If you don’t get to the root, nothing changes. If you don’t find your “why”, you can’t know where to look.
And if you don’t like where you are today, change it.
How? Find your why.
Why do you keep falling for the same type of man? Why is this man so attractive to you? Why him, and not someone else?
And more specifically, why do you believe so strongly that you NEED him? What is it about him that has you putting up with things you said you’d never EVER put up with before there was him?
Most of the women I work with discover right away that almost every single one of these questions has a common denominator – and it’s not her we’re talking about here. It’s a specific man.
Namely, the man known as her dad.
And for as much as we have heard the term “daddy issues” before, the truth is this doesn’t have nearly as much to do with our father’s as it does to do with us.
The daughters.
We’re the ones who fell in love with our dads as little girls – he's the first man we ever loved.
We’re the ones who only ever wanted to be loved by him.
We did everything we could to make him proud of us, to be so impressed with who we became.
Except, Beautiful, this all came at a price.
That root cause you’re looking for? It’s all here.
The desire to please to be loved that became a habit.
The need to win an emotionally unavailable man’s approval to feel like we were finally worth something.
Except it never came.
There was no approval, except in thinly veiled words that held no real or lasting weight and only lasted until the next time.
How much of this was ours, and how much was his? We can go around and around in circles on blame, but that’s not my point here.
The point is, if you weren’t the beautiful, soft, sensitive-hearted soul that you are, you would never have absorbed the messages that you did.
The messages that said you had to earn the right to be loved. The messages that said you had to be something other than your authentic self to earn something like unconditional love.
You’ve heard me talk about him before, this man who did the best he could with what he knew at the time – and what was modeled for him as a man in his own father and in the fathers in our culture – and how forgiveness is the only end result here that allows us to ever truly move on.
No, he doesn’t change, or rarely so, but we can end the effect his actions and inactions in our direction continue to have on us.
It’s called looking here. Looking at these patterns.
Recognizing that every single one of these men we’ve been choosing who have nothing more to offer us than potential that never pans out any more than our dads were capable of change, simply represent the dad’s whose potential to love us unconditionally the way we longed to be loved for ourselves, never panned out either.
It’s the chance to do it all over again with someone who shows that potential anew.
It’s the opportunity to prove that we’re still worthy, still worth it, still deserving of that unconditional love.
That’s your root, Beautiful. Right there in front of your lovely face and even lovelier heart.
There’s a part of you that’s known it all along. That’s why you can’t resist. The thought of changing what you were never before able to change before has you all in. The very idea of proving to yourself a worthiness of love you were never able to prove before gives you every reason to try harder.
You can do this, Beautiful.
You can own your why even as you set yourself free from it. You don’t prove your worth in achieving what someone is and never was capable of giving you. There isn’t anything to prove and there never was.
There’s only you, Beautiful, Confident, Radiant You.
EXACTLY as you are. EXACTLY as you were always meant to be!
Now it's your turn. Have you found your own “Why?”, Beautiful? I want to hear from you! What is this going to change for you starting right now? Share it with us all in the comments below.
Thank you Jane for such a timely post.
My father died when I was only 9 years old, and the man who raised me which is my uncle (my father`s brother) was never there emotionally and he still isn`t there. The only thing i remember about growing up in front of him is hurtful words he used to say to me, things like i will grow up to be a slut, i will never be anything in life etc.
And i spent so many years believing such things about myself, and this has played a big role in the type of men that i attract.
Just yesterday i was asking myself if i want a relationship because i`m ready or is it out of desperation? A part of me thinks that i`m ready but another part of me thinks it`s the fear of winding up alone. I recently just turned 34 and all of my friends are either married or in serious relationships, and i on the side still busy with guys that are scared of commitment. I recently met a guy through twitter about two weeks back, we haven`t met in person yet, for the first week he was showering me with a lot of attention, calling me everyday and texting me all day and then boom he went quiet for two days, no phone calls nothing, not returning my texts, then when i asked him again why he is quiet over whatsapp he said he was going through a difficult time and he is sorry for being quiet, we have been chatting now here and there, the phone calls have stopped and he no longer talks about his plans of meeting me like he used to before, i know we never met in person however he made me believe that he wanted to start something with me.
I am not angry at him for doing this, i am angry at myself for believing and hoping that something good might come out of this, i am angry at myself for still attracting emotionally unavailable men, when will i get it right? Is there something wrong in the way i behave around these men? Am i really desperate to be in a relationship that i`m willing to take whatever that`s in front of me? This whole thing is confusing.
