A girl without a father: how to build a happy personal life

“I grew up with my mother and grandmother, I did not experience a lack of love, but the world of men was incomprehensible to me,” admits Marina, 28 years old. “My mother and I understood each other well, but when I got married, I became annoyed that I had to reckon with my husband’s opinion, put up with his everyday habits. For a long time I did not understand what life in partnership with a man is.

“Such a reaction for a young woman is quite natural,” explains psychotherapist Veronika Stepanova. – She loves and is loved, but is not fully aware of her role and the role of a man in the family. She may have the feeling that marriage is a game, a temporary option: we will live and get divorced. Subconsciously, it seems to her that the world of men is intended for other women.

To understand this mechanism, it is worth going back to childhood. A girl living with a loving father feels protected from early childhood and gains the experience of communicating with a real, living man, and not an imaginary prince.

“She sees how dad eats, sleeps, what he loves, what his habits are. He realizes that his behavior is different from his mother’s, says Veronika Stepanova. – She checks her female attractiveness: if her father does not skimp on praises and affectionate words, she develops adequate self-esteem.

From childhood, she understands how gender roles are distributed and how to conduct a dialogue with the opposite sex. To those who do not have this experience, a man may seem like someone foreign. It’s not clear how to interact with him.”

Possible pitfalls

While working on Daughters of Divorce: How to Build Happy Relationships When You Lived in a Broken Family as a Child, family therapist Terry Gaspard interviewed women who grew up without loving fathers. It turned out that in adulthood they showed similar scenarios of relationships with the opposite sex.

1. distrust of men. Perhaps once a girl heard unflattering words from her mother about her husband or other men.
2. Hypersexuality as a way to assert itself. She tries to get male attention, care, praise through intimate relationships.
3. Painful addiction. She is ready to make many sacrifices to keep a man. “These can be sincere and faithful women, and if a partner decides to take advantage of their defenselessness, they are at risk: it is especially difficult for them to resist manipulators,” writes Terry Gaspar.

How to get out of the vicious circle?

“The life of girls who grew up with an indifferent father to them, and those who grew up without a father, often develops similarly,” says Terry Gaspar. – It is difficult for them to build a personal life. But difficult does not mean impossible. Here is what psychologists suggest.

Chat with men

Veronika Stepanova considers it important to communicate more with men: friends, colleagues, relatives. Observe, look closely, make friends.

“If you are more comfortable with women, and the company of men is scary, try to see them as children. This will help to break the halo of foreignness.

If you are married, but the family role is difficult, create pleasant traditions and rituals.

“A beautifully laid table for Saturday breakfast, buying new Christmas decorations for your family collection – let the interest in this be artificial at first, but the daily little work will gradually create the feeling that you have a family. This means responsibility, joy and great value.”

Connect with your father

“If you want to meet a father who was not in your life, you should realize this desire,” says Terry Gaspar. “If this is not possible, try to talk about him with people who knew him closely, especially with your mother.” Most likely, a flurry of not very pleasant feelings awaits you, but they will help you realize what happened to you in childhood.

Accept the past

“When you were little, your father was not around – what feelings did it cause? suggests psychologist Peggy Drexler. – Perhaps other family members surrounded you with love and care, and this made it possible not to think about the absence of dad. Or, on the contrary, you were in pain, but you forbade yourself from these thoughts and did not discuss this topic with your mother. Allow yourself to live and accept all the feelings that arise from these memories.

Understanding the relationship between childhood experience and how adult life is built helps a woman get out of the vicious circle of choosing men, relationships with which lead to a dead end, and finally make the right choice.