Does The Pain Ever Go Away?-Who Knows the Answer?
Today I’m going to be getting into a topic almost no one is talking about and that is, does the pain of fatherlessness ever go away?
I have a sister, who is my oldest sister and 3 years older than I, who, still to this day yearns to meet her father one day. Can you believe that? Even after 59 years she is still hoping and wishing she would meet her dad during her lifetime. He has missed everything in her life, from her only marriage, the birth of all 4 of the children and the births of several grandchildren.
So, today my blog is going to get into the different areas of pain, where it came from and how can we finally get over it.
Dad Pain
Perhaps the number one pain of all is the pain we get from not having our dads with us. This chapter of the blog always frustrates me because even though most people can say they are definitely mad at their dads but they cannot give any real specifics to why. Only, “he chose to be out of my life” or “he’s a deadbeat” "he's an alcoholic or just always angry. Most, of us, cannot say “well, he said to me he was going to pick me up and he never did”.
Now I know I couldn’t explain why because I never met him until I was in my late 30’s so growing up all I had to go by was what my mom said or in my case, what she didn’t say about my father.
My mom never said anything about any of our fathers, bad or good. Maybe she thought if she didn’t say anything bad then we wouldn’t think negatively of her. I don’t know. But, what I do know is my father was never there and my mom was so I didn’t know what his issues were.
When I did meet him, as I stated earlier, I asked him about why he never came to see me and my brothers and he couldn’t give me an answer. What I’m saying is he just looked at me and shook his head in disbelief and couldn't say anything. I just came to the conclusion that he wasn’t capable of answering me.
Mom Pain
Perhaps the least discussed pain is the pain given to us because of our mothers. People are just too afraid to ask their mother’s questions about why their dads went missing. Men and women all over the world are in pain because of what their mothers have done and not many people are brave enough, to tell the truth.
My story about our conversation went like this. I asked my mother, “ma, where is my dad and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know what answer I got back. She said, “he’s gotten married and basically moved on.
Of course, at 11 years old I couldn’t completely know what that meant but I just let it go and I never really got a real answer until I did my research.
We as fatherless people just take what our moms say to us as the “be all end all” for every situation. We have to ask more questions to get a clearer answer. Like, “he’s an abandoner” or “he’s sperm donor” is not enough. But we'll listen to that and now we are calling our dads the same things and we don’t have all the facts.
I did find out the truth in my situation and it's in an earlier blog post. But, this paragraph is not about me but about you. Have you asked the necessary questions to find out the truth about your dad or are you satisfied with the names your mom calls your him?
Listen to this young boy letting his mom know how painful it was growing up without his dad.
Relationship Pain
This pain is perhaps the number one pain being acknowledged throughout society. Ok, let talk about the pain with a spouse or a person we are in a relationship with but not married too.
Money, we are told is one of the number one reasons we get divorced. Communication and being faithful make-up the other top 3.
What about being fatherless? Is that a contributing factor for a relationship going sour? Of all the divorces and breakups I’ve known, about 95% had at least one person who was fatherless.
What is your number? Know it for yourself. Think about all the friends who you knew who were married or in a relationship that ended. Now, of those relationships how many had at least one person who grew up without their father. I’d like to see your number (%).
Food for thought about the above paragraph. Does being fatherless impact a person's ability to make money, communicate or be faithful?
Other relationships that can cause us pain are relationships with friends, coworkers and our children. Being fatherless will bring on some type of relationship pain because it’s hard to have a connection with someone if you are unaware of how to or never saw one in real life.
Internal Pain
The last and final pain I will be discussing we all go through and almost no one is talking about this one and it is the pain we feel within ourselves. Never feeling we are good enough even though we have done some amazing things.
Look all throughout society at all the ills around us like depression, suicide, low self-esteem, anger and we will never hear any major network or platform that will equate fatherlessness being part of the cause of the ills listed above. It’s strange.
Another thing to think about. Did you know the first thing a fatherless child experiences when they are born is fatherlessness? Yes, before they are depressed, shy, get mad and sometimes even before they take their first breath. They are fatherless first.
This saddens me to know that our society has not put more emphasis on fixing this problem. Does anyone even know where to start? Does anyone even care?
Well, another blog down and I hope you got something out of this one. But before I go, the answer to the question of this blog, I believe the pain does eventually go away with a lot of work and help but the empty space never does and we will fill that empty space with whatever we can. Just be careful.
This is not an excuse to continue allowing ourselves to become victims. We can all create a magical space for ourselves and someone else if we truly want too.
Please leave your number (%) I asked you about earlier and also comment on what you think we need to do to see change. And Please share!
Tom Guu