Fatherless Daughters: What is the Potential Emotional Impact of Growing Up Without a Father?

The potential impact for girls who grow up without a father can be profoundly traumatic.  

Fatherless Daughters

What is Fatherlessness?

Fatherlessness is defined as a lack of an emotional bond between a father and his child.  This can be the result of the father's death, abuse, addiction, incarceration, abandonment of the family or other issues.

What Role Does a Father Play in a Girl's Life?

Although psychology has mostly focused on the role of the mother, greater attention is now being paid to the father's role in a young girl's life.

A Healthy Father-Daughter Relationship

A healthy relationship with a father has an important positive impact on a girl's:

• Confidence
• Self esteem
• Self image
• Beliefs about herself
• Perspective on men
• Ability to trust
• Need for approval

A Healthy Father-Daughter Relationship

All other things being equal, women who grew up in a healthy father-daughter relationship are more likely to have:

• Self confidence
• Confidence in their choices
• Healthy body image
• Better academic achievement
• A greater ability to trust
• A greater ability to take risks
• A better opinion of men
• More meaningful relationships with men in general
• Better decision-making capability and choices in the men they choose for romantic partners

Mitigating Factors That Help Fatherless Girls in Their Psychological and Emotional Development

Although this article focuses on many of the potential problems usually associated with fatherless daughters, it's important to note that not all fatherless daughters grow up to have the problems outlined in this article. 

A Loving Grandfather With His Granddaughter

For many of them there are mitigating factors that help them in their psychological and emotional development, including other father figures like uncles, grandfathers and other healthy males who take on a paternal role.

In addition, girls who work with a qualified mental health professional can overcome many of the potential problems that are usually associated with being a fatherless daughter.  

The Potential Emotional Impact For Women Who Grew Up Without a Father

Unfortunately, girls who lose their father at a young age are at a higher risk for problems as an adult in the areas mentioned above where girls in healthy father-daughter relationships excel. 

Fatherless Daughters

There is a derogatory term, "Daddy issues" which is mostly used in social media and has no place in psychology. This popular derogatory term describes women who have been negatively impacted by the loss of their father at a young age.  

Women who grow up without a father (or an inconsistent father) often have an anxious attachment style, including fear of abandonment.  

As children, they often blamed themselves for the loss of their father and, similarly, they can blame themselves for problems in their adult relationships with men.  

In addition, they might have grown up feeling that their father wasn't around because their father didn't love them or they were in some way inherently unlovable. This can carry over into their romantic relationships with men where their low self esteem causes them to choose men who don't treat them well.

Signs That a Woman Has a Father Wound

Fatherless daughters often:

• Date Older Men: They often choose older men as romantic partners. Older men can represent security and protection to them.

• Feel Overly Anxious or Jealous: Fatherless daughters often worry that their partner might leave them for someone else or abandon them in some other way, which is related to their abandonment issues with their absent father. This anxiety and jealousy can ruin a relationship.

• Need Constant Reassurance: This is related to their deep-rooted fear of abandonment.  They might fear that their partner is angry with them or that they have made wrong decisions. This need for constant reassurance can take its toll on a relationship.

• Fear Abandonment: As previously mentioned, fear of abandonment can be a big issue for women who grew up without a father. They often place a lot of importance on being in a committed relationship--at any cost--even if their partner doesn't treat them well. Their fear of being abandoned can have the effect of driving a partner away.  It can also cause these women to be serial monogamists where they jump quickly from one relationship to another (see my article: How Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Fear of Abandonment).

• Get Into One Unhealthy Relationship After Another: Since they often fear being alone, they can repeat dysfunctional patterns of getting into one toxic relationship after  another.  They might choose men who cheat on them, misuse drugs or alcohol, abuse them and mistreat them in other ways (see my article: Unhealthy Relationships: Bad Luck or Poor Choices?).

Once again, I want to emphasize that the problems discussed in this article are not universally true for all fatherless daughters.

There are girls who are emotionally resilient who don't experience the problems discussed in this article.  

There can be many factors, including the mitigating factors discussed above or other related reasons why these girls don't develop these problems.  

More research is needed to identify these factors.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

As previously mentioned, the loss of a father at a young age is often detrimental, especially as girls develop into women and carry the trauma of the loss into their adult life, including their relationships.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you were traumatized by the loss of your father, it's never too late to get help.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma specialist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Many people experience increased personal meaning in their life and posttraumatic growth after they overcome their losses in trauma therapy.

With the help of a skilled trauma therapist, you can work through your loss so that you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individuals overcome trauma and loss so they can lead happier lives.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

I've written several articles about mourning and grief, including: 

Coping With the Loss of a Loved One: Common Reactions 

Holding Onto Grief as a Way to Stay Emotionally Connected to a Deceased Loved One

Allowing Room For Grief

Coping With Grief: It's Common For the Emotional Pain to Get Worse Before It Gets Better.  

In this article, I want to discuss a different type of loss, the loss of an unknown father.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

There are many children today that are being raised by a single parent, usually a mother. Many of those children have never met their father.

Often, the unknown parent remains somewhat of a mystery.  Either the identity of the parent is shrouded in secrecy or the child might be curious about the other parent but senses that it would upset family members to bring it up, so s/he doesn't.

