A father’s love

Before I hit puberty, my father and I were two peas in the proverbial pod. I followed him everywhere — his biggest fan. I wore mini-cheerleading-outfits for his college basketball games. I loved to go fishing and learned to hook my own worm. I used to go with him for poker night — until my mother found out.

You know that old adage, a girl marries someone like her father and a boy marries someone like his mother? I assumed I would marry someone like my father, but when I realized I was a lesbian I figured that couldn’t happen.

I was so wrong, I still married my father.

My father is a six-foot-two, black, basketball-playing Sagittarian from Louisiana. My wusband is a six-foot-two, black, basketball-playing Sagittarian from Louisiana. Yes. I’ve dated people of different races, genders and regions, yet ended up marrying my father.

If the similarities stopped with the aforementioned traits it would be a mere coincidence. But in the almost-three-years my wusband and I have been together, the reflection grew deeper. They like the same kind of food — both tell me I use too many spices. Both have a mean sweet tooth. If we’re sitting in the yard and I point out a particularly fat squirrel, both will speak of BB guns (to my dismay). They both have a fierce loyalty to their family, all family, no matter how many times removed. They both love me. You get the point.

When we first got together, all this sameness gave my wusband and I a kind of shorthand. I already knew how to cook a lot of her favorite food. I knew, through the wisdom of my mother, how to keep her from eating all the candy as soon as it comes in the house.

But the biggest benefit is understanding. I now have a greater understanding of my father — my wusband helps me understand his motivations, his point of view, his “Daddio” personality, in a way I didn’t before. I have a deeper, more harmonious relationship with my father because she explains him to me, not just in word but in deed.

It’s easier dating her than anyone else I ever dated, and I believe my father felt that in her. She’s the first one, male or female, he’s never had a complaint about — never took me aside to warn or question me. He quietly watched as we grew close, and after we eloped his only question was, “are you happy?” When I said yes, he said “that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

I had to get used to this more harmonious relationship with my father — not having to steel myself when we talk out of fear of a fight. I was confused when my relationship with him seemed to morph into one of a father and his adult daughter, and when I stopped feeling as though I needed to defend myself and my relationship, particularly one with a woman.

I was always extraordinarily
defensive about being queer. I held on to the idea that my father still had a hard time with me being a lesbian, even when he said himself he didn’t. I judged him for judging my choices of partners and let myself believe the reason he didn’t like someone was that she was a she.

Then I met my wusband, and finally understood my father’s displeasure with previous partner choices had more to do with what he observed about me. For the first time someone loved and cared for me the way he thought she should — he felt she had a true appreciation for me and my gifts. I think, for the first time, someone I loved truly felt like family to him.

I am so grateful for the gift that my wusband has been — not only the love that she has brought to my life but the love she has brought back to it — a love between a father and daughter.

Robyn Vie-Carpenter is a social columnist on the local and national LGBT community. r See more of Robyn’s columns online at ofcnow.co/TLS or find her on Twitter @TheLesSocialite.