Father Figure!!!

[crazydazy]

I was just wondering if it was just me or my childhood and wondered if anyone else was like this.

My Dad walked out on me and my Mum when I was 4 years old, I absolutely doted on the guy and visited me if and when he could be bothered!!!

Because I never really had a "father figure" in my day to day life I find the whole concept of understanding men/relationships very hard. I always wonder if I am with the right person for the right reasons and not sure if I ever actually been "in love".

Has anyone else come from a one parent family and had commitment problems?

I had a very distant, violent fathers and I've had exactly the same feelings as you, crazy.

So I suspect that commitment problems like this, are not so much to do with coming from a one parent family, but coming from a family where the father for whatever reason, was not functioning as a positive role model.

Sorry - father should be singular - I did only have one!

Hi Caligula, yeah that is definitely right about the role model. Do you find it hard to believe that you are with one person for the rest of your life? I love my DP I really do but I just cannot and have never thought like that about anybody and it really upsets me. I feel like I am not normal.

hi dazy
tricky thing to answer, but sort of yes and yes. My dad died when I was 3 and I found it hard to accept as the circumstances were....distressing. It certainly had an adverse affect on my relationships and only recently have I managed to figure it all out. In short, don't be a victim of things that are either not your fault or you have no control over. Its not what happens to us that matters, but how we let it affect us and how we think about it. Dont keep being a victim of your past, but use it to find strength and understanding for the future. Hope you figure it all out, best wishes.

Hmm, I'm probably not the best person to ask about this as I split up from xp 4 years ago! But being with him forever didn't bother me as long as I thought it was working. I had the attitude of love, shmove - we got on OK, we had a child together, we had similar values and aims (at least, I thought we had). I now think that was wrong and was more to do with me "settling" for something that wasn't right.

My father was a violent, drug addicted repressed homosexual which he managed to combine with Catholic fantaticism - something that isn't easy to do! My Mum then married another very similar man minus the drugs and fancying other men bit.

I had no idea about men, I think I fell in love with my ex husband and allowed him to treat me the way he did because I didn't understand men, had very little experience of them and I followed my mothers example of being a complete doormat for my husband. I had no expereince of what it meant to be in a happy loving positive relationship and not surprisingly my marriage failed.

My new dp worships the ground I walk upon and is utterly devoted to me and my dd and at first I struggled as I thought he must have an ulterior motive, or he must be weak if he didn't bully, intimidate or dominate me. To this day if dp and I have a row I get very upset and think he is going to leave, because I have not seen a comitted relationship first hand.

I have also had comiment problems, I went through phases of being very promiscuos, perhaps this was my way of gaining power over the sex that had abused me during my childhood or of becoming different from my mum so I wouldn't end up like her.

my dad was an alchoholic. he was around but he would be there one minute and cold or nasty the next. to this day i cannot handle mood swings o rpeople suddenly being cold and as a result have just walked out on probably the best thing that ever happened to me so yeah i get that one. even though my dad is now fully recovered i will never be.

My mum n dad split when I was 3/4 also. I dont remember living with him, just the odd violent outrages between them. I went on myself to be in a very abbusive relationship with ds's (sperm doner). When I met My DH 6 yrs ago, after about 10 months of being 2getha he was going to call the whole thing off even though he loved me to bits, because I never showed any love towards him(even though I loved him to bits)
It was a wake up call to me,& made me finally understand that i didnt know how to love as Id not experienced this myself.
We are now very happy & I can show my love in so many different ways. Its just made me a better/stonger person.
I did feel though at that time I began to feel very hurt 4 being denied a loving childhood, which every child deserves.