The Rant-Toxic Wednesday's Pt 4- Daughter/Father Relationship

(**Disclaimer; These are my thoughts and opinions, and conversations I've had with women on this topic. Pertaining to single fathers raising daughters. Not everyone will agree and that's fine but let us have a conversation like adults.)

While you're trying to date new people, your father has been quietly dating a woman from his past. At first, you're excited that your father is finally getting out and meeting new women. Your father starts telling you about this friend that he's interested in and then you start noticing little changes in your father's demeanor. Like he's now wearing a more expensive cologne, or he's wearing cologne every day, and he now has a little pep in his walk. Then you notice he's changed the type of clothing that he'd normally wear, or he's changing his style of clothing. You also take notice that you and your father are spending less and less time together, and now he wants you to call him before you pop up, to make sure that he's home. Now you start feeling differently about your father and this mystery woman. You're asking your father what's going on and he's not so giving with information and you're starting to feel like you are losing a part of your father.

Then the one time you and your father are spending time together, he tells you that he wants you to meet the woman he's falling for, and you're feeling all of these crazy emotions about meeting this woman. Mind you, you're still dating but you're dating less because you're more focused on all of the changes your father is now making. He's still there for you, and he still caters to you, just not as much as he used to. He's now giving you advice but in a way that sounds like it's coming from a woman and not him.

The day has come for you to meet the woman your father says he's in love with, and when he tells you that, your heart drops. It feels like your world is crumbling all around you. Now when you go to the home that you grew up in with the love of your life, to have dinner with some stranger who you feel is trying to steal your father from you. Now you're plotting how to break up this relationship in the back of your mind, so you're on the defensive when you step into the home. Your father introduces you to the woman he's in love with and this is what he says, "Princess, this is the woman I was telling you so much about. This is Elaine. (Fake name.) Your heart starts racing and is pounding so hard that what you heard your father say was, "Hey baby this is the new love of my life. She's here to replace you." Even though that's not at all what he said, but that's what you heard, because that's what's in the back of your mind already. You smile tightly, say hello, and ask to be excused to the bathroom. Now you're feeling sick to your stomach. You want so badly, to scream at your father, and tell that whore to get out of the house that you grew up in but you can't because you know it will hurt your first love's feelings so you fix yourself up and go back out there and pretend like you're happy for them, but your father does notices that you've barely said a word the entire night.

You leave and go home. Now all you can think about is how you can get this woman out of your father's life. You become toxic. You're having all of the emotions of a jealous wife instead of realizing that you're the daughter. That relationship that you and your father had has become toxic because you were raised to be the woman, he wanted instead of the woman you needed to be.

Now I'm not speaking from experience because I wasn't raised with my father or by my father. I was raised by my grandmother and aunt, but I've had friends who've gone through this, and I was there to take it all in. When they asked for my advice, I'd tell them what I saw from my perspective as an outsider looking in and from sitting on the inside, looking out. I can tell you that I lost a lot of so-called friends because I was able to advise from the perspective of an outsider and an insider.

However, the friends who valued my advice and opinion have been able to reset their thought processes and were able to see what I was saying from seeing the issues as both an insider and outsider of the situation. They now have great relationships with their stepmothers and father. Some of my friends have gone on to marry or get engaged to people and are in meaningful relationships with the right person for them.