Aspies with distant or missing fathers.

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This is something I frequently think about, just what about me is caused by my father not being around. He was around when I was young... but I don't remember much about him. If he was at all like he is, he wasn't good.

When I was 10, parents divorced... only did things with him every other weekend. But he wasn't much of a father... in fact I barely did anything but play video games when I visited him. 15 he left for Arizona... haven't really talked or wanted to talk with him since.

I sort of have a need, I don't express it much... but I think it shows in how I act... to be appreciated for what I do. I think what I do is quality... and would like people to acknowledge it I sometimes almost expect, but I really don't know so I almost need reassurance to even know in the first place. Like a desire for a mentor. It almost seems like I should just grow up and not have this desire... but it's there... and I wonder if it's related to father issues.

Also, I was never really pushed to do anything as a child. Never compelled to go to the best of my abilities... never give up. If something was too hard... I just gave up. Still do... I don't have a tenacity about me that I see in others. Specifically... too often I was just allowed to give up playing a musical instrument... even though I know now that I can and could do it. I'm thinking without a quality father... I've missed out... and it still affects me mentally.

Any other people here have similar experiences? I'd like to hear stories from those who have missing fathers... to what's similar or different, and a little support if I can...

No one knows who my biological father is cause my mom slept around, and my adoptive dad is at work a lot and not usually showing interest unless its in a form of being obnoxious. So, that almost counts as being able to relate.
Also Ive foolishly given up on countless things myself as well.

I hope you don't mind me posting on this...

I think kids can miss certain important elements in their growing-up when there is a parent missing or just not involved.

I lived with my sisters and mom (who was pretty heavy-handed with us, especially when she would just lose it).
My parents were divorced probably around the time I was 5 or 6. I have no memory of anything concerning my father until somewhere around... well actually I have no idea when my memories of him start. We used to go visit him across town as I was growing up.
I don't remember being real small, maybe 7 or 8 or 9 years old?

He had a daughter with his second wife (whom my sisters and I hated... the stepmom, that is). My stepsister is around the same age as my younger sister... 5 yrs younger than me. There were plenty of times we felt our dad loved her more than his other kids.

Other than the occasional weekend, we didn't really have much contact with him. I always wanted him to let me work with him when he had to fix his car, work on the house, etc., but this rarely happened. He did take us camping a few times that I can remember.

Basically, it was like visiting an uncle or other distant relative. I never felt like I got anything near what my friends got from their fathers.
I always wanted to be like him though and when I couldn't do the things he did... build his own house, rebuild brakes on his car, stuff like that... I would get upset with myself.

I got a stepfather sometime before I was 10... can't remember exactly when that was either, but I know my younger sister was old enough to go to her friend's house down the street.

My stepfather could fix anything also... just like my dad. When I would wreck my race cars (those electric track cars) my stepfather would fix them again. I really looked up to him. He worked on the railroad, on the trains and was often gone for several days on a run.
I found that pretty romantic, just like being a cowboy or something similar.

Problem with him was that he hardly spoke to us kids at all. I didn't get the 'father' stuff from him either.

When I met my adopted brother and his family (a friend whose family I adopted as my own when we were 12/13 y.o.), I finally had a father and mother who took an interest in me and what I was doing.
It was pretty late, but I got my 'Ozzie & Harriet' family! Bear in mind that Dad was a Government trapper and a horseshoer, and Mom worked as a County Clerk (usually). They loved to drink their beer, go fishing, and take us boys way out on different ranches even to the Rio Grande, in West Texas. I traveled to New Mexico and Arizona with them.
These were the people who finally were capable of giving me the lessons every kid should get from their parents.
But all this didn't quite erase my past.

I'm like you (just more prone to extremely long posts ), in that I still feel a certain loss because I didn't have a father around in my formative years.

I struggled for years trying to get my original adopted father (I was adopted before birth originally) to be a 'dad' to me.
He finally told me one time when I was a young adult, that he was never going to be able to do 'father & son' stuff with me like I wanted.

I had to learn to accept whatever relationship with him I could get.

Today when I visit Texas, he is very friendly and we have some nice talks. He adores my daughter and dotes over her as does his third wife.

Other than that, What I get from my dad is those forwarded internet jokes/poems/pictures that people pass around to hundreds of folks. No message to say how things are going. No questions about how things are going around my home.
I send him pics of my daughter and myself from time-to-time.
We exchange cards at or around the appropriate holidays (I've never been sure if his wife is the one who does the cards or him. It's signed by him, but I have a feeling his wife is doing it).

The best thing to come out of all this is that I have worked hard to be the best father my daughter could ever have.
I have gotten compliments on how I talk to her (even when she was very young), and how well we get along.

I suspect something like this may always be a dark hole in your life, but I do hope you can find a way to accept it for what it is and find a substitute that lessens the pain of it all.

