Healing the Father Wound on Father’s Day
Coming to terms with the father you didn’t have so you can heal
Father’s Day is around the corner. Whether you had a good relationship with your father or not, society has a tendency to minimize or satirize the complicated relationships that we might have with our parents without truly addressing them. A woman with “Daddy’s issues,” is both a joke and a caricature even though a woman with these issues might have lifelong patterns that put her at risk for victimization and unsuitable relationships without understanding why.
As much as I love a heartwarming story and film about a father and child or a father who changes his ways, more often than not, we have fathers who don’t change and may never change.
We have absent fathers. Neglectful fathers. Silent fathers. Abusive fathers. Fathers who triangulate. Fathers who compete with their children. Fathers who use their children to fulfill their needs. Fathers who parentify their own children. Fathers who touch or kiss their children inappropriately. Fathers who make their own children confidantes when it is age-inappropriate. Fathers who make their kids feel that they’re not enough. Fathers who make their children compete with one another for attention and love. Fathers who make their daughters feel like a second wife or a mistress…
