Men with an absent father?

mrbasic- · 2020-02-01T16:52:23+00:00

Yes. As someone who had an absent father, I relate to craving female attention and having abandonment/rejection issues. I realized that's why I mainly used social media and cut it out of my life while I figure shit out.

What I've struggled with mentally all stems from the question: "Am I good enough? If I am, why did my father not want me?"

Also, not having a father, I didn't know what it was like to be a man who embraced his masculinity for 22 years. In the last year or so, I've had to learn from the ground up from other sources, my uncle and ECs/content on here. But questions like what's correct and not correct?, am I doing this right?, am I leaving a good example for my little brother? can be mentally taxing too.

But this is my experience. I've found out in any area of life, your mileage may vary. But yeah, just wanted to share.

MentalPointOfOrigin · 2020-02-01T17:11:50+00:00

YES. Read No More Mr Nice Guy

frappuccinoCoin · 2020-02-01T19:24:36+00:00

I wish my father was absent.

He was physically & verbally abusive. A week didn't go by without being beaten or humulated in front of my friends. Lasted until I was 16, came back at 21 because I cared about my mother and sisters, it took another 11 years to get them free of his abuse. I was only able to start living a normal life in my 30s.

While I'm successful in my career and got pretty good at faking confidence, I can't hide the physical symptoms. My hands shake uncontrollably when I'm nervous. I jump up from my sleep when I hear any voice because he used to wake me up with a single loud shout.

SalesAficionado · 2020-02-01T17:35:23+00:00

You need therapy. My mom was abusive and my father was an "it's never good enough" kinda guy. He also always was more forgiven with my sister. I was the black sheep.

I stopped talking to my mother when I was 12 and my dad 2 years ago.

It gets better once I started therapy. If you go to therapy make sure to get a man and someone that is competent.

femaledoglover6 · 2020-02-01T16:35:59+00:00

Yes, most people on TRP have some kind of relationship issues with their dad. I personally have been going to talk therapy and it’s been great. TRP helped a lot with women but it didn’t help with the psych issue I had as much as therapy did

Bleu_Cheese_Pursuits · 2020-02-01T19:06:38+00:00

The same thing can happen even if your parents are around, but don't like you. My father was absent but like, the self-esteem issues were mostly the product of the fact that my mother never gave me any approval or affection. Which was weird because at least on paper I was a perfect son (graduated HS near the top of my class, went to a good school with scholarships, etc.) The whole thing was made worse by the fact that my siblings did not receive the same disdain; despite their being (at least on paper) less "approval-worthy" (if there is such a thing) than I.

Anyway I didn't realize until many years later (during an LSD trip) that I had been conditioned from an early age to believe that I wasn't worthy of being loved. This led to all sorts of unhealthy behaviors, such as abusing drugs as a means of attempting to replace people; motivated by the belief that no-one, anywhere, at anytime, ever cared about me or loved me. I figured I can just stay in my apartment by myself, do drugs, and the good feelings they bring would be sufficient to replace the love of others. This was kind of spectacular because I have lots of friends, and am what most people would consider an extravert; my personality and interactions with others belie the fact that I have deep-seated intimacy issues. Like, I've never been the morose mopey type. I even had a gf for a few years who sincerely loved me, but because I didn't believe it I'd constantly test her. "Oh, she loves me the way I am now. But what if I did this, would she still love me?" And of course the tests became more and more severe, to the point of maliciousness, where she really had no choice but to leave (I didn't know at the time that this is what I was doing, it was happening mechanically as a product of my lack of self-awareness)

Unfortunately coming to that revelation during an LSD trip wasn't enough to just undo two decades of conditioning. Freud said that men who have poor relationships with their mothers are condemned to a lifetime of intimacy issues. There is some truth to that. You can't just undo the years of neural programming wrought by neglectful parent(s) by going to therapy once a week. All you can really do is try to know yourself (however futile that may be), follow the golden rule, and hope that you're a better person today than you were yesterday. "You're under no obligation to be the person you were five minutes ago." - Alan Watts

Some psychologist wrote a book a year or two ago, I forgot the title, but basically, he argued that our internal narratives are mostly confabulatory. So in psychology "confabulation" refers to a compensation for loss of memory, whereby new artificial memories are generated. Everyone confabulates, and some people with brain damage do so chronically. Like, everything that comes out of their mouth is a lie, but a lie that they believe. Anyway the idea is that the personal narrative we have constructed of our own lives bears little relation to what actually happened. What is really going on is that we have thoughts and feelings which we need to explain, so we default to a personal history/organization of events that most easily explains the current situation. But we use heuristics to do so, and heuristics by definition give a "good-enough" but incomplete solution.

