4 Signs You Are Experiencing the
Father Wound
Understanding and Identifying the father wound and how they affect you is as important as knowing how to change a flat tire when you’re late for work. When you have the experience, you can jack up the car and replace it with the spare until you get to the mechanic shop. The problem is some guys forget that the spare tire is not supposed to stay on forever, so they continue to live an imbalanced life.
The father wound is the deficiency or absence of love from your birth father, whether intentional or unintentional. The damage may have come from:
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Abuse. Verbal, physical, emotional, mental, sexual, or spiritual abuse; often finds expression through controlling behavior and oppressive domination.
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Absence. Divorce, separation, abandonment, or even death are all types of absence.
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Addiction. When addiction is present within a family unit, particularly with the father figure, it can rift the father-child relationship.
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Neglect. A father is passive about expressing love or purposefully withholds affirmation, so the child grows up to feel unimportant.
An overwhelming sense of having no self-worth can leave you feeling imbalanced and uncertain about yourself for the rest of your life. Understanding how father wounds cause us to feel this way is key to building healthy relationships and families.
The challenge often is that you may not have the tools to do so even if you are willing to assess your situation. You end up not knowing that what’s affecting you on the surface isn’t the issue. You blame your wife. Your kids. Your work. You blame anything you believe prevents you from experiencing the kind of life in which, you imagine, you could show up confidently and be your best self. While these aren’t the only reasons, here are four signs that can help you figure out if you’re experiencing the father wound:
1. The Victim Mindset.
You may find yourself projecting responsibility from your wounded self onto other people, making yourself the victim, and blaming others for your faults and shortcomings. You may also experience an unexplained emotional touchiness or quick temper. This touchiness might be tough to see at first. Still, it reflects an inability to take full responsibility for your experience. You come off as slightly miffed that this is happening to you rather than recognizing yourself as an empowered participant.
2. You are Feeling Inadequate & Blaming Others.
When something goes wrong, you blame others in your life for how things turned out. You don’t recognize a residual piece of your problem you haven’t addressed because you don’t realize it’s there, sitting near the bottom of your “emotional pile”. Minimizing this underlying piece could allow a lot of pressure on top of the pile to be alleviated. Then you wouldn’t have to work so hard at addressing the surface-level behaviors and emotions anymore. Unresolved father wounds residing in one or both partners in a relationship can cause problems and strain the relationship, affecting your interaction with your wife. Until you resolve this trauma, you risk acting out towards your wife and passing it down to your children. Blaming others can also affect how they engage in relationships as they grow older.
3. You are Seeking Feminine Nurture.
You may find yourself seeking nurture and care from the women in your life. Still, sometimes, your need for emotional care comes from a misguided place (and may lead to disastrous consequences). There is nothing wrong with seeking the nurturing of a feminine partner. Still, if we can’t take responsibility for our own lives, our anger, and our resentment, we can’t expect women to take on that burden for us.
When you begin to expect an all-nurturing and healing role from your partner, you abuse your relationship and wear down your partner. As men, we must take responsibility for our life the ways our needs manifest in our relationships. Our needs are our needs, after all. And our anger is our responsibility.
4. Addiction to Porn.
You may find yourself hooked on pornographic materials to fill the void, which shows how the father wound creates a painful deficiency. Trying to satisfy feelings of unworthiness through carnal lust is a primary reason for this addiction. The problem is that it is only a temporary endorphin-pleasing taste of relief from much deeper pain.
The effects of the father wound are farther reaching than what many would suspect. It touches every aspect of life. We have broken men, passing on brokenness to their children at staggering rates. The father’s wound cuts deep to the heart, but it is capable of healing. God wants to fill this area in your life and give you the freedom you deeply crave.
At the end of the day, what every son truly longs to hear from his father are the exact words that Jesus’ father said to him – “this is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased”. (Matthew 3:17)
Take it, easy bro,
By God’s grace, you have what it takes to love and lead yourself and your family well.