An infantile father

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Infantilism is the immaturity, childishness and underdevelopment of the psyche. An infantile person is a person dominated by inappropriate behavior, inability to take responsibility for their actions, inability to make independent decisions, lack of life goals, any aspirations. This condition involves the presence of an adult in behavior and character, as well as in a child. Infantilism is quite common in the practice of psychologists, which leads to the appearance of other problems in an individual's life. A person can fight this manifestation, however, he will need constant work on himself.

An infantile father

Unwilling for a new role, he does not accept the change in the relationship brought about by the birth of a child, perceives the loss of a woman's attention and love as rejection and often reacts with jealousy.

When a woman gives birth to a child, she naturally turns to the baby and pays attention to it. It is a natural process because the mother enters into a symbiosis with the child, which means that she acts as if the child is a part of her personality. While during pregnancy the child was a part of her body, she, after giving birth, continues to act as if the child is a part of her, as a part of her Self. Psychic symbiosis means that the mother and the baby, that is, a small child, act as if they are a whole, as if they are one person. The intensive phase of symbiosis lasts until the child's third or fourth year.

An emotionally mature man accepts the symbiotic relationship between mother and child as something that is natural and takes care to satisfy the needs of both mother and child. If the husband was in the first place with the wife before the birth of the child in terms of her attention, now he accepts that the child is in the first place, and he is in the second place.

Unconscious emotions

Unlike an emotionally mature man, that is, a husband and father, an infantile man is unprepared for the role of father. He does not accept the change in the relationship brought about by the birth of a child. He perceives the woman's turning towards the child as a loss of her attention and love, as a rejection. That is why it is often that he reacts to the appearance of a child with jealousy. Instead of reacting like a father, he actually reacts like an older brother who now has to share love with a younger brother or sister.

An infantile father may be aware of this jealousy, but it may also be on an unconscious level. Here is an example of unconscious jealousy towards a child: after the birth of a child, the husband began to experience that the wife loved him less, which he explained to himself by saying that she certainly has a lover. After spying on her looking for who could be her lover, he began drowning his suffering in alcohol, which led to alcoholism and then to divorce.

The attitude of the infantile father towards the child is usually ambivalent, which means that he accepts the child on one level, while he does not accept and reject him on another. This is best seen in the reduced tolerance of the child's actions, so that he very quickly becomes irritated by the child's behavior, after which he either withdraws from communication or reacts verbally rudely and punishes the child inappropriately. When we look at the way of raising a child by an infantile father, then we find elements of neglect of the child, but also occasional acts of abuse.

Another problem an infantile father has after a mother turns to a small child is boredom. While before the birth of the child, he enjoyed the relationship with his partner, because they practiced various forms of entertainment together, life with a woman facing a small child became extremely boring for him. Here is one example: after the birth of a child, the husband stopped leaving the house, moved to the couch, watched television and drank beer, believing that his presence in the house showed his wife solidarity. After a year, that led him to the conclusion that "marriage is not for him" and the request for divorce.

Most infantile fathers run away from boredom and start running away from home. Considering that the upbringing and education of a small child is a "woman's thing", they start going out on their own, having fun, sometimes with alcohol and drugs, often with other women. And this behavior leads to quarrels and often to divorce.

If an infantile father wants to divorce, mainly because he has found a new love, divorce is relatively unproblematic. But if his wife wants that, he feels rejected, which is why he protests violently and is stubborn. It is typical for her to threaten to take her children away from the court and to launch a campaign of denigrating a woman among friends and relatives.

Good for fun, bad for marriage

How does an infantile father treat a child after a divorce? At the time when he sees a child or behaves like an older brother who brings gifts and plays with the child or barely lasts an hour or two in company with the child, after which the child leads his parents who as grandparents actually take care of the child in his terms.

Infantile men are very fun and active, so they are a great choice for fun. But they are a bad choice for a serious relationship and marriage. Girls and young women often have the fantasy that an infantile man will mature emotionally when he gets married and has a child. Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, they do not change so quickly. Many need a decade to mature, and some never change. All this makes the divorce the most probable result of such a choice of a man.