(unconsciously) dating men who are just like our fathers on an emotional level* *(even if you have never met your biological father)

I never knew of my father’s existence until I was 19. 

He didn’t want a baby at 24.  

I don’t have any sensory memory of him from being in my mother’s womb apart from but the energetics of our rejection. 

Yeah, I didn’t know this was a thing either, but we hold sensory memories from our mother’s womb and new born stages.

It’s our brains and minds that cannot remember, but our bodies can. 

The foetus feels its mother's emotions.

Emotions are involuntary neurological responses that happen in our brain and central nervous systems- which run from our head to our toes, so it makes so much sense that the foetus can feel it all. 

The foetus also responds strongly to the mother’s emotions in the first 3 years as they are so connected, and often mirrors the mother’s feelings.

Research from chimpanzees showed that when a baby is separated from birth parents and then looked after very well by adoptive caregivers, the adopted chimpanzee are still much wilder than the others, and prone to mood swings and depression. Which are all contributory factors to addiction in humans. 

What is not as well researched is the impact of separation from the father.

Research to date reports impacts such as poor intimate relationships and high levels of addictions. Research from Standford in 2018 noted “separation from parents removes children's most important protection and generates a new trauma.”

Many people who were separated from their father, at any time through childhood, didn’t consciously register the event as traumatic usually, because as Gabor Mate highlights, no one spoke to them about it or helped them process the emotions. Resulting in no support or healing offered to integrate from this huge life experience. We come from a generation that just put a blanket over it and pretend it didn’t happen. 

Because of this mentality, often our minds can convince us we are ok when we are not. 

I definitely believed I didn’t care or feel hurt about my Da not being there. My ego wouldn’t allow it. However, I met a woman when I was 23, who had a difficult relationship with her Da and she repeated the pattern in her marriage. She was desperately unhappy in her first year of marriage.

“Sort out your daddy issues Carla first if you want a life partner,” she told me. It hit like a bullet, which is why I began to take the blanket off the elephant in the room. 

As well as the ego, I later learned telling ourselves it doesn’t matter, is a coping mechanism. 

It’s the body's way of protecting us from the pain that could overwhelm our systems (which is why it is safer to feel the pain of this trauma in future intimate relationships).

PET scans have shown us that emotions are cycles in the body : they have a beginning, middle and end. It is ok to disrupt this system for survival on occasion, but not 99.9% of the time. 

Emotions are cycles of nature that want to complete and nature will always win. 

This is why we find ourselves in relationships that trigger our wounds from our parents. Unbeknownst to ourselves, our subconscious seeks the experience it needs from another person (your relationship/ situtionship) to release the emotional pain of the childhood wound (imprinted by your father).

It’s the emotion wanting to complete the cycle. 

It is not the love of the man you are dating you are seeking; it is your father’s.

It is not the man before you, you need to save, it is yourself. 

He is a mirror. 

The romantic relationship itself can feel 

 all consuming and feel so difficult to let go because it is connected to such a deep core wound from early childhood. 

Rejection is never about you- that you are not good enough. 

Just the same way a wee baby is none of those things.

A father isn’t present because of his own trauma and wounds.

Just like the man you are dating. 

The cure for it all from what I have learned so far is :

1. Getting really honest about how you feel, which means connecting to your body and listening. To stop ignoring your gut.

2. Feel the pain that is coming from the relationship. Remember it is always about you – it is a mirror, a teacher, an opportunity. For you to feel the pain you never could as a child.

3. Be willing to forgive your father (could take a lifetime) and to give yourself the love he couldn’t. To love yourself, really love the fuck out of yourself. 

Then everything in the external will fall into place. 

If you want the research and reading material on this please contact me carla@carlamcgreevy.com