When Our Father Work Goes Both Ways

From Menletter May 2004

By Tim Baehr

Many of us men have done a lot of "father work" in our men's gatherings and retreats. In my case I did most of my work after my father had died. I don't know if the work is over, but I do know of a deepening compassion for a man whose virtues and faults I share in abundance. He had a much harder life than I did, and it's somewhat of a miracle that he was able to figure out fathering at all.

As they say in the late night Ginzu knife commercials, "But wait . . . there's more!" My oldest son is now struggling with his own father issues and - oh, my - I'm the father now.

We may now have, for the first time, a situation in which older men who have done father work on their own fathers are now the object of father work from their sons. How has our own father work changed us and prepared us for the work our sons are now doing?

My oldest son and I recently experienced an exchange of e-mails about my presence and absence as a father, and some old hurts and wounds we needed to work out. I present the essence of it to you, not as a model for how things should go but how they might go. I wish I had had my son's guts and initiative in confronting my feelings with my dad while he was still alive. But the exchange my son and I had would have been very different, and very much more painful for both of us, if I had not been able to receive openly the gifts my own dad had offered to me and which I had rejected for many years. The exchange also reflects the deepening work my son is doing.

Here are some relevant excerpts, starting with Alan.

[T]his interaction has touched a sore spot and I am guilty of allowing some displaced anger into my previous email. The sore spot is that you have never until the last few years been forthcoming – with concern, with generosity, with curiosity – and the result for me, in combination with my mother's drama, is that I have previously taken on the belief that everything is up to me, that I should expect nothing from others, that I should hold others' emotional difficulties compassionately but not have mine held by anyone else, that if others do hold me empathetically in their hearts I'm blind to it. I'm not saying this to get you to be different – I let that go over 20 years ago – but to explain my anger seepage and also to open up another level of communication with you, trusting that you want that too.

Part of what I want to share is that while there is a reservoir of pain in growing up more alone than not, I do not resent that pain and it has been instrumental in leading me to be a therapist, to be a good therapist, and to consciously experience moving from numbness, to pain, to connection. I do feel it more when others care for me, I do accept love when it is offered and even ask for it when I need it, I do feel less essentially alone. I also want to express my gratitude to you for introducing me to men's work. The men's group here has been a very important experience along these same lines. So I guess what I am doing with you is choosing to let you know clearly about the pain you caused me, to let you know that it still hurts sometimes, to let you know that I do not hold you responsible for it when I feel it now, and to thank you for it.

Now me:

Sore spots and letting go

You mention my touching a sore spot, some displaced anger, and not wishing I would be (had been?) different: "I let that go over 20 years ago." I don't think you've let much of anything go. It's still sitting out there in plain sight - see your comments later about your reservoir of pain and the pain I caused still hurting.

For a long time I knew many facts about my father, facts that any reasonable person could have used to see him a lot more empathetically than I saw him. But relationships are not reasonable, not rational. It took me immense amounts of work, and inner anguish, to get to a point beyond forgiveness, beyond "letting go."

The following may seem merely like semantics or an intellectual exercise; it is when put in writing for another to read: Forgiveness implies that something bad or evil was done, and it puts the forgiver in a superior position. Likewise, letting go means letting go of something unpleasant, but it also puts the relinquisher in a morally superior position.

Realizing how flawed I was myself, as a father and as a man, didn't go far enough, though that was a beginning. That realization would simply mean that my father and I were both somehow less than acceptable. But acceptance and compassion, for both my dad and me, developed over several hard years and came finally as an unbidden and perhaps undeserved gift. The upshot is that I see him, and myself, as men who did the best we could with what we had. That gift has made me richer.

We're all partly a product of our surroundings. My dad was abandoned by an apparently indifferent mother at 17; his father had died when he was 14. At 17 he lived in a YMCA, completely on his own. And he eventually became my role model for fathering. My mother was one of eight kids in a poor Catholic family. She was hospitalized with a major depression when I was eight, but we kids weren't told why she had disappeared for a month or what was done to her (electroshock). We were told only that we had to be really good.

I was a husband a 21 and a father at 22 - nearly clueless but with a few good instincts. The same drama you ascribe to your mother was the drama of my wife. There was much love but also many difficulties, as in any marriage. The proportions eventually tilted toward the difficulties, with her rage and my passivity and depression.

I abandoned you in the divorce; I also abandoned myself to depression and a fairly low standard of living. I have regrets about some of my actions resulting in others' pain. But I believe the alternative - staying together - would have been far more toxic for all of us.

I have no need, hope, or expectation in regard to forgiveness or anything beyond it. I do hope you will stumble over the gift someday and enrich your life with it. Mine sure took me a long time.

"Everything is up to me."

You are the only child of an only child of an only child. You are the product of the family dynamic I outlined above. You have in the past three years been in a position in which nearly everything HAS been up to you. Ann [Alan's stepmother] and I have recognized that and are in awe (and have told you many times) of how much you've done to keep things running in your family.

