Do i have absent daddy issues?

LegacyUser

A friend mentioned this to me before briefly as she is older, separatedc from hubby with 2 kids and said did i think the fact my dad wasn't around when i was younger affect my relationships with men.
well what relationships?
I am 26, single, officially i have only ever had one boyfriend and that lasted 2 months.
any guys i do see even briefly, i get attached/fall for them, .
at moment, i'm not seeing/ dating/ kissing anyone.. but recently 2 fellas showed interest, i kissed one of them, spent the night but didnt 'sleep' with him.
now i think of him alot, went into a pub because i knew he'd be there, he is not a relaitonship guy i knew that, ..we spoke since.. but i know him a good while so it was back to just chit chat as before.
fella b is in a long term relationship, showed interest a few months ago- told me he likes me but cant go anywhere etc- he was looking for one night thing- i said no.. i knew him already too and we text regularly enough and have got past that brief encounter.

other things too..

my dad left when i was about 5, resurfaced ( i have older siblings too) when i was 12, there was brief contact every so often but he would come to ireland to see his nieces before he'd come to us and i was aware of this.
I speak when i see him but there's no love lost you could say, he's only interested in slagging off my mum so i say hi, how are ya, la la al and move on.

I am thinking recently that the reason i get attached to men/ male friends is due to his absense.. like my head is looking for this male figure i missed.


or maybe i'm just talking complete nonsense.

skyfall2012

It is difficult to say, it could be, you would really have to talk to a counsellor about it. These things depend on so many different elements of your life and everybody react differently to the same situation, I don't know if anybody could answer your question for sure.

My mother left when I was young and I definitely attached to other people's Mom's, I know that for sure. I think part of the reason I married my husband is because he had the perfect mother in my eyes, she would kill for her children, so loving.

I love him too, and that is the real reason. But I definitly have a fascination with Mother's. Don't know if this helps. I think maybe you might know the answer yourself, if you think about it. Good luck OP.

Cerulean Chicken

Yeah you should talk it through with a counsellor or something. My parents split when I was 5, while Dad was/is still around he was never an active parent even when he lived with us, so basically I grew up without him, fleeting visits (only becoming more frequent when I was of drinking age and could meet him in his home the pub). It never affected my relationships with men in any way though, because I never saw him leaving as a big upheaval tbh. Mum dealt with it all very smoothly, no big dramas, so I thought it was normal and had no reason to react to it. My uncles and grandfather were all stable male influences though, so maybe that helped.

Point is, it can vary from person to person, and maybe talking it out with a professional might be a good idea, so you can see it from a few different sides.