Apologies for the thread title, I’m not asking for incest experiences! I was just wondering if the “everyone ends up with their mother/father” idea has any truth behind it among the posters here. Have you ever dated someone very similar to one of your parents? Do you think this may have had something to do with your initial attraction to them?
My experience:
My mum has commented that some of my boyfriends that they remind her strongly of my father, which squicks me out a little. Dad’s a fantastic guy, but I’d rather not date him. Physically, I guess I am attracted to guys who resemble my father (but not too closely). Looking back, everyone I’ve dated is tall, of an average weight and dark haired like my Dad. Those are about the only physical features they had in common though, and they probably encompass at least 20% of guys my age.
Less superficially, my past boyfriends have been fairly similar in personality to my father. Most are academic types, who play at least one instrument and have more than a passing admiration for Pink Floyd (Dad’s a rabid fan). Almost all were pretty gentle guys, slow to anger and considerate of other people. Unfortunately, like my father they were all a little too fond of alcohol and pot.
I know these are pretty broad characteristics, but when I consider guys my friends are with now, it seems like some of them are dating men who share nothing in common with their father other than some manly anatomic parts.
Eerily, my very first boyfriend was a carbon copy of Dad, just a foot shorter with red hair.
I have dated guys like my dad - guys who were nice people but still living in the 19th century when it came to relationship expectations. Needless to say they never lasted long. I think, like my dad, they hid it fairly well. The current guy isn’t like my dad at all, as far as I can tell.
Aside from my preference intelligent, quiet introverted guys with a fondness for gadgets, my past BFs aren’t much like my dad at all.
In fact, many of the characteristics I look for in a man are the opposite of the kind of man my father is, seeing as I have no intention of repeating my mother’s mistakes (my folks are divorced - bitterly so, in fact).
Nope. I’ve dated only average-height, fat, nerdy dudes who for the most part are sissies and, as it turns out, don’t really think I’m all that awesome.
My dad is a tall, thin, uneducated, blue-collar tough guy who thinks I’m the shit.
My dad was a very tall, strong, brilliant man with a very charismatic and dominating personality. When you grow up with a man like that, how can any average man possibly be attractive to you? He was imprinted strongly on me as how a man should be. I’m still, at 39, strongly attracted to this type of man, but I have learned that they are almost always assholes and I don’t date them anymore. They’re not good for me.
My biological father was an mostly-absent, completely emotionally-unengaged hardass. My first stepfather was physically and emotionally abusive. My second stepfather was kind, but lazy and not very smart.
I married a warm, hardworking, smart, decent, gentle and generous guy… the kind of guy I would have picked out as a father for myself if I’d been given the option. My daughter’s pretty lucky there
I dated quite a few losers, but I don’t think I ever hit on the specific combinations of loserdom that comprised my father-figures.
Interesting you say that. I have clear childhood memories of my dad rubbing his stubbled cheek on my face when he hugged me, and I still love that feeling of stubble against my skin.
Not even close. My parents were amongst the weirdest people I’ve ever met. They meant well, but their read on life and relationships was pretty much diametrically opposed to mine. They had an angry confrontational relationship which influenced my doubts about the importance of marriage. They were not physically violent, but there was no respect at all. Yeah, I’m unmarried, but it’s not the worse situation to be in.
I think it happens a lot for the same reason people in foreign lands seek out a McDonald’s after a certain amount of time – because after a time of trying out new and interesting stuff you just want something familiar.
My father is an engineer, my husband is a physicist (frying pan to fire there). The way they both approach the world is by no means normal (an engineer thinks as well as a human but not in the same way) but I am familiar with it and I know how to carry on a long term relationship with such a person.
My MIL and I were on the surface as different as two people can be – I was raised urban American, she rural Dutch. I have had an excesssive amount of education, she did not. But in the broad strokes – our approach to problems, what we valued, our way of dealing with people – we were very much alike.
One of my sisters married a guy who is just like our stepfather and not at all like our father. It is much the same dynamic – she married a guy who reacted in ways she found familiar.
My dad is a very extroverted friendly man who values practical skills over mental skills. My husband is an introverted man who takes time to get to know people and values intellect over practical skills.
My mother-in-law is manic depressive and values physical beauty, having had liposuction, false teeth, eye laser surgery (so she didn’t have to wear glasses) etc. I am a reasonably happy-go-lucky person who values the person inside far more than the outside physicality, possibly because being a fat person, I don’t like being judged negatively.
So I don’t think either of us has married our mother/father!
I’ve only had two serious boyfriends (one of which is current) and they are nothing at all like my dad; perhaps purposely on some level. My dad was a hot-tempered, arrogant, bullheaded control-freak with misogynistic tendencies. (Age has mellowed him somewhat though.)
My current SO is very sweet, laid-back, and thoughtful; he doesn’t like to talk just to hear his own voice and he certainly isn’t a control-freak. I’ve never been attracted to men with my dad’s type-A pesonality.
He is tall and dark-haired, though, just like Dad.
I’m tall myself, though, so I’ve always been attracted to tall guys. And dark hair also, though I never really thought about it til now. I guess my blonde hair bores me; I like the contrast.
My dad had vanished completely by the time I was nine. My stepdad was the Devil.
I tend to like men far older than me, and more than one person has said I’m searching for a father figure. shrug I don’t think so, but of course I wouldn’t, would I?
I dated a guy in college who had a very similar temperment to my dad. I really, really liked this guy, but things never worked out on the dating front. I admired the many positive qualities he shared with my dad, but whoa … when we clashed, it pushed all my buttons. To this day, he is one of those people about whom I’d say he’s a fantastic guy, someone else should date him, but definitely not me. Which is also something one might say about one’s father … eek. Who knows, maybe subliminally I had a conflict about the similarities.
Mr. Del isn’t much at all like my dad, but they both have a certain wry approach to some situations, so everyone once in a very great while, Mr. Del will say something that makes me think of my father. That feels okay to me, it happens so seldom that when it does, it strikes me as pleasantly funny.
Not only did I marry my father – my husband married his mother! :eek:
In some (really important) ways, not in every respect of course.
We both needed to work through some issues.
And I think it worked. It’s been 20 years. Pretty much all that’s left now of the parent-in-spouse is what we’re busy projecting.
My wife’s nothing like my mother. Well, thats not true literally - they’re both good people, hard working, love their children, etc. But they’re very different personalities.
I’m also nothing at all like her father, or her stepfather.
Funny, because my father has had a beard for my entire life (I don’t even know what he looks like clean-shaven, actually)… and yet, I’ve always preferred men who either have no facial hair at all, or something smallish like a soul patch or goatee. Full beards are a total turn-off for me.
Given that I avoid any man who’s too much like my father, though, I guess it makes sense.