I've worked with clients who, after many years of having no contact with the other parent, find out that the parent has died.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

Having never known this parent, this kind of mourning is different from the loss of a parent with whom the child has developed a relationship.

This mourning involves the sadness, frustration and anger of what was missed and will never be--the relationship between the child and the deceased parent.

Many people who lose an unknown parent in this way feel deep sadness for never having sought out this parent or might feel anger that the parent never sought them out.

The following fictional vignette, based on many different cases, illustrates how an individual suffers with this loss and how therapy can be helpful to cope:

Bill
Bill grew up as an only child.  He was raised by his single mother, his maternal grandmother and maternal aunt, who all lived in the same household.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

When he was a young child, Bill tried to ask about his father, but whenever he asked his mother, aunt or grandmother, they told him to stop asking questions (see my article: Toxic Family Secrets).

Even though he wanted to know where his father was and why he wasn't around, Bill knew that his questions made his relatives, especially his mother, unhappy, so he stopped asking and kept his sadness and curiosity to himself.

His uncles and other male mentors tried to take the place of his missing father, but Bill always wondered about his father.

After college, he moved out, got married and had two children of his own.

Not having had a father, he made sure to spend time with his children and being a good husband and father was very important to him.

One day, shortly after Bill's 35th birthday, he received a call from his aunt, who told him that she received a call from his father's brother in Atlanta letting her know that Bill's father died.

As his aunt was telling him the funeral in Atlanta, Bill felt a sudden shock in his stomach.  No one had ever spoken to him about his father and now he was hearing that his father was dead.  It all seemed surreal.

Bil felt a welling up of sadness and anger.  He didn't want to lash out at his aunt, so he just went on "automatic pilot" and took down the information about the funeral.  When she asked him if he was alright, he choked back his tears and told her that he was fine.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known 

After he hung up the phone, Bill just stared at the information he had just written down on a piece of paper.  Then, he crumbled it up in anger and threw it in the trash.

When his wife, Edna, saw him, she knew immediately that something was wrong and she asked him about it.  Bill tried to say he was alright, but Edna knew him well enough to know that he wasn't telling her something, so she kept asking him to tell her what was bothering him.

Finally, Bill broke down in tears and showed Edna the crumbled piece of paper where he wrote down his father's name and the information for the funeral home in Atlanta.

He didn't need to explain anything to Edna.  She understood what it meant.  She put her arm around him and said softly, "I'll go with you."

Before talking to Edna, Bill felt too angry to go to his father's funeral, but she persuaded him that it could be a healing experience for him and he might regret not going.

Later that night, Bill heard from his mother.  He felt the old fear he used to feel when he was a child whenever he wanted to talk about his father.  He didn't want to upset his mother by talking about his father now.

His mother's voice sounded strained when she asked him if he was going to the funeral.  Bill could hear anger and sadness in her voice.

When he was a child, although he was never explicitly asked to choose between his mother and father, he felt that asking questions about his father hurt his mother, so he kept quiet.  Now, those same feelings were upon him, even though he was an adult.

Bill wasn't sure what to say to his mother, so he told her that he was thinking about it.  There was silence on the other end, and then his mother hung up.  Normally, when his mother got angry and hung up on him, Bill would call her back, but he didn't know what to say to her, so he remained silent.

All the way to the airport and on the flight, Bill felt emotionally numb.  He didn't know what to think or say.  Edna told him to take it one step at a time and not to think too much about what might happen or how he might feel.

So many thoughts were swirling around his head, "Why?" "Why have I never met my father before?"  "Why didn't he seek me out?"  "Why was my father kept a secret from me?" "Why didn't I seek him out once I became an adult?  Now it's too late.  He's dead.  Am I a terrible person?  Was he?"

They were met at the airport by Bill's uncle, who had a strong resemblance to Bill, "I'm your Uncle Joe, your father's younger brother."  Then, he gave Bill and Edna big hugs and greeted the children.

On the car ride, Bill thought it was so strange that, even though he had never met his Uncle Joe before, he felt like he had known him all his life.

As Joe drove them to his house, he filled Bill in on the Bill Sr's final days in the hospital after he made a massive heart attack.  He told Bill that his father never forgot him and always wanted to connect with him, but Bill's mother wouldn't allow it.  She sent back all of the letters that he sent to Bill unopened.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

Uncle Joe told him that his father didn't know how to reach Bill when Bill was an adult.  He told him that he hoped to see Bill before he died, but he knew that Bill's mother would never tell Bill that he called, and then the end came too quickly.

Uncle Joe was the relative who called Bill's maternal aunt to let her know that Bill Sr. died.  Joe was surprised that Bill's aunt told him about the call, but he was glad that she did.

Bill felt such a mixture of emotions, but he tried to stay calm.

When they got to the house, Joe took Bill aside and handed Bill a stack of letters that were returned to Bill Sr. unopened.  Bill stuffed the letters in his luggage without even looking at them.

Throughout the course of the next few days, Bill met his father's side of the family--many uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews.  He also met two younger half-brothers.  Everyone embraced him warmly and Bill was very moved by it all.  He had no idea that he had so many relatives on his father's side.

When Bill and Edna went to the funeral home with the other family members, Bill was stunned to see how much he looked like his father.  It was like looking at a picture of what he would look like in 25 years.