I have known adults who have 'adopted' someone around their parent's age and wound up feeling like they finally have that mother or father they have always wanted.

Thanks for your thoughts, wsmac.

I know, I've completely missed out on a bunch of that rugged mr. fix it sort of thing. I have a technical mind(at least on a theoretical level)... but I have basically no experience... and motor skill problems which creep into everything. When I attempt to fix something... I usually can plug along at my own pace by myself... but with others either they completely take over the project... and I don't learn anything... even though I could.

I'm thankful that I have uncles that kind of contributed to some male bonding... but it's not exactly the same. One uncle, helped me with many computer projects. I picked up old hand-me-down computer parts... and he would help refurbish them so I could have a working PC. I eventually just started to do everything on my own, and that's a skill I've kept with me... I still build my own computers.

I'm pretty fearful about what will happen when I have kids... the only thing I'll go off of is trying to do exactly the opposite of what my father did. Even still, I don't think I'm up to the task.. .

my dad and I have never been that close to him
he wasn't around alot at all when I was young (til i was 11) after that it felt really weird to me having him around a lot
I dont think I have ever gotten fully ajusted
I never got along that well with him and still dont get along
he never gave me any advise and the advise he did was utterly useless and stupid (often just the same thing over and over)
I hardly talk to him anymore and avoid him as much as possibe-he and I are just kind of shadows to eachother it seems

my father died in a fire due to drinking and smoking so I could never get to know him, my parents divorsed when i was 1 year old, and he had visitation, but it was when I was like 5, then nothing, so I feel sorta the same

My dad always had a way of calming me down when I was upset by saying nothing, but we weren't close. He was just the opposite of my controlling mother. They divorced when I was 10. When I was 18, my father was diagnosed with ALS. He had this for 11 years. I rarely saw him. He died 2 days after my honeymoon. He was cremated, and I never saw the body. I didn't cry at the funeral, I smiled - his smile. I don't know how he affected me, but I know he did. I'll never understand, so I don't usually try to. I loved my dad, but I have strong opinions against the way he lived his life. Even the way he died. I never understood why he held on so long. He was always hoping for a cure. He always talked about when he could walk again. I just didn't see that happening.

It was really horrible when I had to sign the papers to have his trache put in. I was next-of-kin. I could almost not stand to look at it. It choked him. It bled. It was awful. I just wanted to leave, and I don't feel guilty for being that way.

I've never had much to do with my father.
When I was 2.5 years old mother and I left father and I only saw him then on in the school holidays for 5 days up until I was 9 years old.
Then I stopped visiting him as he doesn't like me and haven't seen him in just over seven years now.

First off, Pugly, you'll be the best father you can be. We have a great example here at WP... digger.
He has been posting about his daughter and about at least one thing he came up with the two of them could do together.
I think it's just being yourself and learning from your past experiences that will make you a great father, uncle...

Wow! You guys shared some real painful stuff. THANKS! I, for one, appreciate the fact that you all are comfortable enough here to open up about this stuff.

I'm 47, and I know quite a few folks here are much younger than I.
I know the issues concerning my father(s) will always be tinged with that certain amount of pain and the feeling of loss.
I take whatever good memories I have from life with them (my stepfather has passed away several years now) and make sure I keep these close to the painful ones in my mind. Or at least I try.

Like I mentioned above, my father acknowledged he did not have the capacity to 'be a father' to me in the manner I wanted. I have to say that I am glad he said that rather than fake it. I can respect being told the truth rather than feel he was just going through the motions without the love and caring I looked for.

I do hope you all have other family members you can have a good relationship with. Family is important.
My only blood relative is my daughter... at least as far as I know.
Everyone else in my life has been brought into the family by a judge or by myself.
I've known I was adopted for as long as I can remember. I know my birth father was nowhere around my mom when she was pregnant with me. I know the man she would marry shortly after I was born gave her the choice of marrying him or keeping me.
My track record with men who could have been Fathers to me is pretty dismal.
But, there are so many happy times in my life with many people who made me feel wanted and important at different times.

I hope you all can say the same when you're my age.

I always had my parents around, but my relationship to them was kind of abnormal. My mom was ok in her role for the first 15 years or so until alcoholism got the best of her and I saw her crumble before me, followed by my dad a few years later. Both of them recovered after a few more years, though my mom passed away a little after that. I guess the word I should use for my relationship to my dad is that I loved him, I remember jumping into his arms a lot when I was a child. Somehow, I didn't end up with that warm a relation to my mother, probably because of different personalities - I've always felt you should excel in whatever you do and display what you've achieved, while she's seen that as a bad thing, being a believer in mediocrity.

