had him leave his job and work for her parents. Once that happened he stopped paying child support, and my mom struggled, they called and threatened her that they would take us from her if she took him to court. She was weak and let it go, and so we struggled. She never took public assistance, not sure why, maybe she made too much for it, or just never considered it, but we struggled every month. And once, she was arrested for stealing food for us.

Modern day....my mom passed, by this time I'm an adult. My father attended the funeral with his wife and two kids. At this point he attempted to be a part of my life. He apologized for being absent from my childhood, and seemed to want to form a relationship with me. I was open to this at first, but then he opened his mouth. He made comments that I found to be rude, disrespectful, and hurtful. My mom had divorced him more than 20 years before her death, yet he felt the need to tell me that he "should've taken out an insurance policy on her". He went on to ask me for my ss# and my kids ss# so that he can take out a policy on us. He would always "offer to watch my kids", but at the end of that sentence, every time, he would say "but I can't pay for anything". Not that I'd ever ask him to pay for anything for me or my kids to begin with. He would also bad mouth my mom to me. There's more, but this is the short version.

So, my half brother and half sister are young adults now, and they have tried to reach out to me on facebook, but I won't accept their friend requests. I know it's not their fault, but I hate to say this, but I feel some jealousy toward them. They got to grow up with 2 parents in a fancy house, not missing anything, going on family trips multiple times a year, they both went to private school that cost $8,000/year each, and now my half brother is in Europe on work study, that is being funded by my father and his wife. I am so angry with my father partly for the things he said after we tried to build a relationship, but mainly for allowing my childhood to be filled with so much pain, and suffering, yet providing this wonderful life for his other two children.

How can I get over this, so that I could someday built a relationship with my half siblings, and forgive my father? I know it's not their fault, so please no hurtful comments to me about that, but I'm just being honest with how I feel.