Father hunger/Father Wound

[Aptrick]

I accidentally came across this topic while conducting another one of my endless google searches for my issues, defects, and troubles. I read about it and it really made sense to me. My main abuse was from my father; and though i've moved on from that, i still have the gigantic void of not 'really' having a father.
I get that some will have no clue what it's like to not have that foundation to build a life upon, but it is the greatest source of my unhappiness. I ache from that lack of connection but do not know how to receive it/fill it/move on from it.
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on healing from this. How does a man heal the void of father hunger(father wound) when he has no chance at being 'fathered'?
(if this makes sense to anyone else)

 

[Makingprogress]

I suffered from this all my life. My father was my abuser and I am guessing his shame and guilt over it led to his abusive treatment of me during the day. He was harsh, hypercritical, distant, physically and verbally abusive and easily irritated with me for seeming no reason. So I never was taught how to shave, shower, go camping, throw a ball, catch a ball; you get the picture.

I have found late in life that some of the men I have become friends with from my church have helped fill some of that longing for male connectedness. It is not perfect and certainly not the same thing but to have someone to go to for questions about household repairs, car care issues, and just another guy to talk to about personal things has been great. It is definitely not the same thing as a father and not always available when I need them but just knowing they are there some days is good.

I spent many years trying to connect with other males both older and younger but attempting to do it through sex and while it was sometimes pleasurable and because of the risk while married gave me that sense of danger that I would get when dad came to my room at night, I found it very unsatisfying. I ruined two marriages trying to fill that emptiness the wrong way.

Counseling helped and sometimes just talking to my T about it would fill that void for months. It was only when I began to make healthy male friendships that were strictly platonic and had nothing to do with my past that I began to find peace with this.

I have also found that most men have some sort of father wound and though I seldom ever share about the real issues with my dad I have found much common ground and men eager to reach out to me just for some kind of friendship that was more than just superficial hi and how bout them Mariners kind of thing.

Just my thoughts

 

[ForeverFighting]

This was a huge hole in my soul for a long time. How do I find a male role model when my own father is absolutely everything I do not want to be? We long for what never was, the relationship that should have been, but wasn’t. It was a long road on that subject, and I’m not done with it.

However, like Progress, I found that a few men were trustworthy friends whom I admired in a totally platonic way. They have qualities of strength and understanding, and they seem to like me for who I am. I won’t oversell this--I have maybe 1 male friend whom I really trust right now. It is terribly difficult for me to trust. But over the years, I had a male therapist who was good for me, fatherly figures who meant the world to me, and I just keep trying to trust.

My nephew’s father was gone the day he was born and is now dead. My nephew will never have that "father". Like him, I think we’re orphans in a way. But we can create our own families and benefit from the good men out there who show us what it’s like to be a man and be OK.

 

[Ceremony]

I've looked at this from the standpoint of connecting to the children inside of me. Those boyhood years of 3,6,8,10,12, etc... I've worked to reattach them into me, and I used the trust I have in my therapist, a lot of pre-writing and discussion of safely dealing with the methodology. I've just begun, so to know if I can now work to father my neglected, selves is yet to be known.

 

[Tom E.]

I know I wasn't the son that my father would have liked; I still kinda think & feel that way, but it is what it is. I'm gay & a recovering addict... we reconciled near the end of his life. Acceptance is a long road to walk and I continue this journey....

 

[Bluedogone]

Hi Aptrick,

Obviously, this doesn't work for most guys, but I've found that being a father has helped me in so many ways fill the painful void. My father was in no way a sexual abuser, thankfully, but his lack of affection, caring or seeming lack of interest in what was going on in my world made me seek affection in all the wrong places.

As I experienced the caring for and nurturing two boys I was determined that what I had as an adolescent and teen would not be duplicated. Ironically, the more I understood the relationship as a father with two sons, the more I understood my own father.

This certainly didn't make the lack of attention, and as mentioned before, lack of understanding what it meant to be a man, any less of a mystery. But I think it did fill in some gaps of what I missed, and about what a father should be like.