What's abnormal though is the level of my relation to my dad; It's felt like he's not been mature enough to talk about anything on a serious level with, it's like I've not had a dad in that respect. Naturally I wouldn't bring the topic up with him, but I'm pretty sure he's on the spectrum too. He did introduce me to a lot of technology and science, even though his lack of persistence meant he never got a college diploma or really finished any of his hobby projects. He's displayed the typical collecting behaviour, buying lots of books but never really reading them.

The range of things we've never talked about at all include politics, religion and relationships. Growing up with my parents has been a bit of finding my own way, though in the Swedish school system there was plenty of political(Marxist) and (anti)-religious indoctrination to go around of course, not to mention sexual education. But in spite of having had an immense amount of thoughts on politics and religion, I've never felt able to talk about these topics with my dad, our relationship is so shallow.

I remember in pre-school, when I thought a girl's hair was beautiful, I started stroking her hair. It got a bit of attention from the people around, me approaching the opposite gender at that age, and I think I saw my dad laugh back then, though my memory of the event is a bit sketchy. I wondered what I had done wrong since I got that reaction, and a few other similar events too made me really hesitant to do anything of the same nature again for quite some time. Perhaps I would have been more able to develop relationships if I hadn't felt ridiculed at the time. The trauma is long gone of course, but I think I suffered a bit from not developing dating skills when I had readily access to girls back in school.

My real dad left when I was about 1

All I learned from my stepfather was that adult males hate me and want to inflict physical pain on me.

Though Ive still got a couple of friends I have known since school, I find it very difficult to be myself around adult males for fear of violence, ( when I was a child I used to repeatedly punch myself in the face to teach myself to never to talk as whatever I said, would be wrong and earn sarcasim or a punch in the face from my stepfather), trouble is I leaned it too well.

Iam now too "nice" in adult company in order to try and be liked by these creatures who I learned "hate" me.

yeah. I lived with my father but he was an idiot (and I'm saying that in a kind way, he really was a complete idiot). He was neglectful but I think thats largely because he was too stupid to realize, "hey theres a kid in the house, so I should make sure there is food in the house." and My mom, well, lets just say I chose to live with my dad.

I do have some perfectionists qualities that are probably the result of this, like, "Oh my god, I'll die if I ever get a B in college." Even though I'm undergrad valedictorian, and if I get a "B" right now, that will mean all a's and 1 b for my masters.

What it makes me do most though is reach out to older males for role models. But I've found some people who were able to be there for me when I needed it the most and that helped tremendously. Still though I find myself calling my bf's dad because I want someone to be happy for me, but yet I don't feel comfortable telling him thats why I'm calling so I say something else and don't bring up what i want to tell him until he asks a question that that can be the answer for. But as I told my mom once, I'd go to bf's dad before I'd ask my parents for help even if he lived in a beatup shack becauce I know he'd help me, no matter what. Wheras i know from firsthand experience my parents don't care a lick to help me, even when I'm starving myself to death

Wow, my parents divorced when I was 10 also. But they were seperated since I was 3. And I was an only child. My half-brother is 19 years older than me, so, even though I have a sibling, I grew up as an only child. He only lived at home during summers during his college years, and only until I was about 7. So, basically, I was raised by my mom. Saw my dad every Saturday, but ya, I played a lot of video games there. But he also played tennis with me, and took me swimming and to movies and stuff. So, he did things with me, but only once a week, so it was weird.

I think that, as an Aspie, I benefitted from all the time alone, but of course I probably missed out on whatever slight further social integration my Aspie nature would have allowed. I never functioned in groups well, and I was often somewhat uncomfortable in organized social events -- even rather informal ones, like join my friends' familes for the day.

But really, my dad wasn't very social either. He loved taking me places and entertaining me, but only short-term. After a few hours he would sort of "expire", and tire of the socialization. He would bury his face in the paper, and he later told me that his father was the same way. He'd sit there at the dinner table, but just read the paper as if you weren't there.

But, being alone has always been sacred to me. It was a time to ponder, wonder, and wander, and I really enjoyed it. Still do. I can never be as happy around other people as I am in being alone. For instance, my favorite thing in the whole world is to walk outdoors through a beautiful neighborhood nearby my apartment, listening to my ipod. I like listening to music that really inspires my imagination and a sense of relaxation.

I'm 18 and I've lived with my dad for my whole life, but about 85% of the time, he just works for 15 hours a day, drinks himself drunk, and goes to bed.

well those who had anytime with there fathers is lucky, My father ran away before i was born cause my mom was diabetic and was told she would most likely die soon after she had me which happened, my mom died at 4 yrs old, was adopted into a family that split up and them my adopted father took custody of me and remarried. i can really say the only real family i had is my adopted father, my adopted mom, my blood brother which i talk to online though instant messenger and email. and my grandmother which lives long distance, so we only email each other. well i'm 27 yrs old now, and feel like i'm shutdown in my own world now, just dont feel like doing anything except watching tv or use my computer, now, love is not a option anymore. had my heart shattered to many times to really care...