When you are looking for a job online, you may scroll through job titles and job descriptions, all the while considering if you have the right qualifications for the job.
Relationships can also be like jobs. There are people that hold positions in your life that they are not qualified for.
If you do a google search for the word “father” it will produce many definitions. The first one this writer found was “a man in relation to his child or children”, but then if you look at another definition of the word “father”, you would also come across this: “a man who gives care and protection to someone or something”.
If you are a person who is estranged from their father, has a poor relationship with their father, was abandoned by their father, has or had a narcissistic father, you may struggle with them as a “father” in your life. The truth is, we have expectations. When we think of the word “father”, we think of what a good father should be, and we struggle with the distance between who our father is and who we believe they should be or should have been for us. If you do not or did not have the father that you needed, please know that they simply were not qualified for the position. There is a phrase that this writer came across years ago and it is a helpful reminder during difficult times: “Hurt people, hurt people”. I am unsure of who the author of that quote is.
Regardless, the person who hurt you? Who they were or were not to you, was never about you, it was about them and their own wounds.
Whether we want to or not, if we continue to view them in the “father” context, we will continue to have unrealistic expectations of them. The only person who will suffer from those unrealistic expectations is us. One way to eliminate those expectations and also find some inner peace surrounding your father, can be to think of them as an “uncle” instead. Now, some people might be quite close with an uncle or two and if that’s the case for you, it may not work so well. However, many people do not have a close relationship with their uncle, not like what you would expect to have with your father anyway, so this way of viewing things works quite well.
Perhaps, your relationship with your father is great and all of the above relates more to your mother, or even your sister. You would view your mother as your “aunt” and your sister as your “niece” or “cousin”, depending on their age. As a side note, it’s not that you need to start calling your mom Aunt Nancy, instead of Mom, it’s really more about how you think about them in your mind.
I have utilized this exercise in my own life with success and I can tell you that I have zero expectations of my particular family member and much, much more inner peace surrounding the relationship.
I hope that you found this post to be helpful!