How to accept that my father has avoidant parenting attachment style and not being let down

Hi S.  Thanks for your meaningful & important question about attachment and parenting styles.

First, I can imagine from your statement that you are feeling emotionally vulnerable right now, and when we're vulnerable it's normal to crave our parents' attention and care.  I also imagine that you're experiencing an underlying sense of rejection and betrayal due to your breakup, and that these feelings are exacerbated by feeling that your dad has also rejected and betrayed you.  Again, this is a normal reaction to a situation (a breakup) that generally brings out feelings of insecurity, and that leaves us questioning our identity and worth.  I bring this up because you are emotionally vulnerable right now and probably more susceptible to experiencing your dad's failure to visit as an affront, rather that viewing it as a neutral event that is not a statement about you or about your dad's feelings for you.

There are several angles to your question, including that you don't want to feel "let down," and I assume by "let down" you mean disappointed and rejected.  You also make mention of your fears, stating that you want to keep living "in a positive way."  You also make mention of the effects that your relationship with your dad has on you, especially on your choice of partner and decisions about having or not having a family.  When it comes to feeling rejected and disappointed, there is more than one way to approach the problem.  One way to deal with this is to accept that you feel disappointed and rejected right now rather than fighting these feelings.  After all and as I wrote in my introductory paragraph, feeling disappointed and rejected is more or less normal under these circumstances.  Most likely these feelings are temporary, and will start to go away as you heal from your breakup and from recent events with your dad.  But if you find that these feelings are more persistent and that they're interfering with your day to day life, which you allude to in your follow-up statements, you can certainly work on changing your emotional responses using a variety of methods.  While a therapist might be helpful here, many people find ways to change emotional responses on their own, including developing new self-care practices such as grounding or journaling, changing routines such as social activities and exercise, and cultivating practices such as meditation.  

In many ways, it sounds like the problem here isn't so much the incident (your dad's inability or unwillingness to visit) but your interpretation of that event.  Rather than seeing this as an unfortunate but explainable circumstance, it seems like part of you sees it as an extension of emotional neglect that you experienced with your dad earlier in life. And at heart, I would bet that the reason you experience the event this way is because it brings up painful feelings and beliefs for you, such as beliefs that you're not good enough for your dad or that you aren't deserving of love.  Most of the time, when we're profoundly affected by an event in this way, it's because it activates these old hurts we're still carrying around.  And, as you rightly pointed out, these old hurts continue to affect us as adults and pop up in different ways, including in our choice of partner or in our choice to avoid romantic attachments.  While acknowledging this can be part of the solution, it can be really tough to break from old patterns.  If you're considering therapy, that's great, and aside from seeking therapy you can cultivate your relationship with your dad and with others who will support you.  Even though being hurt often results in a natural desire to isolate, this is exactly the time when it's more helpful to get closer to the people in our lives.

Best wishes.

Gabrielle