 

[George]

This is such a huge issue in our society, so many are suffering because of the absence or neglect from their fathers, and it's only getting worse as it becomes generational.

I came to the realization that I too was suffering due to a neglectful father. It only dawned on me only this past year+ that at five y/o, three years before the sexual abuse that I had no self esteem, I had no commonality with any of the boys in school, I felt like an outsider looking into masculinity even back then. This was a perfect set up for envy & jealousy of the other boys, which I remember well. I felt *different*.

I had a Dad, but with my mom dying when I was five and him not being around much due to his alcoholism and womanizing, we became third wheels, baggage. Sure there are a few good memories, much like a broken clock being right twice a day, it wasn't 100% bad, but it was very neglectful fathering none the less.

Once the sexual abuse was thrown into the mix at 8, all the confusion & faulty cobbled coping skills went into action setting up decades old patterns of negativity & acting out starting at 11 y/o...

I finally realized what I was chasing with the acting out, masculinity & control. That half of that mess was formed even before the abuse, that the abuse was like pouring gas onto an already smoldering fire.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of good older guys, a HS teacher & an old boss at a HS job that I admired and kind of adopted as role models. Church from 12 on was very helpful to me, there were plenty of good godly men around to help me see what a Man & father was supposed to be, the relationship with God as my heavenly Father helped greatly too. Even with all that good though, it was dwarfed by the past hurts, neglect & unmet needs, it wasn't enough (at that time) to heal what was broken & missing inside me. I think it was mostly because I was blind to it, the abuse was such a big in your face thing, that I didn't see this big chunk of underlying cause, could've been some denial in there about it too.

What has helped me since? God, church, being around safe godly men as friends & acquaintances, to be accepted & affirmed by them as a Man. Being the Father, Husband & part of a family that I wished I had as a child. Learning about the roots to the early unmet father needs has stolen it's power over my rational mind, it broke the faulty coping thought process that my immature child mind put together so many years ago. I've come to see myself as a Man, masculine, a survivor who's standing tall despite all the crap thrown at me.

I think that if we took all that we went through and projected it onto any other guy on the street, most of us (who are a little ways down the healing path) would be like, wow that guy is quite the Man to have survived all that crap, amazed that he is still standing and would even cheer him on. I think once we shed the old shame and the old faulty coping thought processes that became ingrained in our minds it is easier to see ourselves as the strong victors & Men that we are. I think that goes a long way to healing those old father wounds. That's what helped me.

 

[WG]

Like so many others here - the father wound goes deep. Loss, anger, hurt, abandonment, distancing themselves, etc. I , too, dealt with it in any number of ways - all were temporary. None fulfilling. Through those early years, there were a few men who were good role models for me - yet it was fleeting. They had their own lives to lead. As George stated - What has helped me? Beginning with my T - he had me write down everything GOOD that my father was or did - after writing out what was not good. We went over the lists and broke them down piece by piece. I came to see that there was this man who at age 17 was drafted into WW2, fought 4 years in the South Pacific in a tank batallion, contracted malaria in 1945 and had to endure it in a camp at the end of the war. Came home, started a family, worked and probably did what he thought was right - no therapy, no circle to go process with - and after 4 years of war who wouldn't have something to process - yet somewhere it began to come out. Fights with my Mom, hurtful things said on both sides, then hitting me, shoving, stinging rebukes, silent suppers, driving away in the night then finally divorce - and now I'm 10 and it's 1963 - and by this time the sex abuse had been going on for almost 5 years - not by my Dad, it was a neighbor. Now, I grow up with what? A man who hurt me and left us and the other male in my life who forced me into sex for years. Now grow up and become something - a man? How? With who to tell me how that all gets done? I'm 63 now, and have been in therapy for 3 years. I have a good marriage of now 35 years with 3 great adult children. Guess I've done a few things right - but the connectedness to another man with whom I could just be me was rarely if ever there. As was stated above, I've come to have a few men in my life in the past 3 years who are genuine. They do know about my past and still accept me. They do know about some of the struggles and still count me as a friend. My God, my church and the men in my life from the church. I've come to accept my past now, and accept that it's OK to be told I'm a Man, it's OK to accept to be told I am OK. My T has said that I had grit as a boy - that I had a strong soul. Never thought about it that way, and I do accept that now. It helps me on my way. I, too, have learned through my T that walking through those unmet needs can be empowering - the old coping ways and mechanisms get seen in a different light for what they are - a substitute for what was needed. They were what a hurt, abused and abandoned boy does with what he knows. I'm no longer living as that boy. I am that man the boy became.

