Dear Daughter: A girl dad's marriage advice on love, pain, healing and the law

INTRODUCTION

During my divorce after 21 years of marriage, I uncovered a truth that dropped me and my daughter to our knees. I learned that my now adult daughter—my baby girl—is NOT my biological child. The daughter whose umbilical cord I had cut as I caressed her in a blanket against my chest. The daughter whom I had taken on her first date to the daddy/daughter dance at elementary school. The daughter that I drove to college and helped to move into her dorm room for her freshman year away from home.

My only daughter.

A chance paternity test uncovered the truth. When I opened the envelope and saw the DNA results reading Probability of Paternity 0%, I was floored. It was as if my apartment spun in painful slow motion. It was the darkest moment of my life to date. Then, three months later that darkness turned pitch black. After a second paternity test that confirmed the first result, I had to finally tell my daughter the horrible truth. As we sat in my car and wiped each other’s tears, I saw a deep sorrow in her eyes that I had never witnessed. I pray that I never see such sorrow in her or anyone ever again.

But through my deep pain also came a sense of clarity and even relief. So much of what I had suspected about my so-called marriage, but had not fully understood, came into focus. The root of the frustrating behavior I endured began to make sense. I thought to myself, Show me a woman who missed being nurtured and protected by her father, and I’ll show you a wife who will lash out against her husband. Show me a woman who has not resolved or at least confronted her own ‘daddy issues,’ and I’ll show you a mother who will inevitably wound her own children.

Dear Daughter, is a love letter from a father (me) to his daughter to empower her to become a healthy woman who can handle a successful love relationship and marriage. This book is particularly for women who are considering marriage and having children. After all, in America, marriage remains the ideal relationship under which children are often born and, unfortunately, issues of paternity and broken relationships occur. The book contains the information that I want my daughter to know about love and relationships to help her to create her own much healthier family if she chooses to become a wife and mother.

The book, in the tangible form of words on pages, embodies the loving relationship that my daughter and I have maintained since she was a baby. She is a classic daddy’s girl, and I’m the adoring dad. But, ironically, my daughter now faces potential daddy issues like many young women whose fathers are not in their lives—issues imposed upon them by someone else. My hope is that through our father/daughter bond remaining strong, that the stunning reality of our genetic brokenness will not drive her to personal disarray or denial. I want her (and other women) to understand that if she does not confront her daddy issues she WILL have relationship problems. Inevitably she will wound her husband, and even worse, her innocent children.

Ironically, I have been blessed to be a father to many. Close friends of my daughter and sons, while growing up, also call me Dad—particularly my daughter’s friends who have not had healthy relationships with their fathers. This book is written to them also, as well as the many women who have been wounded to help them to NOT pass on their pain to their loved ones. This realization became crystal clear to me when I was asked to speak at a Baltimore, Maryland area workshop for women who had been wounded by their fathers. I shared my story to help them to heal. Their overwhelmingly positive response helped ME to heal. The experience helped to shape this book.

When fathers wound their daughters, the consequences are often far-reaching for generations. Fathers are key to giving daughters a positive sense of identity, self-love and security that they will need as women and potentially wives and mothers. Fathers are vital to helping shape their daughters’ views of men. These are the roots of daddy issues. When a father fails to pass these keys on to his daughter, and if the daughter in turn fails to take accountability for her daddy issues and actions as an adult woman, she WILL lash out at her husband. If she becomes a mother, she WILL pass down her pain to her own children, particularly her daughter for whom she is the primary role model. Sons are obviously not immune to daddy (or mommy) issues. If the father is absent, or is present but dysfunctional, the chain of pain will pass to the son also. Ultimately, wounded children grow up to become wounded adults who create dysfunctional relationships, marriages, families, and so on, and so on . . .

Two decades of matrimony ought to teach a person something about what it takes for a healthy couple’s partnership to work. To get off of my un-merry-go-’round relationship, I had finally come to grips with the fact that the so-called marriage hadn’t been working and never would. To many observers, my marriage and family appeared to be healthy. Oh, what a lovely couple, people would say. You guys with your three great children are like an all-American TV family. However, the reality of the so-called perfect marriage and family is that it doesn’t exist! TV families aren’t real and the actors are often dysfunctional and flawed in their private lives. Reality TV is scripted. For too many American families, including my family of five, the appearance of perfection is often a smokescreen for deep pains and sins—known and unknown.

In America, where the average marriage lasts about three to five years, the longevity of my union was enough to convince many friends and associates that I had found the secret to making it work. But like many people I know, I should have never said, I do in the first place. I had glossed over the deal-breaking signs that we were obviously NOT the ones for each other. Many of my family members and close friends were saddened but not shocked about the breakup. However, none of them saw coming the shocking truth concerning my daughter’s paternity. Now at this point, if you are considering getting married, you might be thinking, Why would I want to take marriage advice from a divorced (or technically divorced) man? Please, keep reading.

Dear Daughter illustrates the type of pain-saving wisdom that many women miss out on when their father/daughter relationship is broken or nonexistent. The book shows that most couples are trying to make work a marriage that needed much more preparation and evaluation BEFORE saying I do. It addresses some warning signs to heed to avoid winding up with the wrong person and much more. While the personal stories in the book are written from the perspective of a middle-aged heterosexual man—that’s who I am and what I know—there is also much here for people considering a same-sex marriage. At least two of my daughter’s friends—my additional daughters—are openly gay. All readers will learn that, unlike the message in the classic 1970s song, Cheaper to Keep Her, it’s not always cheaper—emotionally or financially—to stay in a relationship—with a woman or a man—that has no hope of fulfillment. And believe me, as a veteran of a long marriage that had its troubles even before the knot was officially tied, I know what I’m talking about. This book offers advice for those who are considering marrying for the first time or remarrying. It will help you discover who you are and to be honest about what you want in a marriage partner. It will help you to avoid being the object of someone else’s pain, or worse—passing on your pain to your innocent child.

