Father’s and son’s - it’s almost the epitome of difficult relationships in our society. Either they get along great and have a deep connection, they get along ok but the connection is shallow and superficial, or they barely speak. More often than not it is one of the latter two. Now maybe there is some gray area in there as well but that is the basic gist of the modern day father and son relationship.

The more important question than the “how” the relationship works is the “why”. Now we all know the stereotypes - men have to be strong, not show weakness, not show emotion, men don’t have emotions, men relate to each other differently. But for all the examples we can find that fit this stereotype we can also find exceptions…and it’s not the only thing that gets in the way of father/son relationships.

Take my father and I as an example. For nearly 20 years he and I struggled with having a healthy close relationship. For two decades I held my father at arms length, closed him off from knowing about my life, and shut him down when he tried to get more involved. I had good reasons when I was younger - my father had problems and I was absorbing the behaviors and caught in the middle of the fallout sometimes. I spent a good part of that 20 years dealing with my resulting demons. But what held my father and I apart was not the typical male distance and emotional connection. It wasn’t judgment and it wasn’t the typical “son doesn’t follow the father’s footsteps” dissatisfaction.

It was anger. Anger at behavior and actions that had been a part of my childhood. Anger at actions that mostly ended 15 years ago. So why did it take me so long to see the difference? Well, simply put we each needed to grow up a little bit. When we were finally ready though, it took a lot of work to repair that rift. We started with some hard conversations about the reality of our relationship. First I needed to admit that the judgments I held about my father’s behaviors and past weren’t valid or true any more. He had spent that 20 years doing as much work on himself as I had and I needed to give him the credit for making those changes. But what it really took to repair the relationship and begin the evolution was a shift on my part. I had to let go of my holding him at arms length. I had to let go of my need to protect myself and instead be vulnerable with him. I had to tell him the places and ways I had been hurt and then I had to listen to him tell me his perspective and changes he had made since.

In short - we had to be vulnerable with each other. We had to share and listen to the other person’s pain and anger - and then we had to let it go. We had help through this process too. We found a common language of terms and ideas so that we could understand what the other was saying. We had others sit with us and guide us through healthy communication patterns when we fell back to our old way. Most of all it took honesty. We had to be honest with ourselves, honest with each other, and honest with our family.

In the end, or the beginning depending on how you look at it, we have come to a place of greater understanding and acceptance of each other and ourselves. We have learned to have the give and take with each other that we have in our other relationships with family, friends, co-workers, and partners. For only in this way, treating each other with trust and equality, were we really able to repair the relationship and evolve to a more equal level of respect and engagement.

It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been well worth the effort!

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