I Hate My Dad: How to Cope When You Feel This Way

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsReasons Why You Might Think “I Hate My Dad"Mental Health Impact of Hating Your FatherCoping Strategies If You Feel “I Hate My Dad”

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Reasons Why You Might Think “I Hate My Dad”

Mental Health Impact of Hating Your Father

Coping Strategies If You Feel “I Hate My Dad”

Hating your dad isn’t the kind of thing you might bring up in day-to-day conversation. It’s complicated, messy, and really hard to talk about. But if just the thought of your dad makes your stomach churn with anxiety, you’re not alone. Maybe it’s because he was never around. Or maybe he was a toxic source of anxiety or abuse in your home growing up. Whatever the reason, you should know you are not alone in your feelings.

It’s possible to feel hatred toward yourfather. These feelings typically develop in childhood, depending on your father’s behavior and parenting style.

Hatred can be difficult to cope with and painful to live with. It can also lead to arguments and fights between you and your father, as well as tension and conflict with otherfamily members. Understanding your feelings and processing them can help you manage them in healthy ways.

Why you hate your dad can be complex.Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and professor at Yeshiva University, outlines some of the reasons why you might hate your father. These reasons are listed below:

Lack of Emotional Connection

You may feeldetachedfrom your father if you grew up in a nuclear family where your father was busy pursuing his career and spent less time with you as a result. Alternatively, if your father abandoned you, you may have longed for a connection with him,which can eventually cause you to resent him.

Regardless of the circumstances, children need their parents to have a significant presence in their early life.Whenthis need is not met, children can develop strong feelings of anger andhatred toward their parents.

Most children express some type ofdevelopmental rebellionduring their formative years. While this is typically a normative process, parental reactions tend to vary from permissive to controlling.

When parents use too much force to control rebellious children, it can inspire further hatred and insurgence in their children.

Instead of helping their children actualize the independence and autonomy they are pursuing, some parents utilize anauthoritative approachand actually cause their children to gravitate further toward rebellious behaviors.

Child Abuse

Children are dependent on their parents for survival. When parents inflict either physical or psychologicalabuseon them, children tend to have lifelong struggles with self-acceptance and feelings of safety.

If you are a victim of child abuse or know someone who might be, call or text theChildhelp National Child Abuse Hotlineat1-800-422-4453to speak with a professional crisis counselor.For more mental health resources, see ourNational Helpline Database.

If you are a victim of child abuse or know someone who might be, call or text theChildhelp National Child Abuse Hotlineat1-800-422-4453to speak with a professional crisis counselor.

For more mental health resources, see ourNational Helpline Database.

Family Violence

Children are perceptive and are acutely aware of relational dynamics among their primary caretakers. When their father isabusivetoward their mother, children become protective and may view their father as a threat to their own well-being.

When children witness the suffering of their mother at the hands of their father, it damages their relationship with him and pulls them into a parent-like role where they adopt an incongruous amount of responsibility to protect the vulnerable adults in their world.

How Children Are Affected By Parents With Alcohol Use Disorder

Romanoff explains how conflict in your relationship with your father can affect your mental health and your relationships with others.

Difficulty With Trust and Intimacy

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyDChildren who experience strong negative feelings toward their fathers tend to have trouble in their attachment to others as adults.

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD

Children who experience strong negative feelings toward their fathers tend to have trouble in their attachment to others as adults.

Conflict in the relationship with their father in childhood createsdeep-rooted feelings of mistrust. This can lead to hesitation in getting closer to others due to the anticipation of hurt associated withintimacy.

Difficulty With Emotional Relationships

When parents act in unpredictable ways or abuse their children, their children grow up to have difficulty understanding their emotions and the feelings of others. This limits their ability to build stable and close relationships.

Ultimately, they may struggle to connect with others,avoid intimacy, or be highly anxious in relationships.

Romanoff suggests some strategies that can help you cope with the hatred you’re feeling toward your father.

Break the Cycle

Recognize the ways in which yourfatherimpacted you and how that may alter your relationship with men or romantic partners.

This is referred to as an attraction of deprivation, as these individuals willseek out partners who are unsatisfying or disappointingin ways that are familiar to them, and believe that they will finally get their unmet needs from childhood met in the present through a corrective emotional experience. Typically, there is a fallacy to this type of thinking as thesepartners rarely change.

Instead, pick partners out of inspiration–meaning people whoseloveyou don’t have to constantly earn, who you don’t want to change, and who inspires you to be the best version of yourself.

Seek Therapy

It is important to recognize the enduring impact our relationships with caregivers have on current functioning.Therapycan be a great tool to not only recognize and identify this influence, but also interrupt the maladaptive patterns that are extensions from this primary relationship.

If your father is toxic and still in your life, a therapist can also help you learn how to deal with them while still protecting your mental health. A toxic father is one who is more damaging than nurturing or isn’t available to you in any meaningful way.

