The things that make us the men that we are are largely attributable to the relationships that we have with our fathers. Our intimate relationships, in some ways, are also results of the things that we learn from how to be in the world from our fathers, too. 

Too many men simply cannot be the fathers that they should to their sons, because they never got the right role modeling. Men go on to have imperfect relationships, and don’t know how to be effective intimate partners to their wives and girlfriends. Often times, it’s a combination of two problems.

First, men learn how to be emotionally withdrawn from their women. They learn, over time from the environment they grew up in, to shut down, stay in their heads and generally not be present to their feelings. This is the nucleus of the problem.

Second, as children we model behavioral patterns from our parents. As boys, we model the ways of being in a relationship from our fathers (and mothers). Many times, our fathers never got it right, so we simply take from them what we see, because unconsciously, if we do what they did, we just might get our needs met after all. This is child’s logic, and somewhere down the road, we fail to drop those tools when they don’t work for us anymore. As kids, they might have had some basic effectiveness. But as adults, we continue to use outdated tools to create similarly neurotic and ineffective relationships today.

The key is to understand these behavioral patterns, and the emotions that we avoid buried underneath. In seeing these, often for the first time, and experiencing them in the present moment unconditionally, they begin to transform themselves and set us free from the patterns that keep us stuck in conflict and unsatisfying relationships. We can work towards freedom from these blocks if we can first see them. Our fathers might not have been able to do it for themselves, but we can for ourselves.

The importance of a father’s impact on his son cannot be underestimated. The father-son relationship is as important as it is underestimated in the successful development of a man, who becomes a partner, husband and parent himself. 

For a lot of men in our culture, men are either physically absent, or emotionally absent. The problem is that a lot of men don’t have a clue about how to be emotional, or to use the tools that they don’t have to solve relationship or communication problems. With that inability to use the necessary tools to create and navigate successful relationships, men get into trouble, and then unconsciously pass down to their sons the things that creates problems for themselves.

One example of what I mean is the ability for men to connect to their anger. Men traditionally either explode in rage and anger to get what they want, or will internalize their anger, and let it turn into anxiety, depression and a host of other secondary problems. Depression and anxiety have other roots and causes, but interpersonally, anger is created a lot of times and then suppressed when our needs for love, affection, importance, to be seen, etc. are not met.

Men pass these things down to their sons, who then get modeled these ineffective and destructive ways of being in relationships. They learn to not meet their needs, quiet their voice, and generally suppress their various needs within a relationship and in their lives. To the extent that women are emotional beings, men could learn a thing or two about how to connect to and speak from their emotional pain.

Men can be good at doing the things that they do well: teach a kid how to fish, shoot hoops or change a tire. Men can be supportive of their sons, and provide a model in a lot of ways. Men can model being good fathers, but unfortunately, men don’t know how to model being a well-rounded man. A lot of our culture says that to be emotional is not ‘manly’, and is responsible for this, I believe. This is a problem, and a myth. 

Until we accept that connecting to our emotional selves is not a bad thing, and is not “unmanly,” I believe we are only operating with half of our full selves. I think that it’s time to break the generational cycle that fails to hand down all the tools needed for personal and relationship success for men.

If you think you struggle with not having the right tools that you need for your relationship (for example, you don’t know how to communicate with your wife or girlfriend, or you avoid conflict at all costs), I ask that you contact me for an appointment at 602.309.0568.

- Jason