How can growing up without a father

Don't define yourself by the hurts of yesterday but focus on tomorrow. You do, however, need a solid support system, of loving family and friends. Focus on cultivating that and watch it grow stronger and stronger. Question: I am working on my first relationship. Ever since he wanted to be intimate with me, I clam up because all I can think about is my dad. How do I overcome this? However, intimacy and intercourse are two very different things and shouldn't be confused.

Having sex before building intimacy with your partner may be the source of your problem more so than having thoughts of your dad. It's certainly something to consider. Thinking of your dad may be a way of mentally escaping a situation you're not ready for yet. To have a positive sexual experience, you need to be present at the moment—enjoying the physical sensations and your partner's responses to them.

If he knew you were thinking of your dad during sex, he'd probably find it quite hurtful as well as incredibly creepy. Both of you deserve better! A lot of women myself included need a deep emotional connection with our partners before engaging in sex. We're different from men, many of whom can enjoy sex as just a physical act.

If you haven't developed a strong bond with your guy—talking about your feelings, discussing your past, being vulnerable and open, hugging, kissing, touching, being playful, and spending lots of time together—you may not be ready to give yourself fully: body, mind, and soul. Since this is your first relationship, you're probably feeling very nervous. The more time the two of you spend together, the more you'll feel comfortable with him and let down your guard. You need to build trust with him, and that takes time and involves sharing a variety of experiences.

I know this relationship is important to you but keep an eye on the bigger picture. Do you need to visit a therapist and discuss the unresolved issues with your dad? If so, do it now! Don't let your father rob you of one more enjoyable moment. Don't let him invade your relationship and ruin it?

Find a way to move forward and not be held back by your father. It's fantastic you're motivated to work on this. If you take care of it now, your future will be a lot brighter. Question: He didn't want me. I don't want him.

It's simple. We are now both adults. Will I really be able to choose my family moving forward? Answer: Yes! Your question shows a tremendous desire to create something different than what you've known. With that motivation, you can move forward and build the life you want. This is your second chance to have a family, but this time you're in control.

That should feel empowering but a bit scary. A desire to do things differently, though, is often not enough for us fatherless daughters. As much as we wish to make the right choices, we often fail to do so because we didn't have good role models to show us how. Our dads' neglect of us can cause us to feel unworthy, leading us to pick partners who are unstable, unloving, and unsuitable father material for our future kids.

We can unwittingly choose men who will do the same thing to our children that our dads did to us. Sadly, the cycle continues. Our moms are often not much help, either, because they picked the wrong guys to marry and with whom to have kids.

Before starting a family of your own, it's important to get your ducks in a row and build your self-confidence. Get an education, keep learning, grow in your career, develop strong relationships, become financially stable, and create a deep spiritual life.

When you're more secure in yourself, you'll be ready to look for a high-quality life partner. While you may have an overwhelming desire to have a family soon, it's much wiser to put in the work now on yourself. Unlike many of us fatherless daughters, you have a serious advantage. It seems as if you've accepted the lack of relationship with your dad and are at peace with it. That frees you up emotionally to work on the here-and-now and not try to capture something elusive from the past.

I can't begin to tell you the hours I wasted pining for a dad who didn't want to be one. Question: My father is a jerk. We never had a good relationship, but I always held onto the hope we would, but he is leaving us in a week. What should I expect out of our relationship? Should I give up on us? I'm so hurt and confused. Answer: You're already doing great by understanding your dad is the jerk and not blaming yourself for his actions. Too often daughters believe it's their fault when dad leaves, thinking they weren't lovable enough for him to stick around.

In reality, though, it has nothing to do with them but everything to do with their father's weakness, whether that's low character, addiction, irresponsibility, financial instability, dissatisfaction with life or all of the above. As he takes his leave, it's important to take good care of yourself: pray, meditate, write in a journal, take long walks, talk to trusted friends, listen to music, do whatever is necessary to express your pain and disappointment and get the support you need.

People can't help if you don't open up to them. There are so many of us women who've felt the rejection of a father, know how much it hurts, and can share how we survived it.

Now is your opportunity to take control of the situation and determine what works best for your mental and emotional health. Wait and see how much effort your dad makes to contact you and stay connected. When he does connect, be mindful of how it makes you feel.

Does it enrich your life or make you miserable for days? Cutting a parent out of your life is an extreme decision but is necessary and beneficial in certain instances. You need to give it time and see how it develops. From time to time, I still long for the loving daddy I never had.

Realizing that one in three women identify themselves as fatherless has brought me comfort, knowing I'm not alone. There are so many great people out there in the world who want to be a part of our lives so we shouldn't focus on that one—our father—who doesn't.

