Growing up with an emotionally absent father can leave deep, invisible scars that affect your confidence, relationships, and sense of self.
Whether you realize it or not, your relationship with your father often shapes how you love, trust, and connect with others.
Children who grow up with an involved and supportive father may do better both in social situations and in terms of cognitive development.
In some children the presence of an involved and interested father seems to coincide with less acting out at school, and better patterns of concentration.
Biology, Brain Chemistry and the Emotionally Absent Father
Becoming a mother involves profound changes to biology, so what does becoming a father do to a man, and how does the father go onto shape the growing baby?
A father’s contact with his child can increase the presence of hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin, both of which are linked with the development of brain and body chemistry.
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In other words, the relationship with father helps us grow. This is a reciprocal situation because it has also been found that a father’s chemistry is positively influenced by their relationship with their child.
It’s a win-win situation and helps both parties develop good emotional stability.
An emotionally present father may experience a decrease in testosterone levels as their attention changes and they focus more on nurturing their children.
This increase in attention may go onto help children to develop confidence in themselves and help them develop a reliable moral compass.
According to Dr Anna Machin’s research published by the NCT, another hormone, oxytocin, is found to increase in a father during his partner’s pregnancy.
It is the increase in oxytocin that is thought to contribute to the parental couple being attuned to the baby coming and to establishing a benign and supportive environment.
Later oxytocin is thought to increase during periods of play.
What Is The Impact Of Growing Up With An Emotionally Absent Father?
Considering the positive factors outlined above it is reasonable to think that growing up without a father or with an emotionally absent father has a negative impact on the child and deprives the father of valuable experiences that are part of the relationship.
Dan, not his real name, grew up without his father. ‘My father left when I was very young, and I think my mother went out of her way to protect me from the loss.
It sounds strange to say so, but I didn’t really think about not having my father when I was growing up. Looking back on things now I can see how strange that idea is. I wonder whether not having him in my life made a big difference.
In one way I think I have always struggled to know the difference between what I can and can’t have, maybe my father would have helped me with those things.’
Dan explained that he now thinks that his struggles to concentrate at school, to make the most of opportunities, to develop enduring and steady relationships with other people, may all be linked back to his emotionally absent father.
‘My relationships start well but they don’t tend to go anywhere, they either work on my terms or not at all. I don’t seem to have much of a capacity to work on things. Maybe that all goes back to my father having left.’
In adolescence, having an emotionally present father may coincide with less risk taking.
There is some evidence that having an involved father makes it less likely that children will spend time in jail, will be involved in teen pregnancy, or being expelled or suspended from school.
In therapy we can work to understand more about the impact our upbringing has had on us.
It can come as a surprise to people when they start to consider that the problems they have with having constructive relationships may be linked to growing up in homes that lacked an interested and emotionally available father.
The Oedipus Complex and the Emotionally Absent Father
Culturally the idea has endured that a father helps the child to know the difference between what they can and cannot have, what Freud called the Oedipus complex.
If this is lacking, then a child may grow up unclear about the limits of their desires and can expect to have more than might be available.
An emotionally present father helps us to know where we stand and that tends to make our relationships and working lives simpler. It is the father who give us an example of how to leave home.
Related: What Are Daddy Issues? How Fathers Impact A Daughter’s Romantic Relationships
If we grow up without these kinds of examples, we can lack an understanding of how to develop, how to mature.
An emotionally absent father fails to engage with his children and this lack of engagement can have profound consequences to us.
It can make it much harder for us to know how to be present and how to contribute to our own homes. This has a meaning both for men and women.
Jake, again not his real name thinks that he has struggled to know how to be a father in his home.
‘My parents separated when I was small, my mother and my siblings and I all did ok, but I have really struggled to know how to be a father in my marriage. Things could be more straightforward at home, but I find it hard to contribute in a positive way.
Often things become a bit chaotic, and I think that is in part down to my uncertainty. I do wonder whether not having my father there as a good example and a helpful person to talk to has left a mark on me.’
This is an issues that effects both sexes. Women who grow up with an emotionally absent father may find relationships more complicated. An absent father can leave us all feeling rejected or more prone to feel abandoned.
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These are things that we can find a way to work on in psychotherapy. Having the chance to speak in a confidential setting is often the key to developing a clearer understanding of our emotional upbringing.
It may provide the space to understand more about how experience may have shaped us in ways that we haven’t fully acknowledged.
By giving yourself a safe space to look at these things you may start to discover a greater sense of possibilities, and this may be the beginning of developing a greater sense of understanding your emotional stability, of how to relate to yourself and others, how to start living more fully again, and how to start to have healthy relationships with yourself and other people.
The chance to reflect on ourselves, our feelings and experience can be powerful and transformative. Out of this, you may be able to develop a clearer understanding of how you and your sense of your problems have developed, and what you can change.
I have been working with people on issues such like this for more than twenty-five years. My work is built around helping you to develop greater insight into who you are, and how you live.
Email: [email protected]
Written By Toby Ingham
Originally Appeared On Toby Ingham
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