What effect does not having a father have on a girl or woman?

Question

I'm really looking for personal experiences of those who have grown up w/o fathers in their lives.

My father abandoned my mother(and two sisters) while she was pregnant with me. He was abusive to her & honestly it was the best thing that could have happened to us all. But I wonder how I would be different if I had had a father growing up. I'm almost 28 now and I have 2 of my own children and they have a wonderful father....I honestly can't imagine doing this job on my own.

Answer 1

i grew up w/o a father but had an abusive stepfather. it would be hard to say what difficulties have been most caused by whom. to me a father would have provided a male to validate my being female. a man to say i love you because you are you. a man to teach me how to respect myself as a woman. a father would have protected me from abuse. my husband is also a good father to the kids but i feel insecure with him. i fear that i am not enough...not good enough, not fun enough, not worth enough, not attractive enough. logically i know this is not true but it can be tough to get down to the core feelings of abandonment. i also wonder how i would be different if i had had a good father. good luck with your search for answers.

Answer 2

I don't think anyone can say without a certain amount of ambiguity what effects not having a father has on a woman, but maybe I can give you an educated guess. Often when a girl child grows up without a father figure in her life she will look for that love in other forms.

She may try to find that love by becoming romantically involved with an older man, or if she feels she is unwanted she may utilize her sexuality as a tool to make herself feel like she's wanted and worthy of a man's attention. More often than not.

A father brings a different,shall we say upbringing into the family equation because internally a man's view of the world is different from a mother's. Woman are natural nurturer's where as men are widely looked upon as the disciplinarian figure. Now with this being said, not having a father may not have an obvious effect on a woman, she may unwittingly have trust issues embedded deep within her psyche.

Some studies have shown that a small percentage of these women develop a "need" to have a man in their lives, while others seem to have no want at all to be involved in a relationship with a man period. So while there are many different theories there is really not a definitive answer to this question.

Might I add that I feel your PAIN, for I too grew up without a father, I have two sisters, one of which has a healthy marriage of 10 years and another who is described above when I spoke of some women having a "need" to have a man in their life, who has also had many abusive relationships that were effectively doomed before they began.

All we can do is give our everything in order to break this chain and give our children the best possible chance at living their lives and the tools they need to develop lasting and meaningful relationships as they grow into the adults they are to become. I hope I have been of some assistance.

Answer 3

My good friend only met her father once and she is always desperate for a man. It turned her into a s!ut and she confides in me that she wishes she could stop. She knows that she won't find the man of her dreams in a bar, but she revels in the attention.

Whereas, I was raised by my father only and he was the best dad in the world to me and I have no men issues whatsoever!!! I am single , independent and happy and unwilling to settle for anything less than the best.

Being as I have a sociology degree and I definitely sway towards the nurture side of any nature vs. nurture argument, I often didn't realize how much of a role this played in a woman's life. After all, I have felt no ill effects from my mother not being around when I was growing up. However, my friend has led me to believe differently. She had a wonderful mother, but she is still somehow messed up in the head by the whole father thing and I feel really bad for her!!!

Answer 4

My dad was a workaholic. He went to work on most holidays even though he didn't have to and would leave my mom, brother, sister, and I at home. When he was home, he slept a lot because he worked evening/night shift work. He was also abusive and neglectful. I don't remember my dad being happy at all but rather angry and we suffered his wrath if we woke him up. I just remember trying to stay out of his way.
So, even though he was there he really wasn't there. I was never daddy's little girl and didn't know what it was like to have a father's protection or love. It really affected my ability to see men as anything other than threatening or untrustworthy and caused me to not develop healthy relationships with them.
I'm gaining ground in this area but it's a slow process for me.
My mind is slowly changing on the subject of marriage and I believe that eventually I will get married when the right guy comes along. But in the meantime, there are some things to work out because right now I don't think I would be good wife material. I'd give him a run for his money and not in a good way.
Ultimately, I believe that a good father will instill a sense of security and worth in his daughter and show her he loves her. He's the first guy she encounters and that encounter will greatly affect her ability to relate to the opposite gender in a healthy or unhealthy way. He also helps to affirm her femininity by his acceptance of her. If he rejects her, this can often cause identity confusion and sometimes cause her to reject herself and instill a sense of worthlessness, insecurity and fear. Despite what a lot of people think, a father is an important and pivotal part of the family. You don't have to search long and hard to find story after story of kids without fathers or abusive/ineffective fathers and what they're lives are like. I believe that if my father would have been different...the father I needed, I believe my life would have been much different than it was. I'm not playing the blame game here, just stating that he had a profound impact on my life, for better or worse. In the Old Testament times, children without fathers were considered orphans. I had an orphan spirit and so do many today.

Answer 5

I think it means the girl is going to have only one point of view, and usually the mother will be strong and dominant, as a result, the girl will be either dominant or very weak. It depends a lot on what kind of mother the girl has and if there's a relationship with the father... like if the father is around and the mother hates him so much, the girl will always hear bad things about him and will in a way, learn to feel repulsion for men.

Answer 6

My fiancé lost her father when she was 8, he died of cancer. That alone can jack somebody in the head something horrible. She has issues with abandonment, not so much anymore, but when we fist got together she was under the impression that I was always going to leave her. She always had a "one foot out the door" kind of attitude about everything, she was afraid to commit out of fear of loss. She used to act out irrationally to gain acceptance from men, sex, drinking, and had a loud personality. Because of lack of fatherly guidance she got trapped in a few shi.tty relationships and felt compelled to stay. A lot of people wouldn't have gone near her if they were in search of a "real relationship. Mature relationship" but I seen something in her that I just couldn’t deny. Listen, all women are crazy, but if you see something in someone that you enjoy you have to look past certain things. There are 6 people in every relationship. 1. Who you are. 2. Who you think you are. 3. And the person people perceive you to be. When you love someone you have to look past everything and take the time to find out whom they really are. A lot of people don’t do that and that's why relationships fail. But back to the question...Her mother is one of the most independent women I have ever known. She refuses to accept help w/ anything and does everything herself. Her brother's in prison, a couple of her sisters are floozies and a couple are extremely successful. So the effect on a woman, it differs form situation to situation. Either you become an "independent" a "whore" or a woman who is scared of commitment. But in the end women are the greatest thing in the world and all they need is a sense of acceptance, love, and compatibility and no matter their past they all can grow to be amazing women.

Answer 7

They have no positive role model or qualities to look for in a future mate. The woman will tend to pick a man with the same characteristics as the one she's known.

Answer 8

She looks all her life for a Father's Love which would be an older man in choosing her mate