I have a dilemma … I love my girlfriend to death, and I’m sure we’ll get married one day, but my little girl (who’s 21 and in school) won’t hear of it. When she was only 9 years old, her mother died … and since then, she’s had me all to herself. My girlfriend has two children of her own, and although my daughter is very confident, I think she’s afraid of being outnumbered and losing me.
Even when children appear to be very secure in a parent’s love, they can be afraid of losing it, especially if they’ve already lost one parent. But rather than think of a father as withdrawing his love, a child might prefer to think of somebody else as taking it.
It’s easier, in this case, for the daughter to fend off the girlfriend as a threat … than to admit to herself and her father that she’s afraid of losing his devotion. Intellectually, the “little girl” knows that her father is there for her, always, but she still feels vulnerable.
The father described her as being “high maintenance”; and because he is always there, she might not realize that she’s capable of low maintenance or of handling some of the maintenance on her own.… More