Waves of deep sadness went through him as he looked at this man, who was his father.

Before he left, his relatives promised to stay in touch.  They also made him promise to come to the next family reunion in the summer.

When he got back to New York, Bill felt overwhelmed by his emotions, alternating between sadness, anger, confusion and frustration.

While he was in Atlanta, he heard many stories about his father, some of them were sad and others were funny.  He found out that his parents were together until he was one years old and then they split up after his mother found out that Bill Sr. cheated on her.  He moved back to live with his family in Atlanta after that, but he longed to see the son he left behind in New York.

Now that Bill was back home in New York, all of these stories were whirling around in his head and he didn't know what to make of them.  He wished he had known these stories when he was a young boy.

After Bill had many sleepless nights, his wife suggested that he go to therapy.

After Bill developed a rapport with his therapist, he brought the unopened letters to their sessions.  He read one letter at a time in each session because it felt too overwhelming to read more.

From those letters, Bill could feel his father's anguish at being separated from him and his longing to reconnect.

Over time, Bill began to mourn the loss of his father, a man he felt he was just getting to know from his father's letters and from contact with his paternal family.  He also mourned for his younger self from childhood, who carried the weight of the loss without being able to talk to anyone about it.

Working through his grief included forgiving his mother for not allowing his father to have contact with him.  Bill came to see that she was very hurt about the infidelity and she thought she was protecting Bill from his father.

Eventually, Bill and his mother were able to have a heart-to-heart talk.  She was no longer angry that he went to his father's funeral, and she apologized for keeping his father away from him.  Bill could see that, even after all of these years, she was still hurt about the pain that Bill Sr. caused her.

After a while, his mother told him more stories about his father.  Some were sad, but many stories were positive and funny. He noticed that much of her anger towards Bill Sr. was starting to dissipate as she recalled their good memories together.

Mourning the Death of a Father You've Never Known

Bill continued to attend his therapy sessions to process his feelings and this change in his relationship with his mother.

Gradually, the raw pain of his grief began to subside.  He was left with the feeling, now more than ever, that he wanted to be a good husband and father, and that time with his family was precious.

Conclusion
Mourning for a parent who was never known is a different experience than mourning for a parent that you have a relationship with all of your life.

Many people, who haven't had this experience, find it difficult to understand why anyone would be sad for the loss of a parent that you have never known.

But this loss goes much deeper than can be seen on the surface.  It's the loss of what was often longed for and never known and, after the death, the loss of what never will be.

In many families, this type of loss involves a family secret, and even young children can sense that it's a taboo topic.

In order to spare the feelings of the other parent, a child will often clam up and bear his or her feelings alone.  This is a very lonely, sad and overwhelming endeavor for any child.

Getting Help in Therapy
Trying to avoid the pain and stuffing your feelings can result in compromising your health and mental health as well as your close relationships.

Psychotherapy can help you to cope with this loss and come through the cycle of mourning with a deeper understanding of yourself, your lost parent and your family.

Therapy can also help you to work through the grief so you can live a more emotionally authentic life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist wh works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see my article: Deciding Whether or Not to Reconcile With Your Father.

Deciding Whether or Not to Reconcile With Your Father

I've seen it happen so many times among friends, family and with clients in my psychotherapy private practice in New York City:  A relationship with a father or mother, which had been fraught with problems for many years, is reconciled in later years.  

Some of these changes represent a reconciliation of sorts of a problematic lifelong parent-child relationship.

Deciding Whether or Not to Reconcile With Your Father

This often involves a recognition that time is passing and there might not be a chance in the future. At times, the change can be dramatic.

There's an article in today's New York Times Modern Love section by Heather Sellers, Do Not Adjust Your Screen or Sound - NY Times 6/16/13 that describes this type of reconciliation between a father and a daughter as the father approached the end of his life.

Of course, there's no guarantee that a problematic parent-child relationship will change, but I've seen it happen often enough and in relationships where no one would ever expect it to happen to know that these reconciliations aren't just isolated incidents.

Since this is Father's Day, I'll focus on relationships with fathers, but I've seen these type of changes occur in relationships with mothers as well.

The following fictionalized case, which is a composite of many different cases, is an example of how the adult child-parent relationship can change after many years:

John
John was the youngest of five children.  His father, Jim, left John, John's mother, and four siblings when John was 10 years old.

When Jim loved with the family, his mood was dependent upon his luck at the race track.   When he won, Jim was on top of the world.  He came home in a jolly mood with gifts for everyone.  John loved those times the best.  Jim would take the family out to the amusement park, to dinner, and or on a  weekend get away.

But when he lost at the race track, which happened more often than not, Jim came home irritable and despondent.  During those times, Jim was unapproachable.  He holed up in the den and isolated himself from his family.

As a young child, John loved his father very much, but everyday John felt leery about seeing his father because he never knew what type of mood his father would be in.  He would pray for his father to win so his father would be happy and loving towards John.

But, more times than not, John felt that his prayers went unanswered, and he wondered if he was doing something wrong:  Maybe he wasn't praying enough?  Maybe he wasn't being good enough and God was ignoring him?  This created a lot of anxiety in John as he tried harder by praying more and being extra good.  But nothing changed.

