We sat down with clinical psychologist Zamo Mbele to get a clearer understanding of some of the emotions, disruptions, and implications that this can bring to all the parties involved and how one can move forward after the devastating discovery.
THE REACTION
“On the aggregate of one finding this out, in whatever way they did, one would go through a great deal of uncertainty and a lot of ambivalence. The ambivalence is related to the idea of ‘How exactly do I feel about this?’,” he says. “One would also go through a lot of frustration, perhaps a lot of anger. The anger at the best of times is usually masking the hurt, the disappointment, the sadness and the sense of disbelief,” Mbele continues.
Give yourself an opportunity to process what you’ve gone through and acknowledge the pain.
Mbele says that the feeling can be likened to those that one would go through when mourning. He says that while they are not the same experience, the process is almost like grief.
“If you look at the five stages of grief – denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and acceptance – it makes sense to locate it around this process. Not to say that the process is linear, it could be interchangeable or parallel,” he says.
IMPLICATIONS ON THE CHILD
Mbele says that the implication on the child is predetermined on what the relationship looked like before. So if a father was never really there and was never considered what Mbele calls an attachment figure, then his decision to stay or leave might not have much impact on the child.
“However, if they indeed had a relationship and the father was considered an attachment figure, then it would have enormous, long-standing and potentially life-changing consequences for the child,” he says.
“For a child, to have somebody in their life who they are attached to suddenly taken away with very little explanation can have a severe impact. This can distort the child’s sense of security, sense of stability and their sense of trust in their relationships for a long time,” Mbele explains.
THE PEOPLE INVOLVED
It’s important to remember that the child is only one individual in the whole make-up of the situation. Mbele says that the other individuals include the “father”, the mother and the biological father of the child.
“There are a lot of people in this matrix and the child is really only just one of them. It will really depend on how the father responds to the situation,” he says.
Mbele goes on to say that one of the incredibly important factors to consider in these situations is how the ‘father’ views his role.
“You could almost think of categories of these where Father A sees himself as ‘father’ purely by biological extension, as opposed to Father B who understands himself as a father through the relationship developed and nurtured with the child. In this regard, this father would be more likely to stay, because he understands that it’s not just a biological link,” Mbele explains.
If I’m going to remove myself from the child, how do I do it in a way that is not damaging?
He says that there are also fathers who see their main duty as the “financier” of the child and decide to stay or go based on economics. And then there are customary fathers, who understand his role according to custom and traditions and considers if he’s ancestrally linked to the said child and if he’s introduced the child to the ancestors.
“While these are four possibly distinct categories, you might find that a little of all of them exist within an individual. The primary understanding of ‘fatherness’ is what will determine largely how fathers respond to the news,” Mbele explains.
MOVING FORWARD
Mbele says that there are three things to consider in moving forward:
- Give yourself an opportunity to process what you’ve gone through and acknowledge the pain, the loss and the anger that comes with this revelation.
- Consider the other players in this matrix.
- The most important point is to always consider the child. Part of the responsibility of being good parents is, in fact, knowing how to look after our children and their experiences first – to put them ahead of our own. This is the biggest thing to consider: ‘If I’m going to remove myself from the child, how do I do it in a way that is not damaging to the child? How do I do it in a way that doesn’t undo the past? And if I’m going to stay, how do I do it in a way that will be inclusive of the biological father if he comes into the picture in a non-selfish or self-interested way?”
Culled
