How to Heal Wounds from Your Father (Father’s Day Reflection)

A young boy sits slumped and sad on a park bench. Behind him is a Father's Day picnic celebration with families barbecuing and celebrating at picnic tables around a large tree with a banner hanging on the branches that says "HAPPY FATHERS DAY!"[/caption]

For many, Father’s Day can be a time of reflection, tenderness, and—quite often—pain. While mainstream culture tends to paint this day in bright colors of celebration and gratitude, the reality is far more nuanced for most of us. For those carrying wounds from their father, whether due to absence, neglect, emotional distance, abuse, or unmet expectations, Father’s Day can stir deep emotional currents.

At Roots & Branches Therapy, we believe in creating space for the emotions that don’t always fit inside greeting cards. Acknowledging, exploring, and tending to wounds from a father figure is challenging but essential work. And while that process can feel uncomfortable or even disloyal, it’s often a crucial part of healing and building a more empowered sense of self.

What Is a Father Wound?

A father wound is not a diagnosis—it’s a term used to describe the emotional pain and relational patterns that stem from a ruptured or unfulfilling paternal bond. That rupture can come in many forms:

• A father who was physically absent due to abandonment, incarceration, or death

• An emotionally unavailable father, even if physically present 

• A neglectful father, who couldn’t or wouldn’t provide, who avoided responsibility

• A critical or dismissive father whose approval felt unreachable

• A father who was emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive toward you or a loved one, unpredictable, or in any way a source of fear

• A father who had alcohol or other substance use issues

• A father who loved you, but never really saw you

These early dynamics don’t just fade with time. In fact, unprocessed father wounds often show up in our adult relationships, career choices, attachment styles, and even how we talk to ourselves.

When Father’s Day Hurts

Father’s Day can be triggering in ways that feel difficult to explain. You may find yourself feeling:

• Irritable or anxious for no clear reason

• Guilty for not wanting to celebrate

• Emotionally heavy, especially if you’ve lost your father or are estranged

• Conflicted if you have a father who was “good on paper” but never emotionally attuned

• Wishing for a relationship that you do not have, for example:

  • Having emotional reactions to others' social media posts with glowing tributes 

  • Frustration that you cannot find a greeting card that doesn’t feel false

  • Watching what appears to be an ideal father-child relationship with envy

It’s okay to feel all of that. You don’t have to perform gratitude to fit the narrative. Grief and longing don’t cancel out the love you might still hold. They exist alongside it, often tangled and unspoken.

Signs of an Unhealed Father Wound

Father wounds don’t always announce themselves. Sometimes they live quietly in the background of your choices and self-beliefs. Here are a few signs that a father wound may be impacting your life:

• A deep fear of rejection or abandonment

• People-pleasing tendencies rooted in a longing to be “enough”

• Difficulty trusting others, especially male authority figures

• Self-criticism and a belief that you have to earn love

• A tendency to repeat dysfunctional relationship patterns

• Feeling stuck in unresolved anger or sadness toward your father

These patterns aren’t signs of weakness—they’re signs of adaptation. Often, they began as survival strategies in a childhood environment that lacked consistent emotional safety.

The Healing Process

Healing a father wound isn’t about blaming or staying stuck in the past. I could mean ending a relationship that’s unhealthy, but it does not have to mean that. The most important steps include understanding how the past still lives in you, gently shifting the patterns that no longer serve you, asking for what you need, and, where necessary, setting supportive boundaries.

Here’s where to begin:

1. Acknowledge What Hurts

Minimizing, intellectualizing, or dismissing your pain won’t help it go away. Instead, try naming it. You can say, “I feel grief when I think about my father not being there for me emotionally,” or “It hurts that I never felt fully accepted by him.” Honoring your truth is the foundation of healing.