Jim's compulsive gambling often left the family unable to pay the rent, buy food or take care of basic expenses.  Jim also couldn't hold onto a job for more than a few months before he was fired for not showing up.  Instead of going to work, Jim was at the race track betting on horses he thought would be "a sure thing."

When John was nine years old, his mother, Ann, took a job in the local factory to help make ends meet.    This meant that when John and his siblings came home from school, they had to fend for themselves.

John's older sister, Maddie, would start dinner and help John with his homework.  John could detect how much his sister, who was only 14, resented these responsibilities and longed to be out having fun with her friends.

Then, one day, Jim went to the race track and never came back.  John's mother, Ann, called everyone she knew who might know where Jim might have gone.  But no one had heard from him.  She drove around the neighborhood, going to Jim's usual haunts, including the neighborhood bar, but she couldn't find him.

By the next day, Ann filed a police report with the local precinct and she kept calling Jim's friends and families.  But there was no word.

The family was devastated emotionally and financially.  John knew how upset his mother and siblings were, so he kept his feelings to himself.  He didn't want to add to their concerns by showing how upset  he felt.  He just prayed harder and vowed to be the best son that he could be so his father would come back.

Years passed, and no one ever heard from Jim.  His disappearance remained a mystery.  With each passing year, John and his family gradually gave up hope of ever hearing from Jim again.  The family got by on a combination of his mother's meager wages and her family's financial help.

As they got older, each of John's siblings left their home town to take jobs in other cities since their home town offered little in the way of employment.  So, John was the last child at home.

By that time, Ann's father left her enough money to get by and to send John to college.  John wanted to leave his small town and go to college, but he was worried about leaving his mother by herself.  He knew she would be lonely living by herself, but she urged him to leave home and go to college so he would have a better future.

Fast forward 30 years:  Life went on.  John was happily married and living in NYC with his wife, and his daughter and son were away at college.  Ann had died several years before.  From time to time, John thought about his father, especially on Father's Day or on his father's birthday, but he had long ago gave up any hope of seeing his father again.

Then, one day, out of the blue, John received a phone call his older sister, Maddie:  She got a call from their father, who was living in Florida.  At first, she thought it was someone's idea of a heartless prank, but their father assured her that it was him.

When he called her by her childhood nickname, Maddie said, she knew it was him.  He told her that he had pancreatic cancer and he was coming back to NYC to attend treatment at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  Maddie said she wished him well, but she wanted nothing to do with him.  Then, she hung up on him.

Maddie knew that John missed their father, so she gave him the father's telephone number, in case he wanted to talk to him. She told him that, even though she and the other siblings wanted nothing to do with their father, she knew John might feel differently.

John was so shocked that he felt like he was in a dream.  He didn't know what to say, but he felt, once again, that deep longing that he felt when he was a child to see his father.

Soon after that, John began therapy to process his mixed emotions of shock, sadness, and anger.  In situations like this, there's no right or wrong.  Each adult child has to make his or her own decision, and what's right for one sibling might not be right for another.

After much going back and forth, John called his father.  That first conversation was very awkward.  John hardly knew what to say to his father and he felt like he was going to burst out into tears at any second.  He told his father about his life with his wife and children.  His father listened and seemed to be genuinely happy for John.

When John saw his father for the first time in 30 years, his father was receiving treatment at Sloan Kettering.  He looked much older, but Jim still had the same old smile.  At first, they could barely look into each other's eyes, and there were awkward silences.

Then, Jim broached the topic that was on both of their minds:  He told John that he left the family because he was so ashamed that he gambled away the family's meager savings on a horse.  This was something that Ann had never revealed to John and his siblings, so John was completely unaware of this.

As he listened to his father express his shame and regret, John could only imagine how betrayed his mother must have felt.  But he shifted his thoughts to his father and forced himself to stay present.  He knew that it would be only a matter of time for his father because the cancer was already at an advanced stage.

During the next several weeks, John went to the hospital and processed his feelings afterwards in our therapy sessions.  He felt tremendous grief for all the wasted years.  He also regretted that he never tried to locate his father.

John and his father reconciled their relationship as best as they could in the time that they had left.  John's wife and children also came to the hospital, and Jim told John that he was proud of him, which made John feel both happy and sad.

On the day Jim died, John was holding his hand and talking to him about a particularly happy day when Jim took the family on an outing.

Jim was heavily medicated, so John wasn't sure that Jim could hear him, but he thought his father suddenly look peaceful and calm.  And then he was gone.

John was, understandably, sad after his father died, but he was glad that, at least, they had reconciled their relationship to a certain extent before Jim died.  John continued in therapy to deal with the permanent loss of his father.

Reconciling Your Relationship With Your Father
When you're going through a very difficult time with your father, it's often hard to imagine that you and your father could ever reconcile.  But, as I mentioned earlier, this turn of events occurs in many families.

In order to reconcile, it has to be acceptable to both the adult child and the father.  The adult child also needs to be realistic about what to expect.

Reconciliation and Forgiveness
Reconciliation can occur on many levels.  You and your father might not be able to work out all the earlier problems, but you might be able to work out some form of reconciliation, even if it's not perfect. It might be good enough for you and for him.

Forgiveness is a process that often works from surface to depth.  It often begins with your decision that you want to let go of the painful feelings so you can heal.

