Father’s Day social media postings and Hallmark cards may make you feel alone if your connection with your father is difficult or nonexistent.
But the reality is that there are a lot of guys out there with so-so or worse ties with their dads, as just 40% of respondents in a recent Statista poll on Americans’ relationships with their fathers characterized their relationship with Dad as “very good.”
In light of this, it’s crucial to discuss how your father’s involvement (or absence) in your childhood may still be having an impact on you as an adult, particularly in terms of your relationships.
Your father may have taught you how to play catch or ride a bike, but he also may have unintentionally taught you how to manage your emotions and interact with love relationships.
Even if you aren’t aware of it, the way your father handled your mother may have influenced the way you treat current relationships. The way a father talks about women affects how his kid will perceive women in the future.
Based on how you interacted with your primary caregivers as a kid, attachment theory provides a framework for understanding how you relate to people as an adult.
Did your father rule over you and be quite strict? As a result of never being able to be themselves around their parents out of fear of punishment and never having the opportunity to practice assertiveness because they were never given the freedom to make decisions, men raised by authoritarian fathers are likely to lack self-esteem.
On the other hand, you are more likely to be a self-assured and independent adult. If your dad provided you with just the right amount of structure and direction, such as distinct boundaries and expectations, and if he was willing to have conversations with you to explain those boundaries and expectations.
