I’m nearly 60, but my father’s indifference towards me still stings

It's deeply human to seek approval and recognition from a parent, even when we are fully grown

The question I'm a man in my late 50s. My parents were teenagers when I was born. They married so I wouldn't be illegitimate, it was the 1960s. My parents divorced. My mum and stepdad moved up north, my father remarried and stayed down south.

My father and his wife have three children, now in their 40s. My stepdad killed himself when I was in my early 20s, but I've come to realise he was much more of a parent to me than my actual father.