Be A Man #4: Naming & Healing the Father Wound

Time to Recapture Emotional Connection

Richard Rohr suggests that when boys aren’t initiated into a healthy vision of masculinity, we become men who either make it up as we go or borrow it from the surrounding culture. Often that culture is more than happy to offer hollow definitions: domination, stoicism, emotional distance, success at any cost. These vices are pieces of the mixture which some have come to call “toxic masculinity.”

Without a guiding framework for what it truly means to become a man, many of us stumble forward, unsure, uninitiated, and deeply shaped by what’s missing—especially if what was missing in our stories was our fathers.

Abuse & It’s Friends

This absence, subtle or severe, forms what many psychologists and spiritual thinkers call the “father wound.” It’s not always the result of abuse or abandonment — though it certainly can be those things. In fact, the most common version is much more quiet. It comes from dads who were physically present but emotionally shut down, absent, unavailable, or mocking. Men who provided but never affirmed. Fathers who taught us that love was earned and emotion was weakness. It sounds like: “Don’t cry.” “Be a man.” “Toughen up.” These phrases, repeated over time, become a kind of emotional architecture inside men. They build a house where our feelings aren’t welcome. Where our value is tied to how well we perform.

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As boys, we learn early that to be lovable, we must be strong, capable, successful. So we grow into men who achieve and strive, who build resumes and reputations, but often feel like impostors in our own skin. Even in moments of accomplishment, there’s an inner voice that whispers: “Will this finally make me enough?”

Affirming Boys & Men

That voice doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s the echo of a father’s silence, or his anger, or his inability to speak the words every boy longs to hear: “You are loved. Just as you are.” Or as God proclaims over God’s son, Jesus, “This is my beloved son, in him I am well pleased (Matt. 3:17).”

Without that foundational affirmation, men develop survival strategies. Some overcompensate with ambition or control. Others become emotionally absent, even to themselves. Some swing toward codependence, attaching their value to what others think. Still others live behind masks—of humor, competence, intellect—anything to avoid being seen in their full vulnerability.

Psychologists have a name for this pattern: emotional suppression. Research shows that boys taught to shut down their emotions tend to carry higher risks of depression, anxiety, relationship conflict, and even chronic loneliness. They don’t lack feelings—they lack the permission and tools to express them. When emotions aren’t safe, they don’t disappear. They just go underground. And what goes underground eventually erupts—through rage, isolation, or despair.

This kind of wound—where love feels transactional and emotions feel dangerous—shapes how we relate to others. We may keep partners at arm’s length, never quite letting them in. We may struggle to parent with tenderness or connect with friends on anything deeper than sports or news. We may even find faith difficult, because how can you trust a God who’s called “Father” when your own father’s love felt uncertain?

But the father wound, though deep, is not beyond healing. In fact, recognizing it is the first act of healing. To say, “Something was missing” is not dishonoring our dads. Many of them were doing their best with the emotional tools they had. But unhealed wounds only get passed down. What is named can be changed. And what’s grieved can be transformed.

Reparenting

One of the most powerful steps in this process is learning to reparent ourselves—to speak to that inner boy with the kindness and affirmation we never received. It’s telling ourselves, “You’re allowed to feel. You don’t have to earn love. You are already enough.” It sounds simple, but it can take years to believe.

Another key step is learning the language of emotions. Many men were taught to repress their inner world, so learning to name our feelings—anger, sadness, fear, joy—can feel like learning a foreign language. I remember the day my therapist, John, asked me to name what I’m feeling. I didn't know what he meant. In response, he gave me a “feelings chart.” To this day, that chart is pinned to our refrigerator…and I have to reference it often. But every time we choose honesty over hiding, we reclaim a bit more of our humanity. We begin to shift from performance to presence.

This matters beyond just personal healing. A man who’s made peace with his father wound becomes safer for others. He becomes a better father, friend, partner, and leader—not because he’s perfect, but because he’s grounded. He no longer needs to prove he’s a man. He simply is one. And from that place, he can offer love that doesn’t require performance in return.

Healing

Healing the father wound doesn’t mean rewriting the past. It means reshaping the future. It means choosing not to pass on the silence or shame. It means being the kind of man who looks a child in the eye and says, “I see you. All of you. And you are enough.”

What our world needs right now isn’t more bravado or posturing. It needs men who’ve done the hard work of healing. Men who don’t have to borrow masculinity from culture because they’ve discovered something deeper—something truer. A strength that makes space for emotion. A love that isn’t earned. A presence that doesn’t flinch in the face of vulnerability.

Maybe that’s the initiation we all needed. And maybe it’s not too late to begin.