We shouldn't give him that much power over our destiny. I certainly understand why this is a hard and confusing time for you. People disappoint us, but we can get through it and become stronger, more compassionate people. Answer: It can be difficult for many reasons. Some single mothers struggle financially and get stressed and exhausted. In some instances, youngsters of single mothers get parentified. This happens when they must take on adult responsibilities.

These can be physical tasks such as cleaning the house, caring for younger siblings, cooking meals, or even writing checks. Parentified kids often miss out on the carefree childhood activities that they see their friends enjoying.

They can take his departure as a personal rejection, even though it has nothing to do with them. They fail to ask the right questions: Why was he so irresponsible? Why was he neglecting his duties as a dad? Instead, they ask the wrong questions that condemn themselves: Why am I unlovable? Why was I not enough to make him stay? I hope that you have caring people in your life--grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, teachers, and coaches--with whom you can open up and talk about how hard it is for you.

You could also talk with a counselor at school or a therapist online. Answer: As a fellow fatherless daughter, I hope you can learn from my many failed attempts to heal from having an absent dad. I've been in therapy. I've taken anti-depressants, and I've worked on my inner-child. What I've learned from all that is I'll never completely mend from my hurt. It's all behind me and I'm perfectly fine. I'm cured. You just need to take one day at a time, be grateful for all you have, and look to the future, not the past.

Every day is an opportunity to be good to yourself by exercising, eating healthy foods, being in nature, meditating, praying, writing in a journal, and being open with friends. It's only when I reached my 50's that I became sick and tired of spending so much time and energy on the heartache I felt as a fatherless daughter. My dad was long gone, but I still ruminated about him every day and blamed him for everything that went wrong in my life.

I made the conscious choice at that time to not waste one more precious minute thinking about him and wishing things had been different.

It also included girls like I was whose dads were present in our homes but emotionally detached for various reasons: alcoholism, drug use, mental illness, marital affairs, or being a workaholic. Claiming this term, I no longer felt so alone, and I became more comfortable opening up about my situation to other women. I had felt so much shame because my dad had called me degrading names when I was a kid, and I was convinced nobody else had ever experienced that. But I was wrong.

Quite a number of women I met had the same experience as I did, and we bonded over that pain and comforted one another. I had always known that was true in my heart of hearts, but someone else saying it with such conviction made all the difference in the world. While it's unrealistic to think you'll completely heal from having an absent father, you have the power today to change your life forever. Don't let being a fatherless daughter become your identity.

Make the world a better place by volunteering to help people or animals. When you start helping others, you'll feel a lot better. I know I did. Take good care of yourself and open up to others. You'll be amazed by how many wonderful fatherless daughters you'll meet that way. Question: How can my child's father go years without seeing his kids? Answer: A father who goes that long without seeing his kids is not fine, and suffers from profound flaws in his character.

He may be staying away because he thinks his children are better off without him. He could be drinking, abusing drugs, gambling, womanizing, overworking, or overspending. He may be staying away because he's suffering from mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. He could be staying away because he's a narcissist who's focusing on his own needs and not those of anyone else. We will never get an adequate explanation that relinquishes our dads of their parental responsibilities or absolves them for all the pain they've caused us.

Unfortunately, having a child doesn't automatically turn people into warm and loving parents. It doesn't erase the lives they had before a baby came—a time when they may have been abused, neglected, or made to feel worthless.

Those early years may have left them without the foundation necessary to be competent and caring parents. Most certainly, not everyone has it in them to be a mom or dad. Parenting is a job that requires tremendous selflessness and sacrifice, and not everyone is up to the task. When we weren't given the straight scoop as to why our dads were absent during our childhoods, we filled in the gaps with horrible stories in which we blamed ourselves: I was unlovable I was too much trouble I got on his nerves As adults, we may make the stories even worse: I wasn't even worth a visit once a month He found time for fishing, but he never found time for me I must have been so disgusting to him that he wouldn't even introduce me to his new wife.

We grow up with a false narrative running through our heads, creating tremendous shame and sadness. We think our dad rejected us because we were flawed when, in fact, he was the deeply flawed one who couldn't handle his responsibilities and was incapable of being a loving parent. We can get stuck, ruminating about why our dads weren't with there for us. When we do this, though, we don't enjoy the beautiful folks in our lives now who deserve more of our time, energy, and appreciation than that guy who left.

As adults, it's our opportunity to write a new story for our lives, and we have the power to make it a positive one. I feel your pain in the question you asked. I certainly identify with it as do so many other women.

