Father and Daughter

Look at the relationships that you have had with other men. Do you gravitate to men like your father? Are they usually kind and loving men, or are they uncaring or abusive? Daughters need to know that the first man in their life loved them unconditionally, as every man in her life thereafter will be patterned after her first love --- good, bad, or indifferent.
I hope that you were fortunate enough to have a father who enriched your life. If he made you feel like his beautiful princess and also valued you as an intelligent and independent individual, then I'm fairly certain that your relationships with the men in your life have been positive experiences. If, on the other hand, you lived with a father who discounted you and made you feel miserable, or you had an absentee father who was not a part of your life, then it's likely that you have picked the same kind of men as an adult. One would think that living with an alcoholic, abusive, inattentive, or emotionally unavailable father would make you more aware and thus more cautious and selective. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of the established patterns. Surprisingly enough, you tend to choose the same man as your father, regardless of his positive or negative affect on your life.
The psychology behind this phenomenon is really quite interesting: being treated in an abusive way as a child diminishes your self-worth and thus your expectations of yourself and the way others should treat you. You forget that you deserve choices in your life, and tend to accept whatever circumstances befall you. Moreover, as most abusive, aggressive men prefer women they can easily dominate, your diminished self-image makes you a target for abuse. A vicious cycle of reduced self-worth and abusive relationships ensues because abusive treatment only enforces the poor self-esteem. Women will marry or live with an abusive man like 'Dear Old Dad ' or seek our a man whom they can never trust to be there for them. Incredibly, when they finally find the courage to leave him, more often than not they will become involved with another man just like him!
I have counseled many young women who, as adults, still wanted to have a father/daughter relationship with their absentee father and continued to try to reconnect with a man who had left little more than tire tracks on the paths of their lives. One woman actually wanted her father to walk her down the aisle, and she was afraid to ask him. She was afraid that he would say no, or even worse that he would say yes, and not show up. Like daughters of alcoholic and abusive fathers, they still cling to the possibility of a normal relationship, but continue to seek out the same type of man.