Over the course of a more than 25-year print, online and broadcast journalism career, I’ve been blessed to interview and mingle with a variety of people all over the country and abroad who are of different races, ethnicities and social classes. I’ve been privy to some of the most intimate details of their lives. In more recent years, on my radio show and podcast, The Wil LaVeist Show, which originates from Hampton, Virginia, guests have spoken about their marriage trials, and relationship experts have doled out advice to listeners. A guest who was adopted by a loving married couple shared the trials of her 35-year quest to find her biological parents. While altered to obscure their identities, the stories here are based on my subjects’, friends’ and acquaintances’ collective experiences and personal anecdotes. Advice comes from me and relationship professionals. My citing and quoting of certain experts does not mean nor imply that they endorse my views expressed in this book.

The shocking truth I received about my daughter’s paternity during my divorce certainly floored me. Later in the book, I recount in detail the moment I opened the envelope and read the paternity results. I discuss the Virginia judge and his puzzling contradictory divorce ruling. I discuss why antiquated paternity fraud laws should be changed so that the guilty are held accountable and the innocent—particularly the child—are able to obtain legal justice. (As a result of my meeting with a member of the Virginia General Assembly, a senate bill was introduced in 2017). Uncovering the truth that I am not my daughter’s biological father has been by far the darkest moment of my life. Darker than being blindsided by a firing, which led me to write my award-winning book Fired Up. Darker than facing the death of my mother. However, this is not a woe is me diatribe. I remain pro marriage! And I will always be pro daughters—especially my daughter.

CHAPTER 1

GET TO KNOW YOURSELF FIRST

My Wonderful Daughter,

It seems like just the other day that I would stand over your crib in the middle of the night just after you were born. I would feed you before heading to my newspaper job on the 3 a.m. copy desk. Before heading out the bedroom door, I would marvel at your beauty as you drifted back to sleep. Now in your mid-20s, I am so proud of the young woman that you have evolved into. Do you still remember what I would always tell you while you were growing up? That it’s not how pretty you are on the outside, but how pretty you are on the inside that counts most? I had no idea of the deeper meaning that my words would hold for us as father and daughter now that we know the painful truth after so many years.

You are coming into your own as a woman now. Your identity is critical. Despite the challenge of the identity of your biological father, you must never lose your sense of self, even along your complex journey to personal discovery. Don’t even think about getting married, blending your life with the goals and dreams of another person, if you haven’t become confident in knowing yourself first. The root cause of many failed marriages goes back to this one simple yet major mistake people make: thinking marriage will help them put their problems and issues in the past, and that another person will be the elixir to most, if not all that ails them. Listen: You’ve got to take responsibility for getting yourself right on your own terms before you get married—in fact, before you get involved in a major relationship, period. You likely won’t resolve all of your issues (and you’re not alone—everyone has issues), but it’s imperative that you put the major ones to rest and that you continue working on yourself.

I call these issues unpacked luggage. These are the major unresolved hurts, insecurities, pet peeves, bad habits and the like that people drag around throughout their lives. When you arrive home after a long trip, what do you do? You unpack your luggage, right? In a marriage, you’ll unpack the suitcases of your past when you get home with your mate and the smell of your dirty laundry will fill the room. And even after you’ve done the work to get to know your own self, inevitably you’ll still bring some of your luggage to a relationship. But one thing’s for sure: You can vow to deal with your soiled clothes before you get involved with someone. You need to first know clearly what’s in your own bags before you embark on what would be a lifetime of handling your soul mate’s issues, too. But most of all, my daughter, by confronting your issues, you can significantly decrease the chances that you’ll pass on your pain to your mate and children. Your dad is with you. I will always have your back. I love you unconditionally.

This chapter will explore some of the types of issues you should work on before entering a relationship, and will provide tips and tools to help you do your own internal work first to heal, whether you work on it with a counselor (which I highly recommend) or do it yourself. This will help you to be better aware of what’s going on in your own head, and to avoid pairing up with a person who’s wrong for you. If you have a better sense of who you are as an individual, what you want in a relationship, and where you’re going in life, you will be able to project these into the universe instead of unknowingly projecting what you DON’T want. What you project out into the universe—whether desirable or undesirable—will return to you, so project wisely.

LAW OF ATTRACTION: Like Attracts Like

The law of attraction is a concept that says, like a magnet, we draw people and circumstances to ourselves based on the energy that we project into the universe. It works whether you dispatch positive or negative energy. The law is believed to work just like any of the other laws of the universe; for example, the law of gravity: If you toss something up, it will certainly fall down. Though there is no scientific proof to the law of attraction, there are many who believe in it. Author James Allen elaborated on it in his classic 1902 book, As a Man Thinketh:

Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking-glass.

Clearly woman (the man with the womb) is included in Allen’s use of the term man, meaning humans. Marriage is definitely about what’s in the minds of two people and the union created from their thoughts. As Allen wrote, and I paraphrase a bit here, the environment is but your looking-glass.

So back to resolving your issues and how the law of attraction relates to it and a successful, or far too often, unsuccessful marriage. For example, if you were traumatized by a parent as a child,