Comment on So you grew up with a dad who didn’t know how to express love? Here’s how it could be affecting you today by Sarah Best.
Dear Doris,
There is no easy answer to the situation you’ve outlined, but I will say, based on your outline of it, that the root cause is in the way your husband relates to your daughter. No daughter should feel that her father is “not a fan of hers”. He should be her biggest fan – but the situation you describe is sadly all too common.
This is a quote from an article in (UK newspaper) The Telegraph which I think beautifully sums up how a healthy father-daughter relationship looks, and why:
“Every dad I know really does believe his daughter is a superior cross between Helen of Troy, Athena (goddess of wisdom) and the young Shirley Temple. And while this may tend to mean the world ends up being filled with an awful lot of spoilt princesses, it also ‚Äì with luck ‚Äì means that those princesses will have a sufficiently well-developed inner core of self-esteem to protect them from the emotional bruisings they’re inevitably going to have from all those men out there who won’t love them quite so unreservedly as their fathers do.”
Sadly, many fathers I know, or know of, do NOT view their daughters in that way – or at least they don’t show it. And those father-daughter relationships are, without question, painful ones for the daughters in question, and in many cases for the fathers, too.
Daughters play a role in the father-daughter relationship too, of course – but the father is fully responsible for how it goes for the first 18 years, as he is the only adult in the relationship. Those first 18 years set the tone for the relationship.
Your daughter has only recently entered adulthood. She would be very different towards your husband if, instead of “finding fault with everything she does”, he had been a supporting, loving presence during her formative years.
He can’t change the past, but much can be done to heal the wounds of the past. The first step is understanding and accepting what caused them.
I will be writing more on this topic soon.
Warmly,
Sarah
Sarah Best Also Commented
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Yes, it is devastating to miss the love of a father.
And it’s not made any easier by the fact that this is so little talked about and understood.
But for what it’s worth, in the four years since I began writing about this topic I’ve heard from SO many women who feel just as you do.
That’s why I started my free email series on the father-daughter relationship, which is designed to answer the very questions you posed, and which I see you’ve signed up for. I hope you’ll find it helpful.
Thanks again for the share.
Sarah x
Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I hear you and for what it’s worth, since I started writing about this topic four years ago I’ve heard from many women in similar situations who feel just as you do. That’s why I started a free newsletter, full of info and tips for women who are dealing with a challenging, painful and/or non-existent father-daughter relationship.
If you’d like to receive that you can sign up here.
Sarah xo
Are you signed up to receive my (free) Father Daughter Factor emails ‚Ä쬆those are ALL about healing the relationship and one of the topics I’m going to covering soon is the very one you asked about: “at what point is it okay to cut ties and say enough is enough?” You can sign up here.
Sarah xo
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