Following my split with his dad, my elder child has been keen to talk to me about his struggles over years. The boy’s mental health has often been wobbly, needing a lot of support (from me; dad was never available) and counselling. He’s telling me now that a lot of that stemmed from confusion and low self esteem caused by his father, and a lack of a functional male role model. He was realises he was messed up by the dissonance between what is dad said to him and how his dad behaved towards him. One moment Dad’s telling him he’s great, the next, he’d be blaming him, ignoring, dismissing him. The mixed messages were difficult to process - ‘you’re great, but actually you don’t matter and what you say has no impact on me, I won’t notice it and if I do I’ll sigh or huff and waft it away as irrelevant, and I am one of the people who supposedly loves you best’. This messed with my son’s head so much, leading to feelings of worthlessness and uselessness. And not having a man to model a positive masculinity to him… how was he to learn how to be practical except from his mum? which he has, but as the kid says, his dad was no kind of practical man- not the kickabout and car-fixing type masculine type, nor the cooking dinner and nurturing kind. He just opted out of all of that, leaving the lad to look to me. Which he could, but I’m not a male role model; I can’t be.
The boy says he’s happier now we’ve separated and he and I are talking about these things. He’s achieving clarity.
