Ways a Toxic Father Affects Your Life

A father plays an enormous role in the lives of his children more than most people realize.

We are greatly influenced by our fathers’ behavior and how they show it to us.

Those who are fortunate enough to have good ones are able to enjoy a more fulfilling existence.

But those who don’t have their lives are greatly affected.

If you have a toxic father:

Your self-esteem is generally low.

Toxic fathers are far less concerned with their children’s well-being.

Instead, they aren’t able to care for them emotionally, so they tend to dismiss, downplay, and make their children’s insecurities worse.

As a result, you, the child, will believe that’s exactly what people think of you. You’re so low on your confidence that you believe it’s normal for others to treat you badly.

Compliments are difficult for you because you’re not used to them, and you tend to attract people who treat you like your father — unimportant and difficult to love.

You also attract emotionally distant partners

Even though it’s tough to admit, people who have a sour relationship with their father tend to date emotionally unavailable people.

Because of your insecurities and the deep and lasting battle to please your father, you bring to relationships a sense of self-doubt.

Maybe you’re hoping that if your emotionally unavailable partner finally commits to you, you’ll finally believe that you’re worth it.

Growing up with an emotionally distant father made it difficult for you to openly express your feelings in a relationship.

Because you fear that if you do, your partner will end things with you.

Your relationship with your father made it difficult for you to form healthy relationships.

It’s mostly because you’ve been living in a negative environment that it’s hard for you to know what healthy love feels like.

You cast doubt on other people’s sincerity or believe that you do not deserve to feel that way, and so as an outcome, you end up sabotaging the relationship.

Your father made you believe that love is conditional

This belief in conditional love stems from your father’s example.

He taught you that love should be driven by conditions and rules before it can be given to another.

What you learned from your father is that love should feel like it has to be earned.

So, you may either feel like you have to impose them on your partner or fall victim to conditional love.

Many more ways a father can be bad for his kids. He can be abusive, absent, rejecting, authoritarian, or he can be all of these things at once.

Toxic parenting’s mental torture extends far beyond the confines of a person’s home. Everything is impacted, and a person might be destroyed in the process.

May this serve as a reminder to all of us that when we decide to bring life to this world, we must be the best version of ourselves that we can ever have.

Our lives will no longer be centered on ourselves. Their success is built on us.