Even if you can't reconcile with your father because it's not right for you or for him or he's not around any more, if it's right for you, you can work through your anger and resentment so that it's no longer eating away at you.

Letting Go of Resentment So You Can Heal Emotionally
Letting to of resentment doesn't mean that whatever happened was okay.  It means that you no longer want to harbor the negative feelings which can be so emotionally toxic for you.

Getting Help in Therapy
This is often something that's hard to do on your own, and many people find it helpful to work with a licensed psychotherapist to work through these issues.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  

I have helped many clients to let go of resentment that they've felt for their parents, in some cases, for many years.  

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my articles:

Fathers and Son: Improving Your Relationship With Your Dad

Fathers and Daughters: Daddy's "Little Girl" Is All Grown Up Now

Discovering a Father's Secret Life After His Death

Trying to Understand Your Father

Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Dad Now That You're a Father

Movies: Discovering a Father's Secret Life After His Death

I recently went to see "Before and After Dinner With Andre", a wonderful documentary about actor and director Andre Gregory, which was made by his wife Cindy Kleine.  Many people will remember Andre Gregory from the film, "My Dinner With Andre".  

One of the themes in Before and After Dinner is that Mr. Gregory discovers information in a book that implicates his late father, a Russian Jew, as a Nazi collaborator.  Mr. Gregory begins a search to discover if his father was leading a secret life.

Movies: Discovering a Father's Secret After His Death

Unraveling the Mystery of a Father's Secret Life
Most of us can only imagine how painful it could be to try to unravel and piece together such a mystery about one's own father, and how many questions this would raise, especially after a father's death when he's no longer around to answer questions.  The film, which will be released in other cities in the US soon, is worth seeing, so I don't want to give it away.

Although most of us will never have to deal with a mystery of this magnitude about our fathers, it's not unusual for questions to arise after a father's death about some aspect of his life, and for adult children to search for answers about his life.

There's also a book that was recently published, After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story, written by Michael Hainey.  I haven't read the book, but it sounds intriguing.  According to the reviews that  I've read, the author was told when he was a child that his father died "after visiting friends," which was a euphemism for a secret aspect of his father's life.  So, Mr. Hainey sets out to discover what really happened to his father.

The Adult Child Must Be Emotionally Prepared to Discover the Father's Secret
I've worked with clients in my psychotherapy practice in NYC who had reason to believe, after their fathers died, that their fathers led secret lives that these clients felt compelled to discover.  

This type of search can become an all-consuming endeavor because of the amount of effort that's often required to find out "the truth."  And, at times, even with an exhaustive search, the results of the search might be ambiguous.  Also, the child, who is now an adult, must be emotionally prepared to learn whatever there might be to discover about his or her deceased father.

In many cases, just knowing that there were possible secrets can be jarring for the adult child, as described by Andre Gregory in the film, Before and After Dinner, to find out that the father you thought you knew while he was alive isn't who you thought he was--or you didn't have the whole story.

Often, this type of search about one's deceased father is not only about trying to discover information about who the father really was, but also an effort to try to understand what this means with regard to the father-child relationship.

This type of search can evoke many different kinds of emotions, including sadness, anger, and feelings of betrayal and abandonment, depending upon the father's secret and why a part of the father's life was kept secret from the child.

It can cause the adult child to wonder about the meaning of a father's secret life and how it might reflect on his or her relationship with the father when the father was alive.

Ultimately, whether an adult child decides to initiate such an investigation about a father is a very personal choice.  There are some people who would rather not know.

In any case, I highly recommend the documentary, "Before and After Dinner", which is both funny and poignant.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Fathers and Sons: Coming Out as a Gay Man to Your Father

Coming out to your father as a gay man can be emotionally challenging.  In many families, there's a real risk that you'll be rejected.  I've worked with many gay men of all ages in my psychotherapy practice in NYC who have struggled with this issue.

Fathers and Sons: Coming Out as a Gay Man to Your Father
 

Of course, I've also known both gay men with heterosexual parents who didn't have a problem when they came out to them.  But if you're on the fence about coming out to your father or you've already come out and it has placed a strain on your father-son relationship, you already know how emotionally challenging this can be for both you and your dad.

The following vignette is  a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Alan
Alan knew from the time that he was about 12 years old that he was gay.  Growing up in a traditional family in the Midwest, he didn't feel he could talk to his parents or brothers about it and he felt lonely and confused.

Alan felt especially worried about what his father would think if he knew Alan was gay.  His father was a kind man, but he was also conservative in his values.  Alan didn't want to be a disappointment to him.

When he was in his teens, Alan tried dating girls, but he knew he wasn't interested in girls.  He had crushes on boys, but he didn't dare tell his friends.  He didn't know anyone who was gay, so he continued to have a lot of questions about his sexual orientation until he moved to NYC to go to college, and he met other gay young men.

It was such a relief to meet other young men who felt the same way that he did.  He went out on dates, but he was too afraid to get sexually involved with any of the young men he dated.

He kept his gay social activities a secret from his family.  He thought his mother might understand because she tended to be more open minded than his father.  But it was all so new for him that he wasn't comfortable with his sexual orientation himself, so he decided to start therapy.

