Grieving The Loss Of The Father You’ll Never Have

If you’re grieving because,

• he chose someone else over you.
• he will never give you the emotional support you need.
• you never got to know him and/or he was absent from your life.
• he can’t apologize or admit when he is wrong.
• you don't respect him.
• addiction or mental health issues made it impossible to have a relationship.
• the relationship will never improve no matter how hard you try.
• he died or had changes to his health before you could get to know him or before anything could change.

Then this is for you.

If he chose someone else over you, that hurts. We are taught that parents will choose, love, and protect us in childhood. You may have a father who chose himself, a new partner, or even a new family over a life with you. When this happens, kids try to figure out why they’re not being chosen. They try to shapeshift into a version of themselves that their parent will love and choose. You must remember that your father’s inability to choose you had nothing to do with you. He made the choices he made because of him and his deficiencies. What happened wasn’t fair, and it shouldn’t have happened.

You may need to hear this:

• you deserve to be chosen
• there is nothing wrong with you
• it is not your fault
• you will not be abandoned by everyone you care about

If he will never give you the emotional support you need, this is hard to accept. Emotional support from fathers is a relatively new concept. Most fathers (Gen X and older) were taught that their sole purpose was financially supporting their family. Many of these men did not learn how to connect emotionally and may have even been taught that they aren’t capable of this type of connection. It makes sense that you want an emotional connection with your parent.

You may need to hear this:

• you can have a different type of relationship with your father and grieve the loss of an emotional connection
• it’s possible that your father will never learn how to connect emotionally, and you get to decide if that is ok with you
• there is nothing wrong with you for wanting an emotional connection with your father

If you never got to know him and/or he was absent from your life, you are grieving the loss of someone you don’t know. This ambiguous loss feels strange because how do you miss something you never had? It is possible to grieve the loss of a father you didn’t know or didn’t see for long periods. You may have created a story about why he left, who he is, or what you missed. This grief is normal, painful, and expected.

You may need to hear this:

• You can grieve someone that you never met or got to know.
• Without information, you can create a narrative that feels the most supportive to you. I hope your narrative does not include his absence in your life being your fault because it wasn’t.
• You can live a full, meaningful life without a father figure, and there is data to back that up.

If he can’t apologize or admit when he is wrong, it’s tough to have a relationship with someone like this. When a father can't apologize to their adult child, it's not because they're always right. It's because they can't admit when they were wrong. Some fathers will never apologize. They will never admit they were wrong. They will never try to rebuild. They will never try to understand their child’s point of view. This can be immensely painful for the adult child, and it significantly impacts the relationship.

You may need to hear this:

• When someone refuses to acknowledge a different perspective or seek understanding, it can make you feel like you’re going crazy. You can investigate what happened to you and validate yourself in adulthood. Their lack of validation does not mean what happened didn’t happen.
• Their lack of apology or recognition doesn’t make it your fault.
• You must find a way to move forward without hearing those words. It’s painful, and it’s possible. Your life should not end because of their inability to see your perspective. You can learn, do better, and be better, despite their inability to do that for themselves.

If you don't respect him, there is grief that comes with not having the father you imagined you would have. Despite sharing DNA, many fathers and daughters do not have the same beliefs, opinions, or morals. Your father may have political beliefs that make it hard to connect or maybe they’ve been incarcerated for a crime that you cannot forgive. Some fathers are not people you want to associate with, and that is hard. You may be grieving the loss of a family and father figure you thought you’d have. You may be envious of people who speak positively about their fathers and look up to them.

You may need to hear this:

• Sometimes you can have different beliefs and maintain a relationship; sometimes, you cannot.
• Fathers are just people and people can do horrible things sometimes.
• Your father’s beliefs and actions are not a direct representation of you. You can be your own person.

If addiction or mental health issues made it impossible to have a relationship, losing your father to something you cannot control is hard. There is minimal support for family members in this position, and it’s common to feel ashamed or embarrassed. It hurts when you watch a parent deteriorate in front of you. It hurts when you know who they could be without their addiction or mental health struggles. You may be grieving not having a consistent father figure in your life. You may be reckoning with all the pain that has been caused as a result of their addiction or mental health issues. It’s painful and can feel like a slow, painful death happening right in front of your eyes. Some adult children in this position feel like they are more of the parent than the child and resent that role reversal.

You may need to hear this:

• Your parent’s addiction or mental health issues are not your fault.
• You may have to set boundaries to save yourself. I know it feels like you’re abandoning them and it’s hard.
• There is no roadmap for dealing with these types of issues. Many people cannot understand what this is like unless they’ve lived it. Don’t let your fear of judgment stop you from getting support.

If the relationship will never improve, no matter how hard you try, it can feel like you’re giving up. Many adults struggle with relating to their parents because they want them to be someone fundamentally different than who they are. They want their stoic father to suddenly be more emotional and empathetic, but everything they have done to make that happen hasn’t worked. When the adult child did not have a need met as a child (protection, emotional closeness, validation, etc.), they will often continue seeking it out as an adult with their parent, hoping that if they try a little bit harder or do something different, they’ll get a different result. The problem is, if the parent isn’t willing to recognize the deficit and gain new skills, it doesn’t matter what the adult child does. Nothing will change until they admit something needs to change and they do the work. What if we can’t change our parents? What if the only way to maintain a relationship is to accept what we’ve got? This does not mean you accept abusive, disrespectful, or bad behavior. Instead, you learn what you can and cannot get from your parents and make a decision about the relationship based on those facts.

You may need to hear this:

• Acceptance will give you power and options.
• Acceptance is not the same thing as giving up.
• You can recognize who your parent is, accept that you cannot change them, and then decide what type of relationship to have.

If he died or had changes to his health before you could get to know him or before anything could change, it makes sense why you would be grieving his absence and the fact that nothing can change anymore. As your parent ages, they will likely experience changes to their physical, emotional, and mental health. Accidents and sudden illness can also impact a parent’s functioning and cause changes in the parent + adult-child relationship. Some adult children may be interacting with parents who have lost their short and/or long-term memory, their ability to speak, impulse control, work or care for themselves physically, and more. In these cases, adult children are often forced to grieve the loss of a parent who never changed and never will be different. There is grief involved in realizing that you will never get the recognition, apology, and behavioral change that you’re looking for. When something forces you to accept this, it often feels different than choosing to accept your parent for who they are and who they will not become. When you realize that your parent is physically or mentally incapable of having these conversations, apologizing, or taking accountability, you have to find a way to move forward on your own.

You may need to hear this:

• You don’t need your parent to validate your truth for it to be true.
• You know what happened and what you experienced.
• If you know they cannot give you what you need; you can release the pressure of seeking that.

No father is perfect, and sometimes you cannot have a relationship with the father you have.

If you are grieving the loss of the father you thought you’d have and trying to accept the one in front of you, this is the formula I like to use.

Repeat whatever applies: I accept that my parent ________.

Maybe it’s…Cannot connect emotionally. Cannot offer me safety. Cannot validate my choices. Cannot support me. Cannot understand my perspective. Cannot accept who I am.

Then the question becomes: If my parent cannot ______, can I have a relationship with them?

Every single person reading this will have a different reaction to that question.

When you release the fantasy of who you wish your father was and accept who they are, healing can begin. That healing might be finally grieving the reality that you didn’t get what you deserved as a child. It might mean having a relationship with your father that is based on the needs they can meet. It might mean setting boundaries and taking space. It might mean waking away completely.