Robert continued, ''I didn't see my father a lot as a child, but I used to run to him and throw my arms around his neck when he'd come in the door. I remember a game we played when I was maybe two or three years old. I would climb up on a chair and yell, 'catch me' as I would jump into his arms, squealing with delight.

''I remember the day it happened, clear as if it was yesterday ," Robert said. His expression didn't change. Only something deep in his eyes revealed his feelings. ''I yelled out, 'Daddy, Daddy,' as I jumped off the kitchen chair and flew through the air with my arms outstretched. But just as I reached out to him, he turned away and I hit my head on the table as I fell to the floor. I don't remember much after that, except Dad yelling at me to be quiet as we drove to the hospital. Days later ..."

Robert's gaze was steady as he remembered his father's words. I couldn't hold back the tears that ran down my own cheeks when he continued. "Dad took me on his lap and said, 'Baby boy, you have to learn - you can't trust anyone in this life, not even your own father .' "

As I heard from more and more men like Robert, who had done horrible things to women and children, I came to see that there was another side to them. My sympathy for those victimized by violence and abuse began to extend to the men as well. Every man I worked with who had victimized others was himself a victim of abuse when he was a child. Inside every cold, violent "Robert" is a little boy, "Robbie," calling out. "Daddy, Daddy ,catch me, Daddy," as he sees the floor, instead of his father, coming up to meet him.

Men and Parenting

What are the implications of the fact that little boys have so little positive contact with their fathers as compared with their mothers as they grow up? Experts feel this "fact of life" is crucial for adult development.

Mothering is an all-embracing word. To be mothered is to be nurtured in the most elemental sense - to be cared for in all the ways we might wish or need, from the physical to the psychological and spiritual. But what does fathering mean? The fact that it is so nebulous says a lot about the vague feelings we have towards our fathers, husbands and men in general. The fact that women provide for our most intimate needs for survival, security, love and affection says a great deal about the differences between men and women and the ways in which men develop sexual addictions.

There is a fundamental difference between the "love lives" of men and those of women. Most men will fall in love with a person of the same sex as their mothers, while most women will fall in love with a person of the opposite sex. Thus for men, the early experience of their first lover is more closely recreated as they connect again with someone like Mom. It's easier for men to become "hooked" and their feelings are more ambivalent.

For a boy to establish his identity, he must renounce his early connection with the woman (his mother). He must cut off the first person to be intemalized into his inner psychic world and seek instead an attachment and identification with his father. Think what it is like for the baby boy to realize that I am different from mother. I have a penis and she doesn't. The fIrst person I love, the one I want to be like and merge with, is fundamentally different from me. (That is the fIrst setback for the boy. He must renounce his first true love.) The second is that when we reach out for this other person, this father , that I am told I AM like, whom I can aspire to grow up to emulate, with whom I can identify, we often find this person is violent or missing. The loss of the father is the second setback that many boys experience. The fact that fathers are absent for girls as well has its own implications for the development of female sexuality and female sexual addiction.

For boys, it sets the stage for their later addictive behavior. We have an early dependency on women which is fostered due to the absence of our fathers.

Go To Healing Male Codependency Part Three

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