Category: Parenting

Rethinking Your Parents’ Stories

December 23, 2024 No Comments

My last two posts, The Pain of An Absent Father, and The Effects of Being Overly-Bonded with Mom described the impact of two “wounds” many men carry into adulthood. These wounds can affect our marriage, spouse, and children if left unaddressed. They also contribute to The Crisis of Fatherlessness in America. In this final post, I encourage you to view your parents’ stories from a new perspective and embrace forgiveness, which helps you heal to become a better husband and father. Broken Boys Remain Hurting Males One of my heroes in the men’s ministry space is Dr. Patrick Morley, author of several books for men. Shortly after getting through my struggle with workaholism, I read Morley’s first book, The Man in the Mirror: Solving the 24 Problems Men Face. That book accelerated my journey to becoming a better man as I described in my 2019 post, Looking at the

The Effects of Being Overly-Bonded with Mom

December 16, 2024 No Comments

My last post, The Pain of An Absent Father, suggests ways to heal from the wound of not having a physically present and emotionally engaged dad. Another reason I believe we have a Crisis of Fatherlessness in America today is one many guys must resolve: their relationship with their mother. In this post, I describe the “Overly-Bonded with Mother” wound since it can impact his marriage, his children, and his friendships. The “Enmeshed with Mom” Affect Also known as enmeshment or emotional entanglement, this wound is an unhealthy relationship that frequently lingers into adulthood. It develops when a boy becomes overly bonded with his mother as they share an intense emotional connection that blurs healthy boundaries into adulthood. This condition often starts with an absent or distant father but is inflicted by needy and hurting moms. It is also caused by “unwilling to release” types of moms, “fill in

The Pain of An Absent Father

December 9, 2024 No Comments

Last year, I wrote in Addressing Your “Wounds” about how our past may keep you from living up to your full potential as a man. In this post, I dive deeper into the “Absent Father Wound”, which I believe is contributing to The Crisis of Fatherlessness I wrote about in my last post. The next post will then cover another factor that leads to becoming a better father: understanding the relationship with your mother. The Wounds Every Father Must Address In my early days of being a father, I participated in a weekly men’s study called The Quest For Authentic Manhood. The study’s creator, Dr. Robert Lewis, suggested that all men need to resolve one or more of the five significant wounds from their past to become better men. Dr. Lewis described these wounds as: Dr. Lewis suggests that all men must unpack and resolve these possible wounds to become more