Take your anger at yourself out of this to see what that does, Lolly. If you accept and embrace yourself as the beautifully imperfect perfect in your own right human as you are right down to your core, things have a way of changing right before your eyes!
Wow! I read and had to walk away and come back to it. My father never demonstrated affection. He was successful, confident, provided very well for his four daughters and wife; but was emotionally unavailable.
I'm still looking for that admiration and love. I chose men with my father's qualities hoping he will show me how much he loves me and is proud of me - protect me - take care of me. And I continue to be broken hearted and cry far too much.
It's not all day , ever day, but it's very present. I even become attracted to a man with a similar smile to my father. NO my father never messed with me. The man couldn't even embrace me on my birthday.
But I need security. My husband of 24yrs sent me bankrupt. I have nothing left. My father has passed. The loneliness at times is palpable.
That's my reaction to this post in a nut shell.
Antonia
Wow is right, Antonia. When you see it, all the details come out - even the similar smile. Go deep into what security really means to you, Antonia. And then look with those eyes, not the eyes of someone who will settle for a false security that has the opposite effect. You know what you deserve; now clarify it.
Thank you Jane for this angle on Father's and daughter's and relationships... this triangle!! I recently had an experience of feeling rejected/abandoned by a man I have been seeing. It very much felt like my inner child was needing comfort and love and safety and she was "needing" it from this man. He was not available, ironically he was choosing to do some processing alone in regards to his teen daughter. Because it felt so out of control for me (like I couldn't shake feeling upset about his choice emotionally even though my logical part was glad he was doing that), I felt myself shutting down, pulling back and wanting to run away. Still do actually.
I have to wonder if it is possible for us to truly separate from our history in regards to our "daddy issues" or as you put it, our self "daughter issues."
Is it possible to detach (healthily) from the inner little girl who shows up in my adult relationships? Is it as simple as when it's the "right" guy, she won't feel the rejection, abandonment because before Mr. right shows, I have fully shown up for her?
Your words always offer such reflection and guidance.
Thank you Jane 🙂 . Happy Father/Daughter's Day to you!!
Yes, absolutely then, Robin - but also before! That's the hope, the love, the commitment to ourselves. Show up for her in the smallest of ways every single day and one day, she becomes one and the same - all you! Thank you! 🙂
Thank you for sending this out on Father's Day, Jane.
Something new occurred to me after reading what you wrote. All the men in my life had painful relationships with their fathers, including my own father. My father felt that he could never measure up in terms of intelligence with his highly educated father. All I've ever heard about my grandfather indicates that he was distant and often angry about not being recognized financially for his intelligence, leaving the parenting and punishing of his five children to my grandmother.
When I think back on the most important man in my life after my father, I see the same pattern of a distant father who left most the parenting of his ten children up to his wife, except for brutal physical punishment and being oblivious to the gifts of seven of his eight sons. He favored the first born son. I met that unavailable man I loved, the third of eight sons, when we were 17 years old, and I loved him from a distance until he died of alcoholism and drug abuse in 2008. You've heard my story before. I was at his bedside the week before he died in a VA hospital.
Of the other men who came into my life after I was 21 years old were a man whose father had hanged himself in the family garage when that man was a teenager, a man whose father had died of a heart attack when that man was a small boy, a man whose physically and emotionally abusive father had been institutionalized for mental illness when that man was entering early manhood, a man whose father molested him when he was a small boy, and a man whose memories included a father who was brutally punitive to him when that man was a toddler.
As a result of your writing and this community of women, I have been able to see my part in a lifetime of trying to have relationships with unavailable wounded men. I didn't feel that I was lovable and attracted wounded unavailable men and was attracted to wounded unavailable men who could not do for me what I needed to do for myself, which is to learn to love myself.
I find it miraculous that in the past two years since finding this website, I have learned to love myself, which makes it possible to truly love another person. Although there is no man in my life now as I approach my 70s, I have found love and healing beyond my wildest dreams. It is never too late to heal the wounds that keep us from True Love.
This song says it all for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pscI9UNcO-A
You've found the link, Ella. It's one thing to read about it, it's quite another to grasp the depths of that link and how far-reaching its effects are on us, the women who love these men. You go, girl. And don't ever stop - or apologize for what awesomeness you become along the way. You inspire me every single time I read your comments here! Never, ever too late to show up as you!