Take good care of yourself. I wish you much peace and joy. Question: How can I improve? I know in my mind that my father doesn't hate me; he just never connected with me. And ever since mom died, there has been no effort to. He never told me he was going to propose to my stepmother. I found out after.

It's like I've never been a part of his life, especially since then. He's involved in my stepmom's family. I'm tired of being around, hoping for a relationship.

Answer: Sometimes we fatherless daughters need to get so thoroughly sick and tired of the situation before we're motivated to make a change. Sometimes that takes years and, sadly, sometimes it takes decades. In your question, you have all the answers you need and show real insight. Now you just need the courage to make some real concrete changes in your life. You need the determination to make the best possible future for yourself instead of wallowing in the past.

Through no fault of yours, he didn't take the time and make an effort to form a parent-child bond with you. When that isn't established in the early years, it's nearly impossible to construct it later. The feelings aren't there. He may be dealing with so much shame and guilt from the bad choices he's made that he just wants to forget it all, including you.

You are a reminder of how he's failed. For the most part, women set up the social life of the couple, and the men go along with it. Your dad is loyal to the woman he shares a bed with and, if she puts her family first, he's fine with it. He gets sex from her, so he's not about to make waves. He's content with the situation.

He's not longing to be with you like you're longing to be with him. That's the cold, hard reality staring you in the face. When I was a kid, my grandfather got remarried in his 60's. He'd been involved in our lives marginally but, once he was with this new woman, we rarely saw him only on major holidays. He was totally caught up in his new wife's world: her daughter, her grandchildren, her friends, and her interests. My siblings and I didn't care, but my mother was devastated by the rejection and was constantly complaining about it.

Instead of enjoying what she had, she obsessed about what she didn't. When my grandfather's wife eventually died, he came back into my mom's life. Then she constantly complained about how thoroughly annoying he was! The moral of that story is we often want what we can't have. Then, when we get it, we realize it wasn't so great after all. I think there's a good chance you would discover that about your father if you were able to spend a lot of time with him. The idea of him is much more desirable than the reality.

It's time to focus on the future. Make new friends. Start new relationships. Pursue a new hobby. Take classes at the local community college. Learn a new sport.

Adopt a pet. Develop a deep spiritual life. Volunteer in your community. Make a difference in the life of a child. You have so much to offer the world. Don't waste any more of your life on your dad.

Make a plan and take concrete steps to move forward. Best to you! Answer: You need to acknowledge the hurt his abandonment caused you and grieve the loss of a father. If you don't deal with your sadness, anger, and resentment now, you will regret it down the road.

Bottling up our feelings can lead to serious health issues such as obesity, depression, anxiety, headaches, stress, and heart disease. Running from your pain can lead you to make bad choices with men as you try to repair your past with your dad. It can also cause you to numb yourself with drugs or alcohol.

Take time to deal with your emotions now, so you don't spend the rest of your life as the wounded little girl whose daddy left her. Grieve by writing in a journal, writing letters to your father but not sending them , and talking with women who can empathize with your situation. Our mothers are often the worst people to talk to about this matter. Because they're defensive about picking the wrong guy, they can trivialize our anguish. Minimizing our suffering can make us feel even worse.

You also need to accept that your father was a broken man and forgive him. Right now he has way too much power over your life--this weak guy who ran away from his responsibilities as a parent.

By doing so, he took away much of your innocence and hope. Forgive him and don't let him take any more from you. Don't let your dad's bad behavior blind to all the beauty around you. Don't let it make you hard and bitter. Keep your heart open, stay soft, and remain vulnerable. We miss out on so many opportunities for love, joy, and adventure because we're protecting our hearts. Resolve at this very moment that you will create a fabulous life for yourself, not defined by your dad's absence.

Embrace nature. Embrace spirituality. Embrace your feelings. Embrace quiet times. Embrace your future! Question: My father left my mother and me when I was a baby. We tried to develop a relationship when I was around thirteen, but that ended very badly due to both sides, not just his and that was the last I heard from him until now.

I am a twenty-five-year-old woman, and we have been texting a lot the last few weeks. I'm confused. I don't think he has a conscious desire to hurt me.

What do I say or how do I act at this point? Answer: It's perfectly natural that you don't know what to say or how to act because you and your dad never established a parent-child bond. He's percent responsible for this lack of connection since he abandoned you as a baby. That was completely irresponsible of him, and now he must live with the consequences. He's a stranger to you with no shared memories, no shared experiences of good times and bad, and no emotional link. You'll never develop a parent-child bond because it's too late for that.

