A father is supposed to be a man you can look up to, someone you admire. For a girl, your daddy is someone that treats you like a princess, someone who loves you and comforts you. A girls’ dad is the foundation of what the man of your dreams should look like, act like, and how they should treat you.
As a young girl, your basis for every relationship is trying to find a man that can measure up to your dad. I can honestly say I have accomplished this. In all of my relationships I have found at least one of these fine attributes in them; They’re emotionally unavailable, heavy drinkers, unfaithful, or they make me feel invisible. I guess the bar wasn’t set too high…
In my case, I unconsciously went searching to find something that I didn’t get from my dad. I was longing for that feeling of being cherished, adored and loved. I needed to feel like I was good enough.
But unfortunately, you attract that which you know, apparently. I think there’s a rule written about this in the Book of Life somewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, my dad was not an awful or bad man. He didn’t abuse me, he wasn’t mean to me. He showed up to school things and played tennis with me. But I never really felt like he was there. I didn’t feel special. I was jealous of the bond him and my brother shared with sports. We didn’t have anything that I felt connected us.
As I grew older, our relationship felt more and more shallow to me. I assumed that it wouldn’t matter to him if we had a relationship or not, and since I would rather not have one, than to have a superficial one, I walked away. If he wanted to put in an effort, he would. Well, I’ve only seen or heard from him about 4 times in the last 18 years. So I guess my hunch was right.
Knowing that the man who should love you the most, can easily “do without” you, is a hard pill to swallow.
I really had to break the pattern of looking to someone else to fill that void in me, that I needed their love to know I was okay. It was a painful time in my life, not knowing who I was and looking for someone to tell me. I wasn’t good enough unless a guy liked me. It didn’t even matter if I liked him!! Haha, how absurd!
It wasn’t until my late twenties when I started to see what I was doing. I realized that no one was going to be able to give me what I couldn’t give myself.
I wrote my dad a letter explaining why I felt the way I felt and started my closure. I forgave him for not knowing how to be my father. I know he did the best he could with what he knew. And even though that wasn’t enough for me at the time, I’m still okay. I am a good person. I have a lot of great qualities, and because of him, I learned how to love, honor and respect myself. To me, that is the greatest gift he could have ever given me.
In love and light,
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