It took me 20 years, but I finally stopped hoping for love from my estranged father

‘I was done pretending, tired of forcing something that wasn’t there, mystified how, as a culture, we seem to relish this idea of ‘fighting’ to preserve relationships with DNA relatives.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

When my mother died in my early 20s, I hoped my estranged father might become the parent I so badly needed. Our relationship was never the stuff of John Lewis Christmas adverts. In fact, for most of my life we had been strangers to each other. We only began to be in contact regularly after my mother’s death and a DNA test officially confirmed I was his.

If this sounds like a promising premise for a fairytale happy ending, I have yet to read that particular story – but at the time, I convinced myself I could live it. Now I’m in my 40s, I’ve come to realise I don’t need him in my life. I haven’t seen him for seven years, and we last spoke a year ago. I wish I had known earlier how liberating it would feel to cut off contact.