Do women want to marry their dads?

This is a common question. Many books have been written about it. But I wonder if the question is open ended and its answer varies for everyone.

Some therapists claim that a woman who marries a man like her father probably had a difficult relationship with him (or he was absent) and she spends her life looking for someone who can fill that vacancy. Others say that a daughter’s relationship with her father is naturally more complicated than the relationship she has with her mother, and that dynamic informs her choices later.

Is the notion that we are looking for a man like our father something we women adamantly refuse to accept, or think we can get away from?  I know many women – myself included – who when they embarked on that search for their future spouse (usually in their early 20’s), refused to give this conceit much thought.

I know I did. Looking back, my ex-husband’s character was nothing like my dad’s, nor was his physique. I wondered, even after we divorced, whether the fact that he was the opposite of my dad, and the men that I was surrounded by growing up (my somewhat macho, tall, strong and silent Israeli uncles and cousins), played a large role in my choice to marry him. Rebellion? Attraction to someone “different”? Or an adamant refusal to acknowledge that deep down, I needed someone with the wonderful qualities that my father possesses? What did I know, as a twenty one year old girl thrust out of college and into the real world, about what I really wanted? Or what was really good for me? 

I’m one of three girls – no brothers. My parents are happily married (still!) and I wonder if my dad being the only male, surrounded by four women, intensified our impression of him as strong and omniscient, and reinforced the male imprint he had on us. It might have been diffused had I had brothers. I will never know. But does it matter?

My friend asked me the other night how things were going with my new boyfriend, and said he wondered whether I was with this guy because he “checked all the boxes” for me. I found that question odd. “No way, I said. It’s the opposite. He’s nine years younger than me, not Jewish, and figuring out his path career wise.” This is not the obvious or optimal check list for a career-driven Jewish divorcee in her late thirties. And on the surface, it’s the opposite check list that my ex-husband possessed (age appropriate, Jewish, nice Jewish family, etc).

But I no longer concern myself with such things.  Check lists, at least for me, are now about character. Does the guy possess inner strength, patience, kindness, ambition, and a propensity to be a leader?  In assessing the traits of my new boyfriend, the answer is a resounding yes.

Does he fit the bill physically? Well, he looks nothing like my father (that would be creepy), but he is tall – not just taller than the guys I’ve dated, but as tall as a basketball player. I can sit in his lap. I get to feel like Carrie did with Aidan. When my best friend from high school heard how tall my boyfriend was, she texted me: “Cougel, it’s about time. I remember how you used to say you wanted to date a manly guy… tall and strong like your Israeli relatives.”

This dawned on me yesterday (and consequently inspired this post), when my new boyfriend, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon when we could have been outside brunching and drinking, helped me set up a system of organization for my new job, which requires thorough record keeping. I’m a techtard, and have been anxious to get the appropriate methods set up that work for me. My new boyfriend understands this. With my computer in his lap, and excel open, he morphed into a teacher, before my eyes.  He asked me what I needed, and then walked me through Excel-hell, step by step. I got frustrated and impatient, not knowing exactly what I needed and wanting to get outside.  I felt like a little girl. I went back in time to when I was in the ninth grade cramming for a math test (I sucked at math), and sitting with my dad in the dining room as he tutored me (he was an accountant).  I would throw little “I don’t want to be here” fits, which my father didn’t indulge. 

Just like my boyfriend.

I think that us women, in some small way, like to feel like little girls with the men we are dating. We don’t want to be the boss – even though we act bossy. We want a man who takes charge, who can teach us about things we don’t know (or have the patience to learn), because sometimes they know what we need better than we do. I don’t care if this sounds anti-feminist. I think that women are wired a certain way, as a result of how we were raised, and it’s just the way it is. Rather than rejecting this – which might lead to poor choices (ie. partnering with the wrong guy), don’t you think we should embrace it?

It’s not important to over analyze it, or attempt to track back the exact thing about our fathers that we want or don’t want in a man. It’s not going to be obvious. It’s going to crop up in random moments and interactions, when the man we are with does something that just feels comfortable and familiar, in all the good ways. 

It just feels like home.