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Mama Fox Father's Day is coming up and it's always a time where I think about my own or really just the lack of one.
I have not seen nor heard from my father in almost 11 years. My parents divorced when I was 5, over my father's refusal to stop using drugs. I was very sheltered from it although I felt the changes. My father wasn't really a big part of my life so I didn't exactly miss him. I have only a handful memories of him before the divorce and they are not good ones. He was just a man that lived with us. I was more excited that we were moving in with Grandma and Grandpa than I was upset about him being gone. But subconsciously I felt it. I quit girl scouts, piano lessons and tap dancing in the following months, maybe in a way to control what was going on in my life.
After the divorce it was not unusual for a year or more to go by between visits.
He would pop up, stay for a day or so then leave again. At age 9, I asked him why he never sent child support. I didn't know at the time that he was avoiding a regular job so they couldn't garnish his wages. At age 10, I talked with him on a phone while he sat in a jail uniform on the other side of plexiglass. At age 11, I met my half sister then just about a year old. At age 12, I realized he only cared about himself. He took me out to lunch. He talked the entire time about his new job, his brand new truck, how his life was going so great. I didn't get to tell him that I was first chair flute and I wanted him to come see our concert that Friday. That I was on honor roll. That I had a boyfriend. He never once asked about me in the 2 hours I was with him. That was the last time I saw him.
I was in denial most of my teenage years about how his absence has effected me. I thought I was just fine. Why did I need a father? My mom is great and just enough for me. It wasn't until after I got married that I realized that I am a bit broken because of it. Once I had a man I felt safe with, I looked into my past and saw that is what I really needed all along. I have never once felt like my father actually loved me. I felt unwanted. He didn't care enough to even stay in contact. I could never call myself Daddy's Little Girl or his princess. My mom walked me down the aisle at my wedding, a glaring testimony of our broken home.
I also have had struggles in my own marriage. I didn't have a role model to look to show me what marriage is like. My grandparents marriage was like business partners and then there was my single mom. I jumped into marriage without a road map or a compass and had to make my own way. Even after 5 years we are still trying to find the perfect path for us. I am happy that I have picked a man that would not abandon our children should divorce happen. That was one important factor for me, I wanted my children to have the father I never had. I believe they do.
Has anyone else had an absent father? How has it effected your life?
Comments (18)
That's no good. :/ As for the question, I suppose that depends on your definition of absent father. I'm sorry about that man being that way with you.
Sometimes, even when you have a father they may not be around much. My dad is a workaholic and is rarely home. I would look at other role models or mentors.
My dad wasn't there but growing up that was normal to me since all the other people around had dad's somewhere other than with them. Whether I want to admit it or not, it affected me.
I'm not used to men telling me what to do and it makes me uncomfortable.
And I was also always aware of the lack of monetary funds available because my father wasn't around.
The last time I physically saw my dad I was 14 so almost 6 years ago, and I ended up having to kick him and his drunk girlfriend out of my mom and my house. It was a wreck... Recently in the last few months we have reconnected and he's been showing signs of having finally grown up, although I won't say he's got his life totally together, he seems to be showing a lot of progress, and consistency with trying to be involved in my life and my daughter's life. Sometimes it just takes people A LONG time to grow up.
I'm sorry you had to go through that. Praying for you.
I'm sorry you went through that. I went through something similar then, unfortunately, I married a guy just like dear old dad. Sorry to say for our 4 children. He didn't become an absent father but in my opinion for a variety of reasons I think he was a lousy father. I'm now married to a wonderful man who has loved me with a love I didn't know a human being could give to another.
i am sorry about your loss but in a way i am glad u did experience some form of normality in your childhood, rather than the usual carwreck teens who engage in risky behaviour thus damaging their lives even more
and last but not least congrats on finding a good man, one that is a good reliable husband and father. all marriages have their own fair share and issues but given the insight you have with yourself and in knowing whats best for you having been through the worse i am absolutely sure you are able to weather any issues you guys have.
I grew up fatherless. I never met him and now he's dead. On one hand, I
feel like having a father is not important to me. I am satisfied with
myself. But on the other hand, I wish I had two parents, so we wouldn't
have struggled so much financially. Lived in a nice neighborhood, had
someone to help with tuition, and just had a male role model. But
seeing how my mom was a single parent and seeing other single, black
mothers, makes me feel like I shouldn't date in my race, for fear of
having the male abandon me and our kid, like they usually do. I really
want a marriage and a decent man for me and our future kids, so I won't become another statistic.
For a long time I thought that was just how fathers were supposed to be. Eventually I grew to realize that this wasn't the case. I spent much of my life being angry with him for everything he has done. Now, I feel bad for him. Not enough that I am going to pursue a relationship with him (it isn't worth it). But the man is going to die completely alone. No wife, no children, no grandchildren. He dug his own grave and he's paying the price for what he has done, but I still can't help but feel sad for him about the choices that he's made in life.
It has done a lot for me to let go of my anger and replace it with compassion. Overall it has made me a better, more emotionally healthy adult.
Yeah my mom never married my dad and when she discovered she was pregnant with me, it wasn't him who denied it, it was his mother. His mother made accusation like ' that baby isn't his' or 'even if it is his, it will never be one of us'. My father for all I knew didn't really exist until I was about 17, by then I had acquired more than a few father figures. I had my grandfather, a few uncles, and a cousin or two whom I was very close with. By the time I met my father I was angry and indifferent towards him I figured 'hell the job is done now what did I need my father for?'