After we started working together for a few months, Alan began to feel more comfortable as a gay man.  He realized that before he felt more accepting of himself, it would have been hard to come out to his parents.

To make it easier for Alan, we developed a plan where he would start with the person he thought would be the most accepting and easiest to talk to.  Alan chose his younger brother, who tended to be more liberal than the rest of the family.  And his younger brother was encouraging, supportive and happy that Alan came out to him.

One by one, Alan called his brothers and, to his surprise, each one of them told him that, even though they might not understand it, they loved him and wanted him to be happy.

Feeling a little more confident, he spoke to his mother, who told Alan that she had sensed from the time he was a young boy that he might be gay.  She was tearful and told him that she worried about him getting HIV.  Alan told her that he had not been sexual with a man yet, but he assured her that he would be careful.

Then Alan asked his mother how she thought his father would react if he came out to him.  His mother was silent, and then she said she didn't know.  She thought that his father might need time to get used to the idea.  But she thought, ultimately, he would come around.

Until then, Alan's experience of coming out to his family had been mostly positive.  He knew that coming out to his father would be the most challenging part of coming out as a gay man.  Although  his mother never pressured him about it, Alan knew his father wanted him to get married to a woman, have children, and lead a traditional life.

Rather than coming out to his father over the phone, Alan decided to do it in person when he went home for a visit.   Before he went home, Alan had several sessions to talk about his fears about his father rejecting him.  This caused Alan a lot of emotional pain.

Before he went home, Alan purchased a copy of the book, Now That You Know: A Parent's Guide to Understand Your Gay and Lesbian Children, which is written for parents of gay children.  The original plan was for Alan to have the talk with his father on his third day at home. But the day came and went and Alan was too afraid to talk to his father.

So, that night, he wrote his father a letter telling his father how much he loved him and how much he valued their father-son relationship.  He also told him that he was happier than he had ever been now that he could be himself and he hoped his father would understand.

The next day, when they were alone sitting on the porch, Alan handed his father the letter and asked him to read it.  His father hesitated, at first, to open the letter.  Alan's heart was pounding in his chest and his hands were sweating, but he urged his father to read it.  Then, he watched a frown come over his father's face as he read the letter, folded it back up again, and walked away silently into the garden.

Alan continued to sit on the porch.  He felt numb and frozen in place.  He didn't know how to interpret his father's reaction.  He was afraid his worst fears had come true and that his father was upset.  He watched the sun go down, and continued to sit in the same spot until early evening.  When it was time for dinner, Alan's mother told Alan and his brothers that their father wasn't feeling well and he wouldn't be coming down to dinner.  Alan felt tears stinging in his eyes, and he decided he would pack his things after dinner and leave a few days early.

As he was packing that evening, he heard a knock on the door.  When he opened the door, he saw his father standing there, eyes averted, looking at the floor.  Alan didn't know what to expect, but he let his father in.  They sat together on Alan's bed, silently, for what seemed like a long time.  Then, his father spoke in a hoarse voice and said, "I don't understand it.  I'm going to need time, but you're my son and I'll always love you."  He reached over and gave Alan a big hug.  Then, he left before Alan could respond.

Alan left the book for his father to read.  He continued to work in therapy on his coming out process. He realized that it had taken him a while to feel comfortable with being gay, so he knew it would be a process for his father too.

Getting Help in Therapy
The coming out process is different for everyone.  If you're struggling with your own feelings as well as your fears about how your family will react, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area.  It could make all the difference in your process.  I've included resources below for gay organizations.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and EMDR therapist.  I work with individual adults and couples, and one of my specialties is working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer clients.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist 

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Resources
LGBT Center - NYC
Gay and Lesbian National Help Center - Hotline
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays

Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Dad Now That You're a Father

How many times did you hear these words from your father, "You'll understand after you have children"? At the time when your father told you this, you probably felt annoyed and frustrated with him.  But now that you have your own children, you might have a different perspective.

Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Dad Now That You're a Father

Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Father
Although it may be hard to admit, looking back on things our parents said to us when we were growing up that was annoying to us back then often makes a lot of sense now.  This is often especially true after you have your own children.  Since I'm focusing on a series of blog articles about fathers, my focus will be on fathers and sons in this article but, of course, women can relate to this too.

When boys become teenagers it's common for them to have a contentious relationship with their fathers.  Being neither a young child nor an adult, being a teenager can be confusing and frustrating for the teenage boy as well as his father.  It can be a time when the father-son relationship becomes strained.

Often, after men get married and have their own children, they gain a new perspective about what it means to be a father.  And, the same men who rebelled against their fathers when they were teens often come to have a new appreciation for the complexities of fatherhood.  They usually develop more of a sense of compassion for their fathers than they had when they were younger.

The following vignette is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

John
When John was a young child, he and his father had a close relationship.  But when he became 15, his relationship with his father became strained.

John wanted to stay out late with his friends, but his father gave him a curfew of 10 PM, which John resented.  He had other friends whose parents allowed them to stay out later than 11 PM, and John felt resentful towards his father.

From John's perspective, his father was treating him like a baby.  He couldn't wait to be old enough to leave home and go to college.  His father would usually tell him, "You'll understand after you have children of your own."   Whenever John heard this, he would roll his eyes.