My concern and curiosity have always been there, perhaps not always obvious or evident and not always acted upon. Neither were they so subtle as to be unnoticeable. So I cannot accept your characterization of "never" in regard to the time prior to the past few years, and neither should you.

Generosity is sometimes a matter of perception. You went to a private high school. You graduated from college debt-free. I can't even imagine those things as "generous"; they're just what your mother and I did.

Reservoir of pain

You consider the pain you grew up with (and still in your reservoir) to be instrumental in your career choice and your skills as a therapist. I'm also aware that you brought many other qualities into it - some of them qualities that were instilled in you by flawed but loving parents, some of them qualities that you earned outright by applying diligent work to your genetic endowments. Without these additional qualities, I think a helping career built solely or principally on pain would be thin and fragile.

A reservoir of pain can be a powerful resource, but keeping past pain so available can rob the present of some of its joy. (How much pain must one take out of the reservoir to empty it?) It's better than denial and subsequent acting out (another way to keep pain present). I have considerable experience with that. But time can be a wonderful friend. Painful experiences can be a part of the past, and remembering the circumstances that gave rise to the pain can be powerful without having to relive the pain over and over.

I recognize that this is all just words and metaphors. I'm not pain-free, but the past does feel more friendly to me. Some of the transformation came about by choice; some seems to have been the result of good fortune and perhaps side effects of the spiritual journey of the past five years.

You may not feel right now that you have a choice. I probably wouldn't have 20 years ago, even if someone had laid it out for me. But I hope you'll remain open to its eventual appearance.

Thanking me for the pain

Finally, this: "So I guess what I am doing with you is choosing to let you know clearly about the pain you caused me, to let you know that it still hurts sometimes, to let you know that I do not hold you responsible for it when I feel it now, and to thank you for it."

Thank me for it? Not "hold me responsible"? Still hurts? Caused pain? Choosing to let me know? That's a hell of a message. It's very hard not to see this as a guilt trip.

I'm sorry you still hurt, and I'm sorry the reality of the past has such a grip on you in the present. But what am I supposed to say: "You're welcome for the pain. Always glad to help. Let me know if you need some more."

I know I've done things in the past that hurt you, without my needing to be told I "caused" pain. If it still hurts after 20 years, some effort must be going into keeping it fresh.

We're all damaged goods, Alan. Every last one of us. There's no warranty, no return policy, no cosmic complaint desk, no Better Business Bureau.

I hope you can love me for who and what I am now, with only my present faults and without too many of the painful shadows of your past.

And the answer:

I love you. I wrote a very lengthy response trying to explain myself, clarify what I was looking for, go further into my experience in hopes of you knowing me better. It was strange but I wrote myself into a corner, and the only way out was to acknowledge the fact that I've had it pretty good, and that a large part of what I call my pain was due to being perfectionistic and introverted and being a kid. My fantasy about what I missed is some perfect attunement to my emotional experience, was for you or Mom to come to me right when I was anxious or depressed and say, "How are you…really?" and for me to be able to tell you or Mom, and for either of you to say comforting things and show that you understood. First of all, you did try to do all that the times I really lost it. Secondly, until I got into my 20s I had no vocabulary for describing what was going on anyway. So what is this reservoir of pain? My best answer at this point is that it's a rage that things aren't perfect, projected into the past to make it more acceptable to myself. Basically I'm a self-absorbed, demanding person with a veneer of compassion and helpfulness. An only child par excellence. I do think I'm capable of really caring, but not unless I truly accept life on its own terms. Otherwise I'm busy feeling that things should be otherwise. . . .

I'd like to take back the emails I sent, except that they did expose me to my shadow. You have responded so compassionately and by letting me know you better. I hope I can use this experience well. . . .

I have to say too, compassionately toward myself, that self-imposed or not, the stress I've been under has got me so twisted up that I'm not surprised I would act this way. I'm bound to crack at some point! It's humiliating to have you see that crack, but maybe a relief too.

I also want you to know that I have many positive feelings toward you. I also feel very good about the ways you've invited me to be closer, shared your thoughts and feelings, and entered into areas like poetry and men's work and spirituality where we can understand and celebrate each other. I also am so relieved that the prostate surgery was successful, and want very much for you to enjoy many years of good health. I hate it when you suffer. . . . I just feel that your life has been on balance a ton of hard work, patience, kindness in the face of selfishness, silent suffering through . . . other ills, exhaustion, and not being understood by those closest to you. All of that is genuine and deeply felt when I get beyond myself to really feel it.

Again, I am sorry I'm not more compassionate. I'm happy for you that you've reached that point with your father. Having thought myself to be growing spiritually in lots of wonderful ways, I have to acknowledge that I'm good at lying to myself, that I'm just beginning to understand what it is to love.

My response:

That took guts. It has taken a lot of courage for both of us to lay ourselves out so nakedly. It's a gift that would have been impossible for my dad and me, for a number of reasons. You may not need to wait until you're 55 to get what came to me so late.

I think we surprised each other, and ourselves, with the way this exchange took us beyond ourselves.

We are both growing from this experience.

I will treasure your last e-mail for a long time.