Lost and Found: When Dad Disappears
A strong and loving relationship with his daughter is one of the greatest gifts a father can give. But what happens when the gift arrives damaged -- or never arrives at all?
A number of women in my study -- in their 20s and 30s, well established and successful -- continue to struggle to align expectations with the realities of a relationship that is distant, damaged or simply doesn't exist.
Having lost my own father to a heart attack at age five and raised by a single mother, I could easily relate to the women I have interviewed (in my research for a new book on dads and daughters) who never had a chance to know their fathers. I saw a special kind of pain, however, in women whose fathers could have been a close part of their lives, but chose not to.
While there are many reasons for the absence of a father, a surprising number of women felt, on some level, that they were to blame. Boys in these situations might bury their feelings. For women, they seem to keep finding their way to the surface.
I saw deep anger. I saw real disappointment. What I didn't see was women who said: "He can go to hell. Who needs him?" There was a need to keep working and trying and hoping for some kind of fix, some degree of rapprochement. Even in cases where fathers clearly, egregiously, did not deserve that kind of determination, I saw women who would rebuild the relationship if they could.
Unfortunately, some try to recreate it with other men -- boss, boyfriend, husbands. I heard many stories of women who find it hard to have a clear and clean relationship with men because those relationships keep getting tangled up in a need to make up for their loss.
Tammy is a 31-year-old real estate agent, whose father abandoned her when she was four. He has since remarried, and started a new family. As a child, she invented a father to replace him. Even today, she feels the loss -- and tests every relationship for trust and stability.
"After my dad left," she said, "My mother burned through a lot of different men. It always seemed to me that most of them were passing through, which was fine with me because so many of them were losers. But I needed a replacement for my dad, so I invented a fantasy father. He was tall and nice. I remember imagining him telling me that he would never leave -- no matter what. That kind of certainty and feeling of safety is something I always wanted," she said. "But I guess I'm still looking for it. I think sometimes that search complicates my relationships. I keep looking for something that men shouldn't have to provide."
For other women, fathers haven't departed; they are simply distant. Often, mother and father have split up, but the father remains part of a daughter's life -- even though he is outside the family as she used to know it. Often in these relationships, the bond is replaced by a kind of choreography, where the steps are executed well, but without feeling.
Glynnis, a 35 year-old who started and runs a small chain of beauty supply stores, still spends time with a father who left the family for a wealthy woman. To listen to her is to hear admiration without connection.
"My dad," she said, "is like someone out of The Great Gatsby. He is very formal with everything -- a real gentleman and very polished. He's also extremely attractive and an unbelievable athlete. In tennis, he was always the best dressed and the best player on the court."
As she talks about him cracks begin to appear in the fantasy. Eventually, with tears in her eyes, she softly admits: "My father did a bad thing. You don't leave your wife for someone else. You don't leave your family. He could have helped us. He could have been more involved in my life and my sister's. I love him. But I have never stopped being angry. I can't imagine ever cutting off our relationship. But I also can't imagine ever feeling about him like a daughter should feel about her father."
It's not unusual to try to fill the holes in our lives; to invent something that isn't there. Fantasy is fine. But as some point we all must face reality. Perhaps that person we want so much to be a part of our lives never will be, or perhaps does not deserve to be. My fantasy was to pretend my father lived in an oak tree outside my window. I would fall asleep at night knowing he was watching over me. But at some point as a young woman I had to come to terms with the fact that you can waste a lot of your life and use up a lot of emotional energy trying to find something that isn't there.
*The data I compiled and the patterns I've observed are presented as collective experiences. I have honored the confidentiality I promised, by changing names and disguising identities.
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mamacat....you don't know one woman who left her husband because she found another man ? I should also assume you don't know one man who left his wife because of her alcohol problems, or that she wouldn't get a job, or she was abusive ? I know lots of women like this. My own sister left two husbands because she got bored with them. Lemons indeed.
Please don't try to ignore the fact that some men leave with cause. In deifying the woman in a relationship and casting every male decision as a mistake or attack, you're glossing over the fact that it takes two people to make a relationship work, and that doesn't mean doing everything the way the woman might want it. It is often the differences not fixed by adequate compromise that lead to the breakdown of marriages or other child-rearing situations. There's a big difference between a drunk deadbeat that left his family for booze or whatever his addiction is and a man who wouldn't accept allowing himself to be demolished day after day after day by a woman who didn't respect him enough to treat him like a partner instead of a manservant and income source.
I'm only in my late twenties, but starting to think about kids now like I do, I read articles like this and am glad to be made aware of the impact I might have on my future daughters. But there are large gray areas in this debate that can't just be ignored by one side as they champion the cause of their side's members. I'm not even sticking up for all men in this case, because I know that there are plenty of deadbeats out there. But there's plenty of guys who are decent but find themselves in a tough spot from which there are just no easy answers or solutions.
I have known plenty of men and women who left their children.
One man left because he loved his addiction to drugs more than his family.
Four men I know left their families for younger and prettier women.
One woman I know left her husband and children for a more interesting man, a Catholic priest who had left his church.
One woman left because she lost her mind. Literally, she went insane. Maybe it would have been better if she had been able to leave before she went crazy.
One woman left because she had to get away from the physical abuse.
I also know lots of people who stayed together for decades, and did so gladly. Life is like that. Sometimes you get lemonade, sometimes you get unripe lemons.
Yes, but Murphy Brown and Hollywood told us that men were not needed. And in fact, men were the problem. Single mothers as a group have grown significantly over the last twenty five years. The liberal mantra has been "we are women and we can have it all"! Single parant families are amongst the poorest economically and the largest group without health insurance and retirement savings. So much for the wisdom. You have to wonder how many of the children of single parant families go on to achieve college educations. We've empowered woman to raise families all on their own. You've come a long way, baby.
