I\u2019m Cooper, 58, and I\u2019ve raised my stepdaughter Ann since she was 4. Her biological dad, Jim, was mostly absent \u2014 forgetting birthdays, rarely showing up. I was there for everything: school, college, her first car, all of it. I thought we had a strong bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Ann got engaged at 28, I offered to pay for the wedding. Then she told me, \u201cPlease don\u2019t come. Dad\u2019s walking me down the aisle.\u201d It felt like a punch. I told her if Jim was her \u201creal dad,\u201d then he could cover the costs.The week of the wedding, Jim vanished \u2014 off to Hawaii with his girlfriend. The night before the ceremony, Ann called me in tears. I showed up. I walked her down the aisle. She apologized, I forgave her.But deep down, I can\u2019t shake the feeling I was never truly seen as her dad \u2014 just a backup. And I\u2019m struggling to find peace with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m Cooper, 58, and I\u2019ve raised my stepdaughter Ann since she was 4. Her biological dad, Jim, was mostly absent \u2014 forgetting birthdays, rarely showing up. I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":323,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}