 

[i-m-Bri]

Thankfully I wasn't abused by my father. But I know that hole.
When I was little what I knew was: he rarely touched me (4 times), he took joy in my brother and sisters, but not me. And he had no patience for me.
From an early age, I understood his disappointment in me meant I wasn't even really a boy. I was just some fucked-up other thing.
That's the hole I needed to fill so damn desperately, I went looking for men as a teenager. That's the hole that numbs me to this day. I starting writing about it on Father's Day, but it still hurts to fucking much.

On Father's day I realized I forgave him. I understand now what was going on with him. He was severely depressed. He had had shock treatment before I was born and lived on primitive pharmaceuticals. This was the 1960s. But knowing that doesn't over write the intense emptiness I've always felt. I wish to hell we could have just been father and son, guards down, I wish he would have liked me.

As the years rolled on at first we came to a truce, then a calm, and then almost an affection for each other. My husband says he was proud of me. I believe him, but I don't know how to feel it. I hope to hell I did.

I'm not a quitter, but I will always be missing that. I don't expect to ever grow the hole closed. What can do? Know the pain, respect it, feel it, don't run from it.

 

[Aptrick]

I appreciate all who have replied.
This is my giant hole in my soul, the impasse i can't think my way through, or around.. i am stuck and have been for most of my life. When my father was sexually abusing me, that was the closest to loving that he was to me. All other times was violence, screaming, and physical punishment. I existed as a less than human to him because I wasn't "what he wanted" though he never explained how i had failed to measure up to his expectations.
As an adult, that doubt, that hate, is still rooted deep within and i have "faked it" throughout my life. I have tried to be the man I wish to see myself as, and in every practical way, I have succeeded. i just don't feel in, it is empty and deep and i do not know how to fill it, fix it.
I think it's fantastic for those of you that have found meaningful relationships in church, group activities, etc. But I don't know how to 'fake it' anymore, i don't know how to not be wounded and afraid of other men IRL and function without pretending. I do not expect to ever replace or find that which will fill this hole, but i just don't know what to do besides keep on pretending?
I really do appreciate the input, it gives me some new thoughts to think on. Thank you to all.

 

[Ceremony]

Does any of your therapy experience look toward those long ago inner child/ren? I avoided it, and saw the topic when I first got on MS, but didn't see what it might do. Recently that changed, and on thing that not having a dad around has meant to me, is the deep hole some refer. My dad is still around, but I don't feel the dad part, I feel the separation, the abandonment, the not knowing what I did wrong? And, recently, that can be what it is, but I've something to do.

I can go inside and bring each painfully hurt child up into myself, and love him. It's physically challenging the brain, heartrate, gut wrenching and muscle tension is all involved. But, I see each of my traumatized children now; after some months. Soon, I will be processing their needs, with myself and my therapist. She's been showing me what they need and how I can do that. It's not easy, but the idea around it is pretty basic.

SO, yes, there's still something that can work on that deep empty hole, but, like me, it took time to find how to get going.

 

[DanielQ432]

I can related deeply to all of your comments and feelings about this issue, and how it affects us for the rest of our lives in many complicated ways.

I guess my only twist on this is, while I feel the need for a "real father" for my inner child/young self, the adult me says "whoa ... way too frightening". The concept of "father" has such a bad association with me, that having a new/substitute father figure in my life, overall, is like asking "am I going to get beaten and raped again?" So my twist is I look for "brothers", especially a "big brother" - I always fantasized about rescue and salvation by a big brother figure.