In my recent posts, we have been focusing on the regret that fathers encounter as their nest begins to empty and they begin to awaken to the difference between the father they were determined to be and the father that their child has been experiencing. We might refer to this as interpersonal regret.
But there is another aspect of regret that is worth considering, as well, one that we might call self-directed regret—the wish that we had chosen to live, relate, and love differently than we have.
All of us will at times encounter regret not only for having failed others, but also for having failed ourselves:
- I chose my career based on what my parents thought was best, not based on what I thought was best.
- I stayed in an unhealthy and loveless marriage for far too long because I was too afraid of being on my own.
- I became overly preoccupied with work because I didn’t want to find out who I was when I wasn’t working.
- I gave up on being a writer because I never believed I was good enough.
- My unrelenting anger at my father kept me from spending any time with him and trying to understand him better, and now he’s dead and I no longer have a chance to do so.
There is obviously going to be some overlap between interpersonal regret and self-directed regret when it comes to fatherhood. Feelings of regret might start on an interpersonal dimension—“How did my way of parenting negatively impact my child?”
But these feelings may naturally travel onto a self-directed axis—“How did my way of fathering negatively impact me? What have I lost and what has it cost me to have been the kind of dad I have been?”
So, for example, a father who had workaholic tendencies during his children’s childhood may not only come to regret the fact that he deprived his children of his presence while they were growing up, but also come to regret the fact that he deprived himself by not being present as they grew.
A father who could not tolerate his offspring’s emotional vulnerability may realize that he was simultaneously intolerant of his own emotional vulnerability.
A father who was overly demanding and severe when it came to his expectations of his children may learn that he has been overly demanding and severe when it comes to his expectations of himself.
A father may discover that in becoming estranged from his adult child, he has also become estranged from important parts of himself—qualities that he once hoped would characterize the kind of father he would be.
In other words, many of the fathers who consult with me discover that the very same behavior that may have injured their child also injured them.
From this perspective, we might say that the ache of regret is rooted not just in the kind of parent we have been, but also because we come into contact with the kind of individual whom we have neglected or abandoned but still aspire to be—the father we can still grow toward and ultimately become.