Anyway, the reason why I mentioned that idea is just because what it comes down to is that ultimately, it doesn't matter so much why you have the issues you have. Like let's say they are because of your dad. What now? So, you can blame him? Does that make the issues go away? Probably not. The most productive thing we can do is just monitor our thoughts, see which thoughts we don't want, which ones we do (ideally defined in terms of long-term goals and a consistent value system), and then think more about the things we want to and less about the things we don't.

peacemakerzzz · 2020-02-01T19:17:14+00:00

I can relate to this. Though I am not the same person I was 2-5 years ago. I learned the value of individualism and self-reliance. It is much more comforting to think that you can be your own father should you know how to take care of yourself. No one can ever take the position of your biological father, but you can be the best man you can be by loving yourself for who you are.

Develop your interests, hobbies, and discipline. You will find that you will love yourself despite these circumstances. Once you get to know yourself on a more spiritual level, you develop your own masculine persona and not based on who you are because of your friends' influence.

mrpthrowa · 2020-02-01T16:30:33+00:00

Yes. But you’re not unique, people with fathers present have also been conditioned to seek female approval from a young age thorough school and dating.

The good news is that TRP gives you tools to unfuck yourself. Start with the side bar .

account_rp · 2020-02-01T23:41:34+00:00

Fathers are critical to men having good upbringings and becoming proper men themselves. One example supporting this is how jails and prisons are disproportionately filled with people who didn't have a father around growing up.

My dad was around but worthless, just a warm body who was nothing but physically there, nothing more than that. He might as well have not been around. I had a terrible time growing up because of it. Now I struggle to function as a proper man in society, something that men with good fathers do easily.

XT3M3 · 2020-02-02T01:53:26+00:00

guys without fathers from experience grow up blue pilled as hell. they end up getting relationship advice from their mothers then end up shocked and confused for why theyre failing. you cant learn how to date women while trying to act like a women as well

Snowboard18 · 2020-02-01T19:16:02+00:00

Yeah I’m was in the same boat for a while with the craving of female attention/ being needy. My father left when I was 5, an absolutely terrible age for that to happen. After reading “No More Mr. Nice Guy” I realized that the abandonment had turned me and my brothers into huge nice guys. I’d suggest reading that book.

wheremyballsgo · 2020-02-01T17:31:54+00:00

My mom was the one who left. Same abandonment issues and still female attention I crave.

wawakaka · 2020-02-01T20:58:15+00:00

men with absent fathers become natural blue pillers because they are raised by the mother. So the need to please women, to have female validation, and to protect and WK for women is strong.

whether you were aware of it or not you had a strong bond with your mother after you dad left if she raised you. you were somewhat forced to be her little man. the feelings you have for your mom will transfer over to every other female in the world and you will naturally simp for them.

This seems to explain the millennial generation as an article i read said they are the fatherless generation, its made women sluts and its made men simps.

I had a strong stepfather very masculine but i could see the difference between me and my childhood friends who were both raised by single mothers. they were both soft, lacked structure and discipline, and they put women on pedestals. If i ever mentioned that a woman i liked had a sexy body my friends would criticize me for looking at women in that way.

QuiteRandomDUDE · 2020-02-01T22:34:46+00:00

Well, I think it's fair to say that everyone copes different.

My father was also absent (and a total piece of shit, mom leaving him was a good decision) and I cope different than you. I kind of don't like (hate is a harsh word) women. I am not serios about them. After being constantly nagged by mom, grandma, female teachers (most of them), girlfriends, I simply don't take women seriously. I hated shopping with mom or other ex-GFs. My longest relationship was 2 months in 23 years. I got another great GF this summer but I dumped her because I simply couldn't bear her need to take a piss 100 times a day or the endless store visits so she could see but 1/10 times buy the product. I simply got mad about that, why tf do you need to piss 1212121212 times a day??? Why do I need to stop the car at every gas station so she could piss? I don't. So I cut her off. Sharing that just to make a point. I am sexually atracted to women but god damn they are lame. I am too good to crave those tiny humans attention's.