When John Was 15, He Often Felt Annoyed With His Father

Years later, when John and his wife had their own teenage son, John realized why his father was so worried about him when he went out.  John's son, Joe, also wanted to stay out late with his friends when he was 15.

But, now that he was a parent, John was very aware of all of the dangers that were out there that his son brushed off.  He also knew what it was like to be 15 and to feel hemmed in by your father.  On the one hand, he wanted his son to have a good time and not resent him.  On the other hand, he knew Joe lacked the maturity to make good decisions for himself and there was reason to be concerned about his safety.

John gave Joe a curfew knowing that Joe would resent it and that, possibly, Joe would rebel against it.  But John knew that, in the long run, he was doing what was best for his son, even though Joe couldn't appreciate it at the time.

Having to deal with these issues with his own teenage son, John now had a new perspective and appreciation for what it was like for his father back when John was a teen.  He felt a new sense of compassion and love for his father.  He realized now that his father was setting limits for him because he loved him and not because he wanted to be mean, which is what John thought when he was a teenager.

Looking back on his relationship with his father, John realized that many of the things he didn't understand with regard to his father's decisions were much clearer to him now that he had to face many of the same decisions.  So, the next time he called his father, John told him, "I hate to admit it, dad, but you were right.  Now that I have my own son, I understand what you went through as a father."

Being able to talk to his father as one father to another made John feel closer to his father than he had ever experienced before.  From then on, he sought advice from his father about raising children because he realized now his father really was a loving dad.  And, he was glad his father didn't just allow him to do whatever he wanted to do like his friends' fathers.  He could look back now and appreciate that.

Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Father With a New Understanding
With maturity and life experience, sons often look back on their relationships with their fathers with a new sense of gratitude and compassion.  Going through this process can bring you and your father closer together.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To  set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see:  Fathers and Sons: Improving Your Relationship With Your Dad

Fathers and Sons: Improving Your Relationship with Your Dad

In an earlier blog article, I wrote about relationships between mothers and daughters.  In this blog article and in a series of upcoming articles, I'll be focusing on fathers, including many psychotherapy clients' desire to improve their relationship with their father. 

More Men Are Coming to Therapy Now Than in Years Past

There was a time when most clients in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC were women.  Things have changed, and men represent about half of the clients in my practice.  

Improving Your Relationship With Your Father

Of course, men come in for many different reasons, including problems in their relationship or career.  Many men come in because they want to improve their relationship with their dad.  For other men, this issue might not have started as the presenting problem, but it will emerge as an underlying problem, often with men who are having problems with self esteem.

Fathers and Sons: Improving Your Relationship With Your Dad

My experience has been that, generally, people tend to come to therapy after a problem has been brewing for a while and their attempts to try to deal with it themselves haven't worked.  This also applies to men who have problems in their relationship with their father under a variety of circumstances.

Wanting to Improve Your Relationship With Your Father, But Not Knowing How

Even in circumstances where the father-son relationship is strained, generally, clients usually say that they would like to improve the relationship, but they don't know how.  Often, their prior efforts to improve the relationship haven't worked out.

A Vignette About a Father-Son Relationship

It isn't possible to address every permutation of problems between fathers and sons, but I'll address one particular problem that I often encounter with psychotherapy clients in the following fictionalized vignette, which represents a composite of many different psychotherapy cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality.

Joe

Joe, who was in his mid-30s, came to therapy because he was having problems with self esteem.  He also had a history of having problems with male bosses, which created problems for him in his career.

When he began therapy, his problems with self esteem created problems for him in his two year relationship with his girlfriend, Alice.  Although he knew there was no objective reason for feeling the way he did, he still struggled with his feelings that Alice would eventually leave him for another man.  

Despite Alice's reassurance that she loved him and she didn't want to be with anyone else, Joe couldn't shake this feeling.  He knew his feelings of insecurity were creating tension in his relationship and that they might bring about what he most feared--the demise of his relationship.

With regard to his career as a sales representative, Joe was successful and he was well liked by his colleagues and his clients.  His boss often praised him for his work, but Joe had a particular problem with his boss:  He had problems accepting constructive criticism.  His initial reaction was to tense up and become defensive. 

Later on, Joe often realized that his boss had a point, and his comments were meant to help Joe, not to hurt him.  But, try as he might, Joe couldn't overcome his feelings  of insecurity and his initial reaction to become defensive.  He knew that, in the long run, this would be a problem if he wanted to move ahead in his career.

Joe's family history was that he was the older of two sons.  His mom stayed at home to raise Joe and his brother and, later on, when Joe was in his teens, she worked as a real estate agent.  Joe's father had his own construction business.

Joe's mother was the more nurturing parent.  Joe described his father as being a man of few words.  He wasn't outwardly demonstrative with his affection.  He was more likely to show his affection by spending time with his sons shooting hoops in the backyard or showing them how to fix things around the house.

Joe remembered that, as a child, even though he always wanted to please his father, he felt like he continually disappointed his father.  His father loved all kinds of sports, but Joe had little interest in sports.  He played hoops in the backyard with his father and brother and joined the Little League to please his father.  

Joe remembered many afternoons where the family drove home in stony silence after a Little League game where Joe missed every pitch in the game.  Joe could feel his father's disappointment, and he felt deeply ashamed.  

