Much of the mental health and psychology literature has focused on the mother and the mother’s attachment. But what about our fathers?
As children, we need a healthy father figure. It doesn’t have to be a biological father. It could be an uncle, an older brother, or a neighbour. We need a father figure to learn what it feels like to be loved in a healthy way by a man.
Boys need it to learn how to be loving, compassionate men, and girls need it to know what it feels like to be genuinely, unconditionally loved by a man.
So many people experienced fathers who lived with them but were completely unavailable emotionally.
Having an unavailable father usually provokes one of two reactions.
1)Push him away, “I don’t need his love”. Here, we punish him, withdraw and close down. Maybe we become rebellious and act out in different ways.
2)Chase him: “If I do this or that, I will be good enough, and he will love me.” This results in the performing child, the overachieving child, and the good girl. Here, there is a tendency to lose oneself to what we imagine Dad wants us to be. We abandon ourselves.
As adults, we can continue this behaviour with men, either pushing them away when our needs are unmet or chasing them and doing anything for approval and affection. Whichever you choose, there is a cause-and-effect, and so a cycle is repeated.
You CAN break the cycle.
Please let me know how the father wound shows up for you in the comments.
P.S. If you resonate with the father wound, this is a topic we will be exploring in more depth in my upcoming ‘Relationship Cycle Breaker’ course. To learn more, go to the link, ‘Relationship Cycle Breaker Course’.
Love on your healing journey, Jen
