You totally nailed it! It's funny that this made me remember a talk show I saw years ago that had the unusual premise of the opposite--there were all these people claiming that fathers were worthless because they'd done fine in single parent homes. Which in a way was the same idea--I mean, just because you went fine without a father doesn't mean that the father meant nothing to someone else who might have had an important relationship with theirs.

But that show was unusual. Usually there's this starting point that a two parent home is best and it's based on really faulty premises, especially when you're applying it to a real situation. Being biologically related to a person and even knowing that he's your father doesn't necessarily mean they're giving you something in life you couldn't live without. There is often this whole idea that kids, especially in movies, are operating under some longing for a father figure by instinct. And even in cases where they do benefit from a father figure that doesn't mean they were having a problem because they didn't have a father. They may have just been a kid in a situation where a certain kind of personality helped them.

I do love that your therapist eventually saw reason because I can't imagine how irritating it must be to have someone telling you you must waste 3 hours of your week with someone you just don't care to see. You're not covering up some hidden neurosis by saying that, you just know the relationship and get nothing from it. I mean, sure everyone would benefit from a father with whom they had a positive, loving relationship--but people benefit from any positive, loving relationship. Nobody assumes a kid absolutely must be close to their grandfather or have siblings in order to be "normal" yet plenty of people who do have those things get something out of it. Everyone's different! You are close to the people you wind up being dealt in life who provide that for you.