Work Toward Acceptance

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyDIt’s important to accept the father you have instead of distorting the father you wish he would be.

It’s important to accept the father you have instead of distorting the father you wish he would be.

Most of our pain comes from distorting the reality of people to fit our desires for who we need them to be.

Once you can separate fantasy from reality, you free yourself from perpetual disappointment and can live a more stable and consistent life without the ups and downs of intermittently viewing him through the lens of fantasy and reality.

9 Reasons the Cycle of Abuse Continues

Takeaways

There are many reasons why you might grow to hate your father.Childhood conflictswith your father can cause you to develop feelings of hate that may accompany you well into adulthood. It’s important toseek therapyfor the emotions you’re experiencing so that you can start to heal and move forward with your life, toward acceptance andhealthier relationships.

How Family Therapy Works

5 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Bi S, Haak EA, Gilbert LR, El-Sheikh M, Keller PS.Father attachment, father emotion expression, and children’s attachment to fathers: The role of marital conflict.J Fam Psychol. 2018;32(4):456-465. doi:10.1037/fam0000395Saunders H, Kraus A, Barone L, Biringen Z.Emotional availability: theory, research, and intervention.Front Psychol. 2015;6:1069. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01069Wang J, Huang X, Li Z, et al.Effect of parenting style on the emotional and behavioral problems among Chinese adolescents: the mediating effect of resilience.BMC Public Health. 2024;24(1):787. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-18167-9Rebbe R, Victor B, Cuccaro-Alamin S, Palmer L.Child protection responses to domestic violence exposure: Co-occurring safety concerns and investigation outcomes.Child Maltreat. doi:10.1177/10775595241301085Nelson E.Toxic masculinity and the generative father in an age of narcissism.J Jungian Scholarly Studies. 2019;14. doi:10.29173/jjs6s

5 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Bi S, Haak EA, Gilbert LR, El-Sheikh M, Keller PS.Father attachment, father emotion expression, and children’s attachment to fathers: The role of marital conflict.J Fam Psychol. 2018;32(4):456-465. doi:10.1037/fam0000395Saunders H, Kraus A, Barone L, Biringen Z.Emotional availability: theory, research, and intervention.Front Psychol. 2015;6:1069. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01069Wang J, Huang X, Li Z, et al.Effect of parenting style on the emotional and behavioral problems among Chinese adolescents: the mediating effect of resilience.BMC Public Health. 2024;24(1):787. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-18167-9Rebbe R, Victor B, Cuccaro-Alamin S, Palmer L.Child protection responses to domestic violence exposure: Co-occurring safety concerns and investigation outcomes.Child Maltreat. doi:10.1177/10775595241301085Nelson E.Toxic masculinity and the generative father in an age of narcissism.J Jungian Scholarly Studies. 2019;14. doi:10.29173/jjs6s

Bi S, Haak EA, Gilbert LR, El-Sheikh M, Keller PS.Father attachment, father emotion expression, and children’s attachment to fathers: The role of marital conflict.J Fam Psychol. 2018;32(4):456-465. doi:10.1037/fam0000395Saunders H, Kraus A, Barone L, Biringen Z.Emotional availability: theory, research, and intervention.Front Psychol. 2015;6:1069. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01069Wang J, Huang X, Li Z, et al.Effect of parenting style on the emotional and behavioral problems among Chinese adolescents: the mediating effect of resilience.BMC Public Health. 2024;24(1):787. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-18167-9Rebbe R, Victor B, Cuccaro-Alamin S, Palmer L.Child protection responses to domestic violence exposure: Co-occurring safety concerns and investigation outcomes.Child Maltreat. doi:10.1177/10775595241301085Nelson E.Toxic masculinity and the generative father in an age of narcissism.J Jungian Scholarly Studies. 2019;14. doi:10.29173/jjs6s

Saunders H, Kraus A, Barone L, Biringen Z.Emotional availability: theory, research, and intervention.Front Psychol. 2015;6:1069. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01069

Wang J, Huang X, Li Z, et al.Effect of parenting style on the emotional and behavioral problems among Chinese adolescents: the mediating effect of resilience.BMC Public Health. 2024;24(1):787. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-18167-9

Rebbe R, Victor B, Cuccaro-Alamin S, Palmer L.Child protection responses to domestic violence exposure: Co-occurring safety concerns and investigation outcomes.Child Maltreat. doi:10.1177/10775595241301085

Nelson E.Toxic masculinity and the generative father in an age of narcissism.J Jungian Scholarly Studies. 2019;14. doi:10.29173/jjs6s

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Lack of Emotional Connection#

Child Abuse#

Family Violence#

Difficulty With Trust and Intimacy#

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD#

Difficulty With Emotional Relationships#

Break the Cycle#

Seek Therapy#

Work Toward Acceptance#

Takeaways#