I Hate My Dad, And I Feel Conflicted, What Can I Do?

It can be natural to desire a caregiver who shows concern for our safety and well-being, someone who loves us unconditionally and can guide us in the right direction, supporting us in positive and negative times. 

The reality is that, ultimately, not everyone has this loving, nurturing, and healthy relationship with their biological parents. Some may feel love toward one parent but not the other. You may find yourself feeling significantly negative feelings toward your father. Perhaps they hurt or disappointed you to the extent that you now feel strong feelings of animosity toward them rather than love and respect, you may feel like you have a toxic father. Is there any way to fix this to form a meaningful relationship in adulthood, or is it normal to despise your father?

Parents have a significant impact on children

It can be reasonable to expect empathy and honesty from a caregiver such as a mother or father. Parents are critical to a child's well-being, including their emotional, psychological, spiritual, and relational health. An adult's attachment style often develops due to the treatment and care (or lack of) from a primary caregiver.

Dysfunction may include substance use challenges, domestic abuse*, neglect, abandonment, divorce, or other challenging occurrences that involve your father. 

Occurrences such as these may cause a son or daughter to feel hatred toward their paternal figure. In a society and world that often values father-child relationships, having a problematic relationship with your father may cause feelings of shame, sadness, or loneliness. If you are experiencing these feelings, you are not alone. There are healthy ways and methods to help you manage and overcome negative emotions associated with a father. 

I  hate my dad, so why am I sad?

For people who struggle with thoughts of "I hate my dad", it may be beneficial to think about what you are feeling and the source of this hatred. You may associate hatred with anger. However, anger is often studied as a secondary emotion. Think of an iceberg. The surface area of the iceberg may represent anger. However, several emotions could be under the water and hard to reach. If you made an anger iceberg drawing, what would your hidden emotions be? You might be feeling:

• Sadness
• Grief
• Fear
• Disgust
• A desire for a different relationship 
• Anxiety
• Depression

At times, your genuine feeling may be anger. In many situations, however, anger is used as a shield. This reaction sometimes occurs when a genuine emotion feels too vulnerable. Anger may feel stronger or less "sensitive" than other emotions. If you feel uncomfortable with the vulnerability of another emotion, you might cover it up with anger. 

It can be easier to understand, process, and resolve feelings when addressing a genuine feeling rather than a feeling that is only a cover. You may feel hatred for your father because they hurt you in some way or because they were never there for you. Perhaps you never knew them, and the person you thought they were or the hero you shaped them out to be was just an illusion. If this is the case, your anger could shield sadness and grief over the loss of the relationship.

The loss of a father may mean the loss of hope of hearing the words you long to hear or of having memorable experiences between a father and child. You may grieve over not feeling loved or hearing your father boast about how proud they are of you. 

If you had a decent relationship with your father, feelings of hatred now that they are gone may be part of how you are processing grief. Minor issues in your relationship may be blown out of proportion, not because they were a big deal, but because you might have lost the ability to resolve them. 

Similarly, if you didn't have much of a relationship with your father and they have since passed away, you may feel worse about them now that they are gone. You may feel there was no way to resolve your concerns with your dad before they passed. 

Managing conflicting feelings about your dad

You might experience difficult days like Father's Day or milestone celebrations like weddings. Many events, circumstances, or life stages can heighten your awareness of not having an ideal relationship with your father. It could be helpful to plan what you can. This planning might include ensuring healthy distractions, such as having other close people with you for the event or planning your own celebration.

Being around people with wonderful relationships with their fathers may be challenging and make you feel acutely aware of the pain you feel. Learn how to acknowledge their happiness gracefully. Perhaps you can also use such awareness to remind yourself of the positive things in your own life.

Hatred can be challenging to experience, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not justified in your feelings. Your feelings can be valid, whether they include anger, deep sadness, regret, or grief. You are allowed to feel, and studies show that it is more valuable to express your emotions healthily than to keep them inside.

Cry, shout, or express your anger or hatred as long as it doesn't hurt you or anyone else. You can also try some of the following tips to improve your own well-being and mental health.

Find out about your father's past

It can be normal to feel angry, frustrated, sad, or hurt over what your father did or didn't do during your life. It might be beneficial to learn more about the cultural, ethnic, or familial issues that may have led to their unwillingness or inability to form a healthy bond with you. You may discover that a mental health condition such as bipolar disorder contributed to the strained relationship you have with your dad, or that they experienced abuse as a child. 

For a long time, the role of the father in childhood development was poorly understood and seldom communicated. Many fathers were taught by their fathers to practice authoritarian parenting or to focus on their career rather than on making a connection with their children. As a result, generations of fathers may have been raised without understanding how or why to be healthy fathers. They don’t always know how to form healthy relationships with their children. 