You seem to blame the mothers for this absence of a father. In case you hadn't noticed, the cases cited in this article, the MEN left the women. Therefore, mothers have to pick up the slack somehow.
No one grows up saying they want to be a single mother...but you seem to see the world as black and white, with no shades of grade.
No one except Octo-Mom, that is! LOL
Had President Obama been female, what would his life be like now? Just wondering. . . .
probably not where he is now.
My mother raised 8 children alone after she divorced my dad, who was a drunk. It was better for us that he left and never came back. This was in the seventies when you didn't divorce. My mother never dated, her focus was us, and she kept us proud. Proud to have each other. She never talked bad about my father, and never was she angry, or blame someone else. What a woman she was, and I'm proud to be her daughter and to be raised by a single mother.
BRAVO!!! your mom is a true hero.
As you already know, you had an extraordinary mother. Oh to be so blessed.
As as male raised by a single mother who couldn't handle things well I can only throw in one small point.
Men, if you leave the family because the woman you married and chose to have children with is certifiably insane, please TAKE THE CHILDREN WITH YOU.
That is all.
My father left us when I was little. I got over it a long time ago. The guy was nothing more than a sperm donor I actually knew.
FYI, the guy I did marry is absolutely nothing like my father. I had no desire to marry an a-hole. Everyone who meets my hubby says he's the sweetest guy. And he is, and a wonderful dad to boot.
My father was a teacher and was home evenings, weekends and every summer, yet we were like marbles in a jar that never touched ... his father was a raging alcoholic and his mother was a wealthy Scottish untouchable snob ... he had shut down as a child.
When he died, twenty-two years ago, there was no change in our relationship ... I have yet to cry .. it took me many, many years of therapy and extracating myself from a battering ex-husband to finally get, my father's indifference was not my fault ... I wasn't defective.
Sometimes geography is irrelevant ... my father was as unavailable to me as if he had never existed.
Kudos to you!!
I was raised by two parents, but both my parents were raised by their moms only and I remember well how it scarred them for not knowing their dads. I recognized at an early age how badly their pysche was damaged for not knowing their fathers. My only hope for those out there who grew up without dads (or moms) is don't make more of it than there is there. Like nightmares or fears or even memories of one's youth, your imagination over-amplifies the good aspects of what a father (or mom) would be and reality is missing parent's aren't guaranteed to have been great parents. Pat yourself on the back for having come this far in one piece (otherwise you wouldn't be here reading huffpo) and vow to adopt or at least be there for some little kid who has no one. Peace out.
pt. 1
My birth father abused my sisters and me. He sexually abused me as far back as I can remember until I was 7, when he gave us up for adoption to avoid paying $75 a month in child support (1971 for all three girls). Even though he abused me, I felt abandoned. Even though my mom remarried my stepdad (who eventually adopted me and became my real dad), who is a good and kind man, I still felt abandoned and lost. It doesn't go away that easily. I had nightmares. I acted out. 32 years later, I still, in times of stress, have flashbacks and nightmares. I love my daddy (that would be my adoptive dad) and I'm glad he's in my life. He's been a wonderful father to me. But the damage that was done to me by my birth father never seems to go away totally. I'm what most people would agree is a successful person in my career, happily married to a wonderful husband, but it wasn't always like that. I was once a very hurt young girl and young woman. It took years of work to get me past my hurts...and sometimes it all comes rushing back. Luckily for me, it's only a temporary thing now.
Pt.2
Fathers, you must have healthy relationships with your daughters. You must work at that. After all these years teaching, I can tell you that there is a difference between teenage girls who have good relationships with their fathers and those who don't. Those that have these good relationships have a confidence that sets them apart. They make better decisions. It is not up to a teenager to make that happen. It is up to you. You -- from the very first moment you are in her life. It's all about trust. Can she trust you to be the person you say you are? Will you stick around? Will you hurt her?
Stepfathers, you can pick up the pieces and be the heroes of girls whose dads are losers. My dad did. He's my true dad, not my birth father. He's the one I, still at 42, think of when I call the name Daddy.
I'm curious if a daughter feels the same way when it's the mother who abandoned her. My daughter's mother first left me for another man when my daughter was 1 1/2. Then she left that guy for another man when my daughter was 5 and virtually dropped her on my doorstep. I raised her as a single father for 13 years.
Any daughters out there whose mothers abandoned them like my daughter? Do you feel the same way as the daughters abandoned by their fathers?
This is an indirect answer, since I'm not one of those daughters, but a mom who raised my daughter singly. Just wanted to say, "Good on you"!
Having lost my own mother (by cancer) when I was 15, and having me and my younger siblings then raised by a loving father, I do think girls miss their mothers more (providing they had good relationships with their mom. It's those little/BIG questions re: female development and emotions). But trust me, nothing matters more than having a loving and caring parent to rely on, whatever the gender.
If your wife led the life and took the actions you described, I'm sure your daughter would much rather have you alone, although she will struggle with trying to understand her mother's actions, no doubt relating them to her, and at some point, blaming you, thru non-understanding of how complicated adult lives can become.
Bottom line, children need a parent who loves and supports them, and provides stability in their lives. They may need to work out a few issues over time, but if you give them solid love and support, they recognize the worth. Just by your writing this, you sound like a good person, and a good father, with your heart in the right place.
My father was/is a Korean MIA since I was six. My mother became a drunk and prescription drug abuser shortly thereafter and continued on well into my 20's, she also took up with a violent, abusive man who she stayed with for 30 years. Frankly, I would rather have been "raised" by my father (my mother is gone now too or I wouldn't be writing this - I loved her anyway).
My life was a train wreck, every step uncertain. It continues to this day to torment. After forgiving them for what they did to me, I wonder, will my children ever forgive me?
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