How Growing Up Without A Present Dad Affected My Dating Life
Growing up without a dad is tough. The daily reminders of knowing you came from someone who can’t be present in your life the way you need them to be is a difficult pill to swallow that doesn’t always become easier as you mature. One of the most difficult areas to manage is dating. Sometimes, you don’t realize that the behaviors you’ve learned are maladaptive or even harmful until you’re met with those consequences face to face. Being aware in these places is ideal but it doesn’t always happen, and worse off, it doesn’t always feel great when you miss the moment.
Read Sarai’s testimony to learn about her experience while dating after not growing up with a present father.
Sarai’s Testimony:
“Having a father who isn’t present has been a cycle in my family’s history. My mother’s birth mother died shortly after my mother was born. She had leukemia and died around 19 years old. Before she died, she asked her sister (who I call Nana and who my mother refers to as her mom) to raise my mother and my Nana said yes. My mother’s biological father did not stick around, and I don’t think my mother met him again until she was in her 30s. She’s 41 now. My mother’s sister’s (my aunt) biological father also wasn’t present, and they also met again when my aunt was in her 30s. Thankfully, my grandfather was there to help raise my mother and her sister with my nana.
I call my ‘father’ my sperm donor. His father died when my sperm donor was very young also. He lost his father when he was 11 years old. I know that for sure. I remember that between the ages of five and seven, he would be around for a short period of time. He even lived with us for a couple of months, but he was always in and out of jail. During the times he wasn’t in jail, his presence wasn't comforting for me. He was abusive to my mom, both verbally and physically and I was afraid of him. My mother cut off all contact and no matter how much he persisted, I chose to stop talking to him because it was better for my mental health. He’s in jail now and was adamant about getting in contact with me. After some reflection, and over a year of him asking my Nana for me to call him, I decided to let him call me. At first, it was okay, but it made me regret it. After a short time, he started to act the same way and I walked away again. The man threatened my life.
Having a father like him made me not trust men. I’ve thought about how it could have affected my outlook on my future. For example, I’m gay and I don’t trust men. I think at some level, those could be intertwined. It’s not just that his presence was always inconsistent, but he always brought anger and pain when he was around. It never seemed like happiness lasted, and that’s scary; to be an adult and still hear threats from him, it’s…unsettling.
In a perfect world, I think my attachment to others would look different. Right now, the way I look at men, when it comes to both romantic and platonic relationships, my first instinct is to protect myself by staying away. Usually, seeing another woman interact with a man is my first way of gauging whether I could be safe around that man. It’s hard because I love women and I’m gay, but I can’t help but wonder sometimes, what kind of person I’d be if he were the type of father I needed. It also hurts seeing other women have healthy relationships with men, especially their fathers. I’m working on my feelings about it and I know healing will take time. I’m going to keep doing what’s best for me because I need to keep my peace and sanity.
After ending one of my last relationships, I ended up in a dark place. After a while, I knew I needed help. One day I was scrolling on Twitter and came across a book about love. I ordered it and ended up learning so much about myself. The book is called Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment by Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks. I didn’t read too far before learning how much of myself I was losing in past relationships. I learned how to love myself, realize my triggers, set boundaries, define healthy relationships, and identify my definition of love. Although my sperm donor wasn’t present for me, this book has helped me to fill some of the void that was created. Despite him, I am loved, I am deserving of love and I will keep loving me no matter who is around. Approaching dating this way—with the scope of being whole and loving myself first—has made it easier for me to release some of my past hurt and know what I want or need from my partner; and the type of partner I want to be to others.”
While dating without a present father figure can be a challenge to navigate, it’s not impossible. Despite the insecurities that might arise, anyone can have a healthy relationship and even a healthy marriage. Continue reading to learn how LaRonda’s marriage had to bend to conform to the needs of she and her husband, who were both raised by single mothers:
LaRonda’s Testimony:
“Where I grew up, most of my peers and family members were raised by a single parent. For the most part, I didn’t even know what a two-parent household looked like. Unless it was on television, it wasn’t modeled for me in my day-to-day experiences. So, when you begin to date, you don't even really know what you're looking for or an example of what it should be like. My mom never really dated while I was around.
Growing up, I got my ideas of expectations of dating from TV. Back then, a lot of the influences showed that all the women are supposed to cook, and the woman is supposed to take care of the kids and the woman is supposed to do almost everything. Because that’s what I saw my mom do, that’s what I believed it was supposed to be like.
I am not that woman anymore. Looking back, there’s a lot of behaviors I no longer engage in because it’s not conducive to love I want to share or receive. My husband grew up without his dad in his life as well. We both have to actively work at our relationship because we are learning as we go. Neither one of us has seen what a father or husband is supposed to do or be like in the household. Every new situation is a learning space for us because living in a two-parent household is an ongoing new situation for us.
A few things I had to learn through dating and marriage, after being raised without a present father:
-Don’t set the precedent that you will be doing everything to make the relationship work.
Relationships are partnerships and if you are doing the work alone, you both are doing it wrong.
-Work on that feeling of not being enough or rejection.
We all feel rejected by someone at some point in our lives, but living with that pain every day and dragging it with you into new relationships only deepens the pain. Not only do people end up walking away, but you end up pushing people away. When people would make me upset, I used to end the relationship. It wasn’t until my husband spent time with me to help me understand that I was doing that from a place of feeling abandoned. I would push people away to make sure I never felt that again. I never realized because I didn’t hold onto the anger, the anger just fell into the black hole of rejection and pain.
-Don’t turn your nose up at others because their behaviors are different from yours.
When I see someone who looks thirsty or are attention-seeking, my first reaction is to be irritated. Like, really, why are you so thirsty? But then when I take a step back, and say, wow, this person really needs to feel loved and this person really needs to feel wanted. I know how that feels. We can easily look at the behavior and be irritated by it, but take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘Why are they behaving that way?’ I find that a lot of it comes from being in a single parent home, or no parents at all. This is how they are trying to cope with those feelings.
-Find a mentor.
My husband was always taught that if the man provides financially, he’s doing everything he has to. That didn’t work for me, or our children. It’s not that he was intentionally hurting us, but in his mind, he was doing it ‘right’ and there wasn’t much more for him to do. He's never seen anything else demonstrated. We realized that we needed to find somebody who has a successful marriage and not just successful on the outside. People in a real successful marriage who are willing to share with you the hard parts. Marriage is not easy. A lot of people make everything look all pretty on social media and spend all this money to just sit in a relationship miserably. We didn’t want that and we didn’t want to learn from mentors in this space.
-When dating, don’t stop observing the person.
Really observe how they respond to different types of scenarios. How do they respond to stress? How do they interact with their parents and siblings? How does the family navigate different types of conversations? That's the family you’re signing up to be part of. This is where your kids will receive some of their values and spend time as they get older. If you’re okay with what that looks like, you’re on the right path.
Relationships can be difficult to manage regardless of your upbringing. Acknowledging and working through unresolved pain are the first steps. Keep in mind that growth, acceptance, love and a solid support system can help break up some of that pain as well. If you grew up without a present father, please share the lessons you learned while dating.