If you had an absent father growing up?

[BiscoffSundae]

If you had an absent father growing up does it bother you now as an adult? Everywhere I read people say it doesn’t bother kids but just wondered how people feel now as an adult if it bothers them now or looking back?

No it doesn't. I have a brilliant mum who did everything for me. I don't need someone who doesn't want me, my mum and her side of the family have been more than enough.

Bothered me a little bit as a teenager - I think I felt I had something to prove. Have genuinely not thought about him for a couple of decades as an adult.

My dad left when I was 2, my step dad came on the scene when I was 10. Don’t remember much about Dad except what mother told about him being violent to her and 2 eldest kids . But what I do remember is her being violent towards me - how we were never allowed to answer back or we’d get hit. My stepdad never took a side , no idea if he agreed with her style of parenting. I hate her for how she treated us, she was hit my another adult and that was abuse but her hurting and believe me she hit so hard and even used a slipper once but she saw that was parenting!

My DS is utterly devastated by the rejection of his father. He is scarred. He has had a lot of counselling but I know this will impact on him for his whole life. He absolutely worshipped his Dad. It's very sad.

I’ve never met my biological father and it’s had a massive impact on me as an adult. I think this could have been lessened had I had a superlative stepfather but I didn’t, and I think really was affected by the lack of a solid stable father figure.

Yes

I said no for a very time. It wasn’t true, but it was common knowledge that children are resilient and if parents are unhappy that is what destroys children’s happiness, so parents seeking their happiness is the route giving the kids their happiness. I thought I was faulty for it being a Huge Thing for me. So I lied and pretended it wasn’t.

Then I found out he’d died. I had nothing left to hold up the pretence. Not under the pressure of the tsunami of grief, so much like the first time I lost him I finally had a name for what I’d been feeling for so long, no matter how deep I buried it.

I had an absent father who was physically present. He was an alcoholic with mental health issues on top; he was either there but not "there", there and abusive, or sectioned. More complete absence would have been by far preferable.

My dad was detached. He left when I was 3. I'd visit him with my siblings, but he never did anything with us.

I'm actually not arsed.

I guess it helps if you have a good mum who made up for it, my mum made it clear I was a mistake and would often refer to my dad as her “stalker”, she never loved him, never in a relationship with him l,
never lived with him and she always told me this from a young age, i didn’t have a step dad either she had another child but again same situation never lived with him (although they was in a “relationship”) but he didn’t play a father role.

It didn’t bother me much until I got into therapy because I never knew any different, and then when I experienced someone actually caring about me I realised what a mess my dad had left me in. He’s basically wrecked my love life by setting the bar so low for what I’d accept in a man.

Op I think if you’re seeing people who say it never bothers kids to have one parent left, they’re probably just trying to reassure and boost the remaining parent. It matters a lot to children and many, like me, stuff their grief down and it comes out as anxiety/depression later in life.

It’s my own situation my ex is now absent so yes to pp about history repeating itself, and my daughter asks constantly for her father, it’s really bothering her and my experience has not been that kids aren’t bothered by it, but I think you’re right and they are just trying to reassure the poster that makes sense.

Mine wasnt totally absent, he moved 150 miles away with a new family and we saw him a few times a year and I always got the impression he left my mum struggling even though she never really let on or bad mouthed him. As an adult I love my Dad, I wouldnt say we have a perfect dad/daughter relationship but we are close as a blended family and I love my half siblings and my nieces and nephews . He still forgets to send birthday cards somo but at the end of the day he wont be around forever and I can forgive that.

I didn't meet my father until I was an adult. Having met him, I know (and could have predicted beforehand tbh) that I didn't miss much. It was, however, quite important for me to meet him. I wanted to know where I came from.

It didn't bother me at all when I was little. In my primary school (and my local area in general), there were lots of people without a father, and more besides who disliked their dads.
Secondary school was a quite different and I realised that lots of my friends there had really loving, involved dads, so I suppose I was quite wistful about it then.

I have a good relationship with my mum, had a generally happy and warm upbringing and don't think that growing up without a father impacted me too badly. Better, certainly, than having the sort of man my father was involved in my upbringing. But still lacking what some of my friends had, which was a broadly loving, supportive relationship with two parents.

I should have put in my earlier post that my ex-h was abandoned by his own father. It affected him deeply although they reconciled eventually. He actually said to me that he knew what our DS was going through as it happened to him. He didn't have the emotional intelligence to break that pattern. He left for an OW who didn't want our DS complicating their lives so he chose her. I honestly hope that he is haunted by what he's done as I watch the damage done to our child. I do my level best to be both parents but it breaks my heart.

My father left when I was young. Heard nothing of him until DM got a letter from DWP.
Strange that they never divorced.
No idea how he died.
Neither me nor DM were upset by the news. It had been over 20 years since we had seen or heard of him.
As far as I remember he was ok. I never missed him.
DM lived alone until she died a few years ago.