2. Share how you feel and ask for what you need

It might be unimaginable to let your father know how his behavior has shaped who you are and still affects you today. As long as it’s safe and there’s a chance it would be well received, I strongly recommend writing out what you want to say and then saying it face to face. Use this format:

• State the facts from your perspective: “When I was growing up, you were always busy at work, never home, and when you were home, you were tired and cranky. I always wanted to please and be around you, but you didn’t have time for me unless it was sports-related.  This made me focus on sports when my real passion was music, which is a path I regret not taking. At work and in my relationships, I find that I am always sacrificing my needs to please others.  Even now that I have my sons, you are only interested in the sports they play and not what your grandchildren are interested in.  Otherwise, even at a family event, you watch a game on TV, or worse you belittle them for beings “sissies.”

  • Ask what you need: “I would like us to engage in non-sports-related activities with my kids. I would like to see you take an interest in other aspects of our personalities and interests.”

  • Offer incentive:  “If you could do that, we would feel much closer to you, and I would be more likely to bring the kids around more often. If I see this pattern continue I will buy the whole family Giants tickets once per season”

• Be mindful: Stay focused on what you are saying. Avoid defensive comments and attempts to distract you.

• Use effective body language, tone of voice, and make eye contact: Stand tall and look at your father in the eye.  Use a relaxed body posture, open palms, and a half-smile (not a frown or full smile).  Keep your tone of voice soft.

• Negotiate or ask your Dad, “What do you suggest?”

• Be curious and empathetic: Try to learn why your father’s behavior might have been influenced by his family of origin.  This will help reduce your anger and increase your effectiveness.

• Be gentle and have an easy manner:  Avoid inflammatory language, and sentences that start with, “You always….”.  Try to use humor, not sarcasm.  Share what you appreciate about your father and express gratitude for what he offers.

• Respect yourself:  No apologizing. Don’t agree with anything that goes against your values.  Keep your boundaries unless your father has demonstrated consistent progress over time.

2. Release the Pressure to Stay Connected or Reconcile

You are not obligated to maintain a relationship with your father (or parents).  Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same. You don’t need to rebuild a relationship to heal from it. Sometimes, creating space from a father figure—or grieving what never was—is the most loving choice you can make for yourself.  On the other hand, do not sacrifice yourself or your needs to ……………………………………..

3. Work with a Therapist Who Honors Your Story

Therapy can be a powerful space to unpack and rewrite internalized narratives. Find a therapist who takes a trauma-informed, relational approach to help you feel safe, seen, and supported. There are so many modalities that help process trauma ( including: EMDR, IFS, Narrative Therapy, ACT, Psychoanalysis, TF-CBT, Ketamine Assisted Therapy), but the most critical aspect of therapy is the connection you feel to your therapist.

4. Practice Reparenting Yourself

If your father couldn’t offer you emotional safety, attunement, or love, it doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of those things. Through practices like self-compassion, boundary-setting, and inner child work, you can begin to give yourself what you never received. You don’t have to wait for someone else to change—you can become the nurturing presence you needed.

5. Give Yourself Permission to Grieve

Grieving a parent isn’t only about death. It can also mean mourning the father you wish you had. Let yourself feel that loss. There’s power in naming the gap between what you needed and what you got. From there, healing can unfold—not in erasing the pain, but in making peace with its presence.

If You’re a Parent Yourself...

Father’s Day may also bring up a fear of repeating the cycle. You might wonder, Am I doing the same things to my child that were done to me? That question, painful as it is, is a sign of awareness—and awareness is the first step toward doing it differently.

You don’t need to be a perfect parent. You must be present and willing to reflect, repair, and learn. Breaking generational cycles is messy, courageous work—and you don’t have to do it alone.

Final Thoughts

Healing from a father wound is not about erasing the past. It’s about softening its grip on your present and future. It’s about letting go of the belief that you’re unlovable, unworthy, or doomed to repeat what you lived through.

If Father’s Day feels heavy for you, you are not broken. You are not alone. Your pain is real, and your healing matters.

At Roots & Branches Therapy, we’re here to walk beside you on that path. Whether your father wound feels like a quiet ache or a roaring storm, you deserve support that honors the depth of what you’ve lived through. And this Father’s Day, maybe the best gift you can give yourself is the commitment to begin.