If you can, having an opportunity to speak with your father may help to shed some light on who he is as an adult. A better understanding of your father's past may make finding a resolution with them feel more manageable and remove some of the difficulty you feel in addressing your feelings. Having a word with your father could also help you process your own emotions, which might lead to a healthier outcome in your own life, whether you can reconcile with your father or not. 

Understanding does not necessarily excuse or justify what your father may have done. Understanding is not acceptance, but it can be helpful for you to begin to manage your hatred. 

Remember the positives

It may be helpful for you to acknowledge any strengths or positive attributes that you know or remember about your father, and you may remember some of the good times you spent with him. Your father may have or previously had positive traits, abilities, and qualities. It may be beneficial to allow yourself to appreciate their admirable qualities, even if others are less respectable. 

Finding a gray area or middle ground can be a tactic to reduce extreme emotions when you hate your father. You might work to accept your dad in both their positive and negative qualities if you want to. It may lead to having more realistic expectations of them, which could lead to less disappointment.

Remembering the positives may also help you better understand your own feelings. Anger can feel easy at times. However, underlying emotions could come up when you remember positive memories, such as sadness, regret, or happiness.

Thinking about the positive things in your relationship with your father may help you understand whether things were 100% negative or whether there's a mixture of emotions or experiences in your relationship. 

Let go

Hate can be a valid emotion, but it may not always be healthy for you. You may have heard the saying, "hate is like drinking poison and hoping it will cause harm to another person." Harboring hatred might cause more psychological harm to the person experiencing the emotions than the person believed to elicit those emotions.

Set a goal for yourself to let go of the feelings of hate when you're ready. There comes a time in many adults' lives when they make a challenging decision. At this point, they may accept responsibility for their thoughts, attitudes, expectations, intentions, and actions. In some cases, they decide they must not continue a relationship with their parent or other family members, especially if they are the victim of physical or verbal abuse or neglect. You might not be able to control your father's past or future actions, but you can often embrace the power and control you have over yourself.

You may not be able to control your dad. You cannot choose their character. You may not convince them to be available to you or their other children. You cannot create a strong, healthy, positive, mature, mutually respectful relationship with them by yourself. Once you are confident you are not contributing to the distance or dysfunction between you, it may be best to end the relationship and focus on the healthy relationships you do have. 

"Ending a relationship" is something you can do whether or not your father is still alive. It can mean coming to terms with the fact that the person may no longer be in your life. If that is your choice, you may still experience grief for your loss, which can be normal. It’s important to give yourself time to move forward in the healthiest way for you. 

Forgive your dad

Whether your dad is still in your life in some capacity or not, you may choose to forgive them. If you want a healthier relationship with your dad or want to live a healthier life, forgiving them might be possible. When you forgive your father then it may feel like you finally can move forward.

Reconciliation can require forgiveness of past wrongs. However, no one can force you to forgive and if that is not an option or you have decided to remove your dad from your life altogether, try forgiving them for your own mental, emotional, and relational health. Forgiveness does not mean you necessarily have to talk to or interact with your dad again if that is not what you want to do. 

Forgiveness is often for your own sake. It can feel painful to live a life with bitterness, resentment, or hatred. Forgiveness often comes after feeling, acknowledging, and processing the hurt, anger, confusion, and other emotions and thoughts associated with an unhealthy relationship. 

Seeking help

Whatever has happened and whatever happens next between you and your father, there are qualified professionals available to discuss your conflicted feelings and listen empathetically. By working with a therapist, you may be able to protect your emotions as you work through the feelings that accompany your hatred. Depending on what your goal is, you may consider different types of therapy.

Family therapy may help you and your dad explore and address your differences to build or rebuild a healthier relationship. A therapist can help you effectively manage conflict and challenges. However, if your dad is unwilling or unavailable to work on your relationship, you can still work to resolve your perceptions and feelings in individual therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can often help resolve the anxiety, depression, and stress that accompany a strained relationship with your father. 

You are not responsible for what you experience at the hands of others, but at some point, it can be healthy and mature for you to embrace the control you have to restore your mental and relational health. 

I hate my dad: counseling as a tool for starting anew

Counselors and therapists can help in several ways, from repairing and strengthening relationships to helping people process grief. If you don't want to deal with scheduling weekly appointments or sitting in traffic to drive to an office, you might try online counseling. With online therapy, you can reach out to your counselor over video chat, voice calling, or messaging. 

Additionally, online cognitive-behavioral therapy has shown effectiveness when used to treat symptoms related to depression. Online CBT can help participants reframe negative thought processes associated with their relationship with their father and, in turn, help them live healthy lives. 

If you're interested in trying counseling to discuss the emotions you're experiencing, an online platform like BetterHelp may benefit you.