I've not got firsthand experience of this, my parents are still together and in their 80s and Dh and I are still together after 30 odd years.

But reading Mumsnet over the years (and other sources) I think people aren't so much saying the kids are doing fine; don't miss what they don't have. More they are saying that it would be worse if there parents stayed in a bad relationship for the sake of the kids or whatever.

I've had friends deeply affected by parents splitting, some not at all (that I can tell) and also in between. It's impossible to know how kids would be in different circumstances as we only live one life. I daresay it depends on the individual child, what happened, what age and their further relationship with both parents.

You could start a thread saying "how were you affected by your parents staying together when it was full of conflict, or silence or lack of love?" Etc. I've seen lots of people on here talking about miserable childhoods when parents were obviously unhappy.

There's no general experience and no one answer

This thread has brought out all sorts of emotions in me.

Many say that you cannot miss what you did not have. I strongly disagree. Though a child many never have experienced their father being in the household, doing fatherly things with them, they will still feel a loss. At some point, they will know what a family home is supposed to look like and feel a sadness they do not have this.

I felt abandoned at a young age despite my dm being there for me. I witnessed my cousins and friends being cared for by their fathers and wondered why I did not have that. Some of their fathers had separated from their mothers but they would still visit at weekends, buy them clothes, take an interest in their life.

As a child I was never told by a man that I was beautiful, a princess, special so I tolerated a lot of shit from boys/men. No standard had been set and my bar was ridiculously low.

I met my h and never truly appreciated his love as I felt unlovable. I pushed him away through the fear of him leaving. I was independent - too independent. When my h cheated on me with several women over the course of our marriage it near enough killed me. I was and still am haunted by the idea I was indeed worthless and naive to believe I was worth staying faithful to.

Despite my h attempts to rectify things and to explain his actions our marriage is over. I have tried for a number of years, but just cannot move forward.

So, yes I am deeply affected. I am unhinged, angry, bitter, sarcastic and carry a constant feeling of worthlessness and rejection wherever I go.

not totally absent but maybe helpful to someone. my father was a merchant marine and some of his stints at sea were 13 months long. never shorter than 9 months. and then only home for 3 months at the most. this lasted my entire life at home (till 19).
but i knew i was loved, that he thought of me, and that he was working to provide for me.

what did affect me was my parents relationship and argument that routinely occurred.
some in positive ways: spending habits (never sure if the check was in the mail), and my mom's strong independence.
he was a good man in many ways.

Had zero contact insofar as I only know his name. Never seen him at all as abandoned my mum when she was pregnant at a very young age. Me and my mum have an excellent relationship and it's instilled in me how strong and resilient women can be. It's never bothered me as I had a lot of other males in my life who filled the gap (uncles and maternal grandparents and great grandparents), and my mum married later and he's my dad now (legally adopted me). The only time it's slightly bothered me is when I was pregnant and wondered if there was anything hereditary I was unwittingly passing on.

Fallfall
I presume you were made aware from a young age that your father was away working. Though this could impact on a child, the trauma would differ greatly from circumstances in which a father was absent due to opting out of being a parent.

Constant
You mention having had other role models including a step father who adopted you. I did not have the experience of an uncle, family friend or step father stepping in as a male guardian.

Interesting thread. My DS's dad is a waste of space who hasn't seen him since he was a baby. I'm glad he hasn't been in our lives but have always worried about the impact on DS who is now almost an adult himself. So far DS says it doesn't bother him but I wonder if it will affect him. I've always tried to keep the lines or communication open about it, offered counselling etc but he doesn't want to talk about it. I do worry about it impacting him in the future.

It bothered me as a teen and in my early twenties. I felt envious of friends with Dad's who gave them lifts, helped them out with cash stuck up for them when they fell out with their Mum's. It doesn't bother me now and I think it's his loss really not mine.

Dad left when i was 6, he was very violent and i never saw or heard from him since.
As a teen i was troubled and would seek out "father figures" that led me to be sexually abused as a 13 yo, well raped would be a better word for it, the only good thing that happened was my abuser dropped dead with a heart attack, so at least that stopped, i dropped out of school, back then, truancy was pretty much ignored.

I wanted a dad and i wanted to be "normal" everyone i knew at school had both parents.
My mum tried her best but she had no money & was traumatised herself, it was extremely tough for her.

Even now, esp as a parent myself, i cannot understand why he had nothing to do with me, part of me still feels i must have been a bad child.

Men who do this are the scum of the earth, yet it seems like if they are in power, we will vote for them.

Yes of course it does. The person who is supposed to love you and put you first can just walk away. That means you must be worthless.

Fairlyliz*
I am not worthless (neither are others who had an absent father) but I have felt worthless all of my life as a result.