Happy Father's Day?

  ❤

I spent a lovely and whirlwind 24 hours in the Big Apple with Daughter.  She left the Big Apple to go to Atlantic City and I headed back to Baltimore.  On my way back, I sat next to a lovely woman who was going home to DC after spending the day in the City with her grown daughter.  We spent most of the ride talking about her other daughter, the one who isn't really speaking to her.  Today is Father's Day, the second Father's Day without my Daddy.  One of my virtual friends said online that being on social media on Father's Day is really hard because she has such a difficult relationship with her own father.  I can't help but think these three things happened within the same weekend for a reason.  I agree with my friend that family relationships are really complicated and sometimes difficult to navigate.  After all, unlike friends, we don't choose our families.  They're ours, no matter what.  Then, you layer on top that we share their DNA, so they are part of us.  As parents, we raise them and teach them; as children, they are raised and taught.  What results is a complicated mess.

With Daughter, it took me a long time to figure out that sometimes when she called and complained, all she wanted to do was complain.  She didn't want me to kiss it and make it better.  She didn't want me to help her brainstorm options.  She didn't want me to solve her problem.  I might never have figured it out, except that right before one of those phone calling occasions, I was attending a workshop by Bill Eddy.  He suggested.....asking what the person wanted us to do, listen or help solve the problem.  What a revolutionary idea!  After that, I asked her.  Our relationship lost a difficult piece, as her needs were met and I knew what was wanted.  No more guesswork.  No, it's not always perfect, but we've learned to navigate as adults.

My seat mate on the bus?  She was a very successful woman.  So were her daughters.  She had a difficult life when they were young.  She worried about the impact made by those times.  She had hopes and dreams and worries for her girls.  She wanted them to have an easier time than she.  She wanted them to be happy.  She wanted them to feel successful.  I could hear a lot of guilt and shame for the choices she made, the things she said she wished she could take back, and the love she couldn't express without sounding like she was nagging or judging.  She was in such pain because all she wanted was a good relationship with her girls.  She was at a loss as to how to make it happen now that they were adults and responsible for their own choices, and her role was simply to love them.  It's hard because she knew they were making mistakes and she wanted to tell them, to teach them, to protect them from harm.  That's what moms do.  That's not what they wanted.  I'm sure if you asked her daughters, they would also express frustration for the caliber of their relationship, but from the other perspective.  I hope they find their way.

Holidays like Father's Day and Mother's Day bring all those relationship issues to the surface.  When people have difficult relationships with their parents, every Facebook post about a great parent simply grates.  We all see history through our own perspective, and no two people see anything the same.  We all forget that children grow and become adults, and parents age and become our children.  We parent as we were parented, or maybe we parent exactly the opposite because of the way we were parented.  Maybe we made choices to live on one income and have a stay at home parent, and maybe we chose for both parents to work.  Maybe our children turned out just like us, and maybe just the opposite.  Maybe our divorce scarred our children for life, or maybe it just scarred us.  Relationships constantly evolve and until death parts us, there are always opportunities for a different kind of relationship.  Sometimes, that different kind of relationship is to have no relationship at all.

The first step to navigating any relationship is to look within, to decide what you want for the future and what role you played in the past.  Deal with the shame and the guilt, and the love and the understanding.  Decide what it is you want and what you need to do to move in that direction.  Real change is possible if you keep the goal in mind.  Keep it in the forefront as you rebuild your family after divorce or death or simply maturity.  Here in the Trenches.