Oh! Also I wanted to share something with you. When I talked all this over with my T - about the need for the father who was a true father - I made a choice to allow my inner child to ask T to fill that void while I was going through healing. I talked with T and understood that I am to learn how to parent myself in the long run. But I had that NEED and I had to have it met first from a safe external father before I could learn how to be that "father" internally.

My T graciously accepted the role. My alter who is the 8 yr old female actually made T a card saying "Thank you for being our new daddy." T had tears in his eyes.
I could not have done the level of trauma healing I had to do without my "T daddy" there for me. I had to allow myself to trust him to be what I did not have. THAT was not easy at all! But he did it. Of course you know from my posts here that it has not been all a bed of roses. This week was yet another major bump in the road of trust. But once again he proved to me he was there and had not gone anywhere. (( He actually had a death in his immediate family and I did not know that until last night! )). But I was able to take all the abandonment pain I had while he was emotionally out of pocket - and I was able to use that to explore that pain abandonment root even further.

Hope this helps in some way. More big hugs to you!!!