I would say that my father not being around made me mistrustful and fearful of abandonement. But you can/will move past this. "And this too shall pass"
my parents were divorced by the time I was 1. My dad stayed around regularly until I was about 4 and then got remarried and moved a long ways away. He and my mom don't get along at all anymore. My mom has married four more times after that. Being left by one "dad" is painful enough to deal with, but four more times?
I have abandonment and trust issues as a result. But lucky for me I have found someone that I can trust and whom I believe won't abandon me.
this post makes me sad.
I was differently blessed by having a wonderful dad. My bio-mom gave me up for adoption, and my mom and I didn't always get along when I was growing up. My parents have been married for 35 years and they have been an inspiration to me in my own marriage. I saw how my dad treated my mom, and I would not settle for anything less from the men I dated.
I ended up married to a wonderful man who is more like my dad then I will admit. (he he, my mom teases me about this).,
Every girl needs a daddy... and I am saddened by how many young women are growing up without dads.. I love watching my hubby and my dad with our children.
Any man can go out and get a woman pregnant.
But it takes a real man to be a Daddy.
I was lucky to have both my parents together when i was growing up. They went to counseling and were able to work things out. They had their 25 wedding anniversary a few years ago. But i had a baby out of wed lock and her father right now is in prison for something that happened before we started dating. They didn't bring him to trial for it till a year later.
But my point is that if he doesn't get help for his alcohol problem i dont want him to play the daddy roll. I dont want to let her down. I dont want him to become a huge part of her life and then just disappear. He gets out either next month or in October. So im talking to him now and he tells me how much he loves her but well see if he will act on it and go to AA and NA.
My mother kicked my father out because of drug use and I never even knew him, I was so young. I know it affected me, but I think it made me stronger. I never paid any attention to fathers' day until I had my daughter and myhubby became a daddy! A much better one than I had, too, I might add.
I just now stumbled on this and had to comment. My "dad", if I want to call him that, left when I was six. My parents divorced later that year after I turned seven. I don't have any fond memories of him, but maybe two or three, and they were when I was still in diapers.
After that, he was very verbally abusive and decided he didn't want us to be his family anymore.
I admit now, I have been in counseling the past few months for depression, and have found that I have abandonment issues, trust issues, and that I also have a lot of repressed anger from it. This makes me sad. I don't understand why he didn't love us enough to stay. I never got to be Daddy's little girl or princess either.
This is heartbreaking, and when I see girls getting married with their dads walking them down the aisle, or I see a Dad playing happily with his toddler daughter, I get sad.
it's hard for me to trust anyone, and I'm always afraid I'm going to get left
My parents divorced when I was a baby (father was a drug addict) and I have seen him maybe 7 times since. My mom has full custody and so I never saw my father, nor did I want to because he did drugs. He was a nice man and told me he loved me once, but I didn't really want to "get to know him" or anything like that. In his place as my "father figure" was an abusive (in every sense of the word) stepfather. I would have chosen to have no father rather than have my stepdad who abused me and my brother, cheated on my mom, and was in general the biggest a-hole anyone would ever meet. Luckily my mom divorced him, too in 2004. (one of the happiest days of my life!)
Through it all, though, I turned out pretty normal (miraculously). I don't let any of that get in my way. I get good grades in college and have a promising future that neither my father or stapdad will be involved in. Sometimes I do feel awkward that I don't have a dad like other people, but my family doesn't really need one. Sure, I wish I had a nice dad who was good to my family, who could walk me down the aisle when I get married, or help me out when I need it, but that is just trivial.
Emotionally, it takes me longer to trust any boyfriends that I have. In most relationships I have had, I worried that the guy would cheat on me or worse. But in time I have learned to trust my current boyfriend. I know he is nothing like the clearance rejects my mom married and that he will never hurt me. I think getting away from it all in college has really helped me heal a lot of those old wounds.
I know exactly how you feel. I never met my father. My mom was a single mother by choice so I grew up fatherless. She did a great job with me and she was financially sound so sometimes I thought it wasn't a big deal to me, but when I got married I found out exactly the same: I didn't have a role model for what marriage was like, I struggled with my relatiosnships with the opposite sex, I found out that I was looking inside my marriage for a dad instead of a husband, and I had a huge attraction towards men 20 or more years older than me. I ended up marrying a man 17 years older than me and my marriage was a total disaster. We got divorced recently and it has been terrible for me, specially when I think about the fatc that maybe if I had had a father I would had married a younger man and had a succesful marriage. The good part is that my ex is very responsible with our child too and even though we are divorced now I know that he is 100% for our daughter and it makes me feel very good that at least I did the right thing for my daughter and that she has a loving father, and I think that we should see it from that point of view, we can't blame it on us because growing up fatherless wasn't our decision but feel happy that you did what's right for your kids.
My dad was an alcoholic for ages, of course there would be arguments with my mother about how he would choose substances over me, then he would disappear, then return (often baring chicken or pizza). Then one day he went to BC, came back a hard core drug addict, then left for good. I would visit him from time to time but there are perhaps two pleasantly memorable times, the rest were filled with violence and more substance abuse.
Has it affected me? I'm not completely sure (my mother also was an alcoholic through out my childhood and part of my teens years and dated fellow alcoholics. Makes it confusing as to what lead to what ever issues I may have.).
I moved into my first place just last month, it's in his area, my first day living there he asked to borrow money. I told him to fuck himself.