It was even more embarrassing for Joe because his younger brother was such a good athlete and loved playing all kinds of sports.  Joe's father and brother bonded over sports, and it was painful to Joe because he felt like such a disappointment to his father.  He wanted desperately to bond with his father the way his brother did, but he didn't know how.

The situation got worse when Joe was in his teens.  At the time, Joe and his brother would often help their father in his construction business.  Whereas his brother really enjoyed learning about the business, Joe wanted to be helpful, but he was bored.  His father assumed that both sons would join him in the business after they graduated college.   Joe didn't know how to tell his father that he had no desire to become part of the family business.

After Joe graduated college, he spoke to his mother about wanting to strike out on his own rather than  becoming part of his father's business.  His mother was understanding and she encouraged Joe to talk to his father about it.  But Joe couldn't face seeing his father's disappointment, so he asked his mother to talk to his father about it.  

After his mother talked to the father, Joe's relationship with his father became even more strained.  He could see that his father was deeply hurt.  The business was passed on from Joe's paternal grandfather and Joe's father was disappointed that Joe, as his older son, wouldn't be a part of it.  Joe and his father never talked about it directly.  

By the time Joe came to therapy, his relationship with his father was strained and awkward.  Joe dreaded going home to visit his parents.  He attended the obligatory family holidays, but he would leave soon after dinner. He and his father barely spoke or even made eye contact, which was painful for Joe and he was sure it was painful for his father too.  He wanted to be able to talk to his father, but  he just didn't know how.

It was clear to both Joe and I that his problems with his girlfriend and the problems he had at work accepting constructive criticism were linked to his history with his father.  Using a combination of clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing, Joe was able to remember a time in his life when he and his father had a better relationship when Joe was about four or five.  

Memories of that time were very poignant for Joe, and being able to access the positive feelings he felt for his father allowed him to write his father a heartfelt letter about how much he loved him and wanted them to have a better father-son relationship.  

To his Joe's amazement, his father was very moved by Joe's letter and told him so.  This began a long process of Joe and his father opening up to each and getting closer.  It wasn't easy to overcome years of tension.  And Joe's father was especially awkward talking about his feelings, but they began the process of repairing their relationship.

As Joe's relationship with his father improved and he began to realize how much his father loved him,  his self esteem improved.  He felt less insecure in his relationships with his girlfriend and his boss.  His only regret was that he wasn't able to improve his relationship with his father sooner.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're struggling with your relationship with your father, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has experience working with these issues.  Many people don't realize that problems they're struggling with now originate in their early relationships.  Rather than continuing to struggle with these feelings, your life could be so much more fulfilling if you got help.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Trying to Understand Your Father

Historically, psychological theories have placed a lot of emphasis on the relationship between the mother and the child.  This is understandable due to the important role that the mother has from the time the child is in utero, through the formative years of emotional development, and throughout the course of life.  But, in my opinion, until recently,  there has been relatively little attention paid to the role of the father.  

Trying to Understand Your Father

Despite the relative lack of attention to fathers in psychological theory, psychotherapy clients have been coming to therapy to try to understand their fathers for as long as people have been coming to therapy.  So, in my opinion, this is an important topic for many people, and I will be discussing this issue over the course of several blog articles.

Trying to Understand Your Father
Over the years, many clients that I've seen in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC come to therapy because they have unresolved emotional issues about their father.

In many cases, as adults, these clients are trying to develop a better understanding of their father.  In some cases, their father is still alive and they're trying to develop a better relationship with their father.  In other instances, their father is deceased and they're trying to understand who their father was to them and who he was out in the world with others.

Trying to Understand Your Father

In other cases, clients never knew their father at all because he wasn't around when they were growing up.  In some instances, the father was physically present but he was emotionally remote.

Other clients were raised by a single mother and the father was in and out of their lives.  Or, in some cases, the man they thought was their father was not their father, and these clients are shocked to discover this later in life.  Often, these clients don't find out about this family secret until their fathers are deceased and they regret that they have lost the opportunity to have a relationship with the father while he was alive.

As Men Become Fathers, They Often Face Unresolved Emotional Issues About Their Father
For many men, who are now fathers themselves or who are about to become fathers, emotional issues about their own fathers come up.   Some of these issues might not have seemed important before.  But now that they are at the stage of their lives when they are fathers, unresolved emotional issues about their own father are now important.

Unresolved Emotional Issues With a Father

For instance, if they grew up with a father, they might have feelings about who their father was to them and whether they want to be like their father with their own children.  Or, if they never grew up with a father, they might be particularly aware of wanting to spend time with their children because they know what it's like to miss having a father.

When we consider all the possibilities that are involved with father-child relationships, we begin to see the complexity of this topic.  There are so many different types of father-child relationships, including heterosexual and gay fathers and children.

Getting Help in Therapy
Many people want to understand and improve their relationship with one or both parents, but they feel stuck and don't know how to overcome this problem.

If you need to help to work through your problems with one or both of your parents, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. 

I work with individual adults and couples.

I've helped many men and women to work through emotional issues about their father.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see articles: 
Fathers and Sons: Improving Your Relationship With Your Dad
Looking Back on Your Relationship With Your Dad Now That You're a Dad
Fathers and Daughters: Daddy's "Little Girl" Is All Grown Up Now