capodonca · 2020-02-02T01:13:12+00:00

Read the book Iron John by Robert Bly, it's a book about men that will help you contextualize your struggle.

vullnet123 · 2020-02-02T01:23:14+00:00

Yup. Dad was around but he was kinda distant and I never got too close with him when I was young. Was raised with my mom's advice. Me and him are close now but I wishd he could've been someone I would've looked up to when I was little.

amphix339 · 2020-02-02T07:39:29+00:00

100%

janaheyiloveyou · 2020-02-02T11:40:54+00:00

My dad beat me up all the time.. I have generalized anxiety and neuropathy because of him... Hoping lsd will solve my issues someday..

2020-02-02T01:34:37+00:00

I'm 31, was raised by a single mom, and haven't even spoken to my father since I was 24, and even before that we barely had a relationship. When he was around I was a blue pill guy. Still got laid a lot cuz I lived in a big city and I'm blessed with good enough looks to pull it off, but it wasn't until my late 20s when I had no father whatsoever that I really began my RP life. YouTube has done more for me than my father ever did lol you can learn a lot from strangers on the Internet about being a man

KingGerbz · 2020-02-01T21:37:49+00:00

My father passed away when I was 9 years old. I was already predisposed with a short temper; that tipped the domino to make me a very angry and violent kid throughout my middle school years.

Nowadays the loss of my father pushes me every day. It turn from something no other kid had to endure to an advantage no other kid has. Maybe I’m the exception. Would I love to see my father again? I’d do anything. But I also know that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without what happened. And I like who I am today.

purplestuff11 · 2020-02-02T00:45:10+00:00

My experience is a bit different. I love my dad really but he just was never around to teach me anything. So I never really knew what guy shit was or what it was like to be a man. The upside is that I'm completely independent and taught myself to be able to do anything since I couldn't get help much. So where a normal guy was at with masculinity when he was 13 I didn't get till I was 23. But i was also horribly depressed, lonely and suicidal for 97% of that decade so i can also blame that. Upside is I'm really mature now and am set on my career and life goals that are surprisingly close. So yeah it's got its ups and downs. Average of downs but the ups are great right now but that's more because I made them. I still occasionally like to act my age but I keep it from affecting my professional life negatively. In short, dont think giving your kid stuff from working n jobs counts as fathering.

EvelynnSpoiler · 2020-02-02T01:09:07+00:00

Better an absent father than a pussy-negative father. My mother would've been a millionaire by now had she been single

Thatjuansailor · 2020-02-02T01:33:22+00:00

Joined the military at 18; my whole life changed after that. The low self esteem turned into confidence in ability to act during tough times. Things that used matter, stopped mattering because I realized I rather work on what I’m passionate about, instead of wasting precious energy on things that don’t even matter. I think having something you are passionate about with combination of trying to be the best at it. Will lead to the confidence you desire. Because when I finally reached that level of “grounded-ness” or illusion of “high self esteem”; I no longer cared about opinions or attention. Of course, this is how I managed to get through that mindset of not getting my needs met. Meaning in my life overrode my animalistic drive for needs. Don’t know if that can give you some insight on how to fix it. Source: myself and growing up fatherless or without a father figure.

Advice: Find a mentor that’s already where you want be at, practically apply stoicism and question that validity of your thoughts. Find out who you are (your own principles and values you live by). Really FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE. Recommended dwelling into some philosophical texts on ethics (Aristotle, stoics, and ect..) even the Bible has a lot to say on how we “ought” to act. A good person to watch or someone who was a great model of true masculinity for me was dan Peña. Recommend watching his videos now if you are young; he is the realist person on this earth when it comes to not giving a single fuck. The faster you get your true beliefs and ideals implanted into your head, the faster you will self-actualize.

You will be surprised how many actions are executed on the day to day basis purely based on other people, instant gratification or instant pleasure. The last thing I will say. The thing that separates the men from the boys is the ability to put fear/emotions aside and take action. Real men create their own life, this is the best thing that could of happened to you

Title	Men with an absent father?
Author	Ceanatis
Upvotes	101
Comments	35
Date	February 1, 2020 4:17 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/ex8dv0/men_with_an_absent_father/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/men-with-an-absent-father.318881 https://theredarchive.com/post/318881