If you're a daughter here's a little unsolicited relationship advice...

There is wisdom in some expressions, one of my favorites is ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’. I am also intimately familiar with the expression ‘We all have skeletons in our closets’, truth be told; I have an entire walk in closet, a few garages, and 3 or 4 rented storage units just filled with bones.

So this brings me to this blogs thoughts.

A young woman that is very close to me is having some issues with her Father. He made some poor choices in the past and she is so angry about it.

He now has a new wife and new daughter, and he is doing the best he can with them.

Now, from what I know he is a good man. He never ever missed a child support payment, and always made himself available to see her. At about 15 she decided she didn't want to spend weekends with him and so they grew further apart after that.

Fast forward 10 years, he now has a daughter from a subsequent marriage that is about the same age as his other daughter was when their relationship became strained. So, the second Daughter is getting to do things that the first Daughter never ever did, so now there is this whole jealousy dynamic.

Anyway Daughter number one honestly believes the way to deal with this is to talk it out, but the Father isn’t too crazy about this idea because talking it out amounts to him being chewed out for things he can’t change, and basically allowing himself to be chastised by Daughter number one, when it was she who chose not to spend time with him during those years and not the other way around. As a man with a mans pride I can completely understand his reluctance.

So, when they attempt to talk, the talks don’t go smoothly, and the rational discussions become nothing more or less than accusations. They both have hurt feelings about the past, and neither one of them can change a damn thing.

So, what now?

Some would say that they need to have some family counseling to resolve their issues.

I say, leave the past in the past and move on.

Life is full of choices, and one of those choices; as an adult, is to choose who we do, and do not, want to have a relationship with. Now I am not saying that she should stop having a relationship with her Father, but she should accept the fact that no amount of rehashing, debating, discussing, or delving into, issues of the past are going to undo what’s been done.

So she needs to either close those bones in the closet forgive and move forward, or terminate the relationship completely.

This may sound extreme but the alternative is just sabotaging what relationship they do have.

It would be nice if hurting someone could make us hurt less, or if confronting someone about our injuries could somehow make them heal faster, but the sad truth is neither of these things are the case.

As I see it, he isn’t hurting her right now, actually he wants to take back the hurt and make everything better but he just can’t do it.

Honestly I kind of feel bad for the guy, not because I really know him but because I too am a guy with a non-traditional family dynamic, and further more I came from a family with a non-traditional dynamic. I carry the scars from it too.

My greatest fear is that her relationship with her Father ends up like my relationship with my Mother and Father.

The relationship with myself and my Mother and Father is strained and civil, and honestly I can’t imagine it ever being any other way. I wish it wasn’t so but it is what it is. I don’t like my Mother, and my Father and quite possibly my Mother don’t really like me. We just went in different directions and now we are so far apart that I doubt we will ever find a common ground, and I don’t know that I would really want to.

This is so sad….. My greatest fear is that my relationship with my son and daughters ever becomes like my relationship with my Father and Mother. I may as well be an orphan, and it hurts me.

With that said here is my advice to this young woman who is so close to me.

Please, try as hard as you can to forgive and forget. Do everything in your power to stay in your Father’s life no matter how far you live apart, try telling him how important he is to you instead of telling him how he has hurt you or how you have been hurt by your relationship.

Embrace today and hope for a better tomorrow because life will move you both along, days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and then months to years, and then one day you realize that the piece of your heart that should be occupied by your real Fathers love is empty, and although you can fill it with other things it just won’t be the same.

You will find that you can never ever be loved by too many people but it is very possible not to be loved by enough.