How can a fatherless childhood effect my relationship with men?

LegacyUser

hello.I've only copped that this when one of my friends suggested it to me...now I'm not looking for excuses or maybe I am.I've never been in a relationship with a man and haven't slept with many. I was rather late on the scene. I have loads of male friends but they only see me as a friend. I don't see them in a romantic way anyway. The few guys that have liked me in the past,I had no interest in. I really get on great with blokes but get all weird when it turns romantic. I'm outgoing, great gang of mates here and meet lads all the time but never romancing. I'm just getting a bit worried now cause i've noticed the pattern and want to do something about it.Maybe this is what Irish blokes are on about when they say some girls don't give them a chance. But I do...love the craic....love chatting but as I say..when it turns romantic ..Also, if there's a hot guy that we know and I go out with some friends of mine, we meet him,chat..one of my friends will get in there and flirt and they end up together and I would have liked him all along. This has happened so many times.
I have considered whether I am gay or not. And I'm not although minor things have happened and I certainly wouldn't say no to a woman that I felt comfortable with. But I love men, I am sexually aroused by men and I imagine my future with a man.
So I'm 28 female, attractive-relatively-I'm happy.I come from a large family of male siblings.My father died when I was three. My friend said that because I never saw the relationship between my parents-that this why I'm weird with blokes.....How do I get out of this and o yeah there is a wall 10 feet high, so my friends say...I just don't know what they are talking about....I really want to improve.The idea of being in a relationship and being in love is totally foreign to me.If anyone knows anything about fatherless childhood and the effects or if someone else is in same situation...I'd be interested to know what people think..thanks in advance

LegacyUser

I have to say OP I'm the exact same although my father died when I was 10 so I did have 10 years of seeing my parents together (and they were very happy).

I'm 27 and have never been in love and never had a proper relationship either. I've never dated anyone longer than a couple of months. I have crushes on guys and I've slept with a few guys and I definitely know I'm straight but like you the idea of being in a relationship and being in love is totally alien to me. Like you, I get weird when it turns romantic. I get on well with guys when they are friends but when it becomes more than that I don't know how to act. It frustrates me so much because in other areas of my life everythings great. I'm good at my job and I have tons of friends. I just feel like I'm completely incapable of having a boyfriend.

I don't have any advice op sorry! But I would like to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on this.

metrovelvet

Everyone is different so what applies to others may not apply to you. There could be any number of random factors that influenced you. I tend to follow chaos theory when it comes to this stuff.

I have a few friends who lost parents very young. One watched his father drown when he was three. Another buried her father when she was 11. Another woman I know lost her father when she was about five, had a happy marriage, divorce and kids but says she has never had a broken heart. Actually all of my friends who have lost a parent young say this. I think something happens where you just learn not to attach. I think they are all broken hearted, literally, in that it doesn't work, in that they cant or wont attach. They all have means of diversions, commitment phobias or easy boredom threshold, or assertions of independence. They tactics all come down to the same thing: avoidance.

But, it could always be as simple as you just haven't met the right person.

LegacyUser

I grew up without knowing my father and didn't have any brothers so was very shy around boys when I was in school because I simply didn't know how to relate to them at all. That fortunately changed when I went to uni and now I have as many male as female friends.

I always thought there was something wrong with me though as I never dated like my friends during my teens- sure I'd kiss boys I met on nights out but I never wanted to meet up again or anything. One guy who I met when I was 20 and kissed on 3 separate nights out was actually the first person I'd ever kissed on more than one occasion, which was a huge thing for me, and while I liked him I still kept turning down invitations from him so that never went anywhere! I just never felt any real attachment to anyone and couldn't understand how other people got so much out being with someone.

However I then met another girl who I ended up dating for 3 years, having fallen madly for her straight away. It was completely unexpected, I'd never felt such strong emotion about anything before and tbh it was overwhelming at first. That relationship is over now but it broke through all my ice-queen barricades and I am such a different person now!

I've dated two guys since as well as having some more casual flings and am entirely open to the idea of having another serious relationship. The fact that I used to be so very different now seems unreal and I have to really think hard to remember how and why I felt the way I did.

So I do think that it may just be a case of not having met the right person yet. I think we are just so closed to the possibility of romance/love/attachement that we never did all the "rehearsal" stuff that others do in terms of dating, flirting, being affectionate etc, so it's not until we actually meet a real love that we start to learn all that stuff.

Saying that, I do still feel sometimes that, having been such a late starter (I'm mid 20s now) that I'm somewhat behind in my understanding of how adult relationships develop. My thing with the last guy I was seeing fizzled out eventually due to the fact that it never seemed to progress or lead to any deeper connection or committment and I'm quite afraid of the new relationship I'm in going the same way. I don't know how you get from the dating once a week stage to the being comfortable doing the weekly shop together stage! This all seemed quite organic in my big "love" relationship but in that case my girlfriend took the lead a lot and in any case I still think I just understand girls a lot more than guys, who are still something of a mystery to me!