If you're interested, you could form another kind of bond. That's entirely up to you. You don't owe him anything. It's not your job to make him feel okay about the mistakes he's made. At 25 you want to be looking ahead in your expansive windshield, not behind you in a tiny rear-view mirror. You have your whole life ahead of you—full of possibilities, adventures, and loving, meaningful relationships.

Your dad has already proven again and again that he's not a good bet for a significant relationship and you'll probably get hurt again. Do you want to continue this pattern of him coming in and out of your life or do you want to end it? Do you want to be fifty-years-old and still lamenting his flakiness? If you have children of your own, do you trust him to contribute something of value to their lives as a grandfather?

Only you can decide. Please understand that you weren't responsible for the relationship ending badly when you were Again, that's entirely on your dad. He was not there for you during the early years, and no parent-child bond was established. Most daughters are difficult at thirteen. We have our periods and get hormonal and emotional. Good fathers understand this, brace themselves, and are man enough to take what comes. Your dad ran away from his responsibilities once again and left you feeling like you were to blame in some way.

You were not. You were just a kid. Do not shoulder that burden. If you become a mother one day, you will understand that a decent parent stands by their child through it all—even the roller-coaster teen years! It's all part of being a parent. You have some big decisions to make. It's a good time to talk to your mom, your friends, and other people in your circle whom you respect.

Question: I think my father leaving has affected me more than I realized since most of these points are correct. But how do I move past it? How do I let it go and fix the issues I create for myself? Answer: Having an awareness that you were negatively impacted by being a fatherless daughter is extremely important.

A dad—an early and primal part of a child's life—was absent for whatever reason and this shaped the person you became.

When you accept that reality, you realize how critical it is that you care for yourself. Some of the hardest women I've ever met are fatherless daughters who won't admit their dad's absence has hurt them. They have built up a tough exterior and showed no vulnerability, but they're fooling no one.

It's a horrible way to go through life—so-self-protected and scared. If only they would open up, express their sadness, grieve their loss, connect with other fatherless daughters, and move forward, they could lead much happier lives.

It was only when I accepted how much my dad's neglect had hurt me that I was finally able to lose weight, exercise regularly, go to the doctor and dentist, and take pride in my appearance. Before that, I just didn't care enough about myself to do those things. If our dads had been involved in our lives, we probably would have grown up to be more confident women—taking risks, failing, getting up, and trying again.

Since we didn't have involved dads, we need to do that for ourselves--pushing ourselves to try new things, experiencing successes, and increasing our self-confidence. I recently started a self-defense class that helps me feel more powerful. I'm doing it for myself, developing the self-discipline and self-focus that I've never had. I set aside time each day to practice.

I keep my uniform clean and ironed. I do mental exercises along with the physical ones. I set goals for myself and work hard to achieve them.

I get distracted by other obligations--my kids, my husband, my job, and my year-old mother—but this new discipline helps me stay in the moment. I feel in control and that's something fatherless daughters don't experience often. Question: The last time I saw my dad was when I was two. I now have a step-dad, but he's never home and he acts like everything is fine. He and my mom are on the verge of a divorce.

He is absent almost entirely and he always has been this way. I'm struggling with trusting any guy and I don't know what a good man is like. How do I get past this and be able to determine good men from bad men? Answer: It's fabulous that you're thinking about this now before you get stuck in a life-long pattern of picking the wrong guy and being miserable.

These decisions don't exist in a vacuum; they're influenced by our personal histories, fears, and inadequacies. We're drawn to what we've known from childhood. Sometimes we want to fix our past and sometimes we simply want what's familiar, no matter how awful.

That's why children of alcoholics may marry a drunk or drug user. That's why we fatherless daughters might marry men who withhold love and affection. My year-old mother has been in a relationship with a man for the past 18 years.

It's uncanny how she picked the exact same model as my deceased dad: emotionally unavailable, critical, and self-centered. Instead of examining her previous bad decisions and re-calibrating, she chose once again what she knew. She never took the time to heal, get stronger, learn about herself, and weigh what what she truly wanted in a guy. It sounds like your mother may have a habit of picking the wrong men as well.

Congratulations for being resolute about changing this in your own life! Like all of us fatherless daughters, you were damaged from the experience and you need to heal. Don't focus on finding a romantic partner but concentrate on yourself. Take the time to grieve the loss of the father you never knew and the stepdad who was largely absent. Forgive them and resolve to build a good life for yourself. Read, study, and learn. Plan for the future.

Set goals and work hard to achieve them. Develop a spiritual practice. Exercise, spend time in nature, and cultivate meaningful friendships. Most of all, develop your self-worth by doing challenging things and impressing yourself. When you become an accomplished person, you'll no longer be that damaged little girl looking for a daddy.

