With regards to any distinction between a spiritual “director” vs. a spiritual “father,” I personally believe it is all a matter of semantics. Spiritual directors and fathers/mothers pretty much function in the same capacity. It is not necessary that they also be a confessor, although there is obviously an element of the “direction” that will involve opening oneself up to one’s director/father/mother, and confessing one’s sins without receiving absolution (if your director/father/mother is not a priest).
The point of the role of director/father/mother is that they will be someone who journeys
with you, at least for a time, on your path of spiritual growth because they are people who have already struggled up that path. They will be able to show you the path, help you up when you stumble, and guide you back to the path when you stray. This seems to me to be the essential element of spiritual direction/fatherhood/motherhood.
In either tradition, East or West, it is not necessary that the director/father/mother be a priest, monk or nun. All that is necessary is that the person guiding be experienced; i.e. has been through the spiritual journey themselves and can offer appropriate guidance based off of their own experience as well as the experiences of others (such as the great mystics/fathers/mothers of the past). It is also not necessary that one have only one guide throughout their entire life and/or period of spiritual formation. St. Teresa of Avila herself had multiple guides throughout her journey, and a good many of those were lay married men and women.
It is also interesting to note a minor distinction here. St. Teresa of Avila emphasized that the director be educated/knowledgable in the sense of “book-learning.” St. John of the Cross, on the other hand, emphasized that the director be experienced, and that it is better to find an experienced guide than an educated one. The ideal would be to find a guide that is both experienced and educated. I personally have been blessed with a spiritual father who is both, but I recognize that this is really an exception from the common experience.
From what I’ve read it would seem that the Eastern/Byzantine tradition would also have a preference for an experienced guide over an educated one. Ideally the guide would not only be experienced, but well-read in the writings of the great spiritual masters. Today, with the explosion of publications we now have available, it seems relatively easy to find a guide well-read in the spiritual masters, but extremely difficult to find a guide who is experienced.
So, long story short, I don’t believe there is any difference in role between a spiritual director vs. a spiritual father/mother. But that’s just one man’s opinion.
In my experience they see their parish priest as their “spiritual father” basically because he hears their confession and in that counsels them and give them penance and absolution, and he preaches/teaches and gives them Eucharist, and anointing etc. 
Marital problems? You’d traditionally go to the priest with those, but I think there is less of that these days with younger couples. Converts and younger people talk about spiritual fathers and mothers, and possibly then seek something different, in a way I’ve not seen among older Orthodox nor Catholics, possibly because they’ve more likely than older lay people, to themselves have read the early church Fathers and writings of monastics, which will have address this issue.