Your dad sounds like my mother. Funny, but my late H and my bf were both smothered by their moms (my bf's mom is still at it!), and those two men attracted me... what to make of that...
Interesting...because I would think that someone who grew up being smothered by their mother might want/expect something similar from a wife.
Well, I probably did/do smother them, but not in the same way their moms did/do. I have been overly involved in their lives, as it put it in another thread, "doing their work instead of my own." Both men have been very high maintenance, my late H with many health issues, and my bf with money/alcohol/other issues. So in a way, their sitches dragged me into them and I'm forced to "smother." With my H, I really had no choice (at least at the conscious level) because he literally had many life-threatening issues. But with my bf, I've become much more differentiated, and when his stuff needs work, I resist interfering. Not all the time, but most of the time. Even so, I dragged him to a R workshop, and insisted that he go into therapy. But I stay out of his finances, his housekeeping, and when he was drinking (mercifully he quit two years ago), I went to alanon. It's been a real path of growth for me to hold myself back from "smothering."
What cobra said makes sense to me for myself. I do tend to have a push-pull style of relating. I want the guy around, until he's actually there, then I want to withdraw. Back and forth, back and forth. I don't want to be vulnerable, mainly because my bf can be unkind when he smells vulnerability. If you have time, read the article on heather's thread ("Am I creating an SSM?") on The Stockholm Syndrome. It talks about how we get bonded to people who are unkind and even abusive.