You'll no longer be looking for a man to heal your hurt from childhood. You'll be a confident adult women looking for a suitable match—someone who can give and receive love, someone who's trustworthy and responsible, someone who will be there for you and your kids--both physically and emotionally. Have a myriad of life experiences and get to know men as friends, teachers, colleagues, and mentors. You'll start to see that there are so many fantastic ones out there, and your vision will be forever expanded from the narrow, jaded one you had as a kid.

You'll gain a mature perspective and be ready to choose a partner as an adult woman, not a wounded girl. Question: My father died when I was a baby. My stepdad does not want me. He told me to get out. Was I not good enough for either of them? Will I always feel this pain? I am fourteen-years-old. I really want a father, but he does not want me. Answer: Feeling rejected is one of the most difficult things we humans must endure, and I'm sorry you're going through this.

However, please realize that your father's death, while a massive loss in your life, was in no way a rejection of you. You'll always feel the sadness from his absence and wonder what your life would be like if he had lived, but you should never feel unloved by him. What you say to yourself—how you frame your life story—is so incredibly important.

Please don't say your father rejected you when he most definitely did not. As for your stepfather, I don't know the circumstances there. I hope you have a loving mother who's standing by you. As a parent myself, I know how much responsibility it takes to care for children and some people, unfortunately, aren't up to the task. They're too immature, too lazy, too needy, or too irresponsible to handle it. They may be dealing with addiction problems, financial issues, depression, or a midlife crisis.

Again, this is not a reflection on you but on your stepdad. You're only 14 so don't take on the burden for the choices adults in your life make. It would be extremely beneficial for you to talk to a counselor at school. When we talk about heavy issues such as rejection, it lightens our load, and we don't feel so alone and afraid.

We get a new and healthier perspective. Reaching out for help is a way to make yourself a priority. You have your whole life ahead of you with so many things to learn and adventures to have. You don't want to stay trapped in this emotional state where you feel unworthy.

Answer: For fatherless daughters like you and me, not treating ourselves well is a common problem that can plague our lives and bring great misery. The unwarranted shame we feel from our dad's rejection often makes us feel unworthy of having fun times, supportive friendships, and loving relationships. The mere fact that you're aware of that and want to change it is huge.

Otherwise, you might spend decades engaging in self-destructive behaviors like I did without knowing why. When we truly accept that our dad's rejection had everything to do with him and nothing to do with us, we can move forward with our lives. To help me grow as a person, but not do all the work. Stereotypes are often far from being accurate. Girls without fathers grow up fast. We become mature and independent quicker than most people could even imagine.

From having an absent father, our standards are set higher than most. Because we have seen the worst sides of men without being in a relationship. We see the red flags of a man before most people do. Girls without fathers understand that they will never be with a man that treated them like their own father did. Yes, we have trouble trusting people when starting a relationship.

Mom would say it was because he was working late. Eventually, I was old enough to see he was choosing not to be home because he had other places he wanted to be. An important difference between Ismat the chef and Ismat the husband and father is that he had role models to help him learn how to cook.

He went to school for it. He worked as an apprentice under the tutelage of chefs who showed him how to wash dishes, chop vegetables, work a fryer, use a stove, boil pasta, grill a steak, and bake a cake. Certainly, I was hurt by his absence—and even more hurt by his terrible behaviour when he was around. He was always yelling and bullying, as if he wanted us to be glad when he was gone. My family has one home video of us, on an old VHS tape from I spent hours at school that day working on it.

I tried to make my father look cool, and I knew he really liked boxing. I handed him the drawing with high hopes for how he might react. He picked it up, looked at it, and seemed confused. He then put it to the side, never even making eye contact with me. Not once. There was something phony about the whole thing. That damned teacher had set me up, I thought. And there I was, trying to reach out to him as a son, only to feel rejected once again.

There was a period of time—when I was seven or eight years old and he was thirty—that I remember Ismat coming home from work very late at night.

At least twice, he woke me up to talk to me. I was really happy to see him. On one of those nights, he told me about a new handshake he was doing at work—one reminiscent of a handshake Will Smith did on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The situation was much more serious on the second night, when he came into my room, sat on the edge of my bed, and cried. Was he talking about being my dad? Or working?

Or coming home late? He told me that he was working so hard for his family and that he was always tired and hurting. After a few minutes of silence, he stopped crying, said good night, and left my room. He was struggling not just with being a father and husband but also with being a whole person. I recall both of them making comments to me about separation as early as the mids, just a few years after the birth of their third child, my sister Janine.

But the state of their relationship was never quite clear to me.