How “Daddy Carry ME!” turned into the first realization that I could use what I was learning about building better relationships to repair and heal my relationship with my daughter.
It was a beautiful sunny Santa Monica kind of day, I was down at the beach with my daughter and her bestie when I realized we had to hurry up the 150+ steps that would take us back to the car and the drop off of the bestie with her parents.
The girls were both tired, they were both complaining, and my daughter kept asking me to carry her up the 120 remaining steps and I kept saying NO!
It was about that time that the bestie collapsed and just started crying, it was too much, too hard, and she wasn’t going to make it.
In that moment, I was focused on the goal, get to the car, make the meet-up on time and I was not paying attention to my own daughters bid for support, care, and love.
I reached down, scooped up the crying bestie and carried her up the rest of the way.
When my daughter saw this she got understandably pissed and stormed up the rest of the stairs and all the way across the park to the car and would not look at me or talk to me. (PS I knew she could make the stairs no problem, I just missed the other nuance of that interaction!)
I had stepped in the parental doody so to speak!
Old non-relationship coach me would have said something like “suck it up” or “stop being pissed I just had to get us to the top”.
But this is where the work kicked in, this is the moment I realized that everything I was learning about romantic relationships could be translated into all of the other relationships in my life.
So with this new knowledge burning a hole in my pocket waiting to be used I held the space in a calm and loving manner until we dropped the bestie and then parked the car and had the following conversation with my very young and very pissed off daughter.
ME: “Hey kiddo, I can tell you are really upset with me. I’m guessing it didn’t feel good when you were asking me to carry you and you looked back and saw me carrying your friend, is that why you are upset?”
To my surprise she paused a second and responded:
HER: “Yes, I wanted you to carry me not her and it hurt my feelings that you chose her over me”.
Now we are getting somewhere!
ME: “You know I realized after I picked her up that it probably didn’t feel good for you and I want you to know I’m sorry for making you think I chose her over you. I want you to know that I will always choose you over anyone else and that in the moment I both knew you were strong enough to make it without my help AND that your friend was not going to and I knew we had to get to the top to meet her parents.
I want to say I’m sorry for the way that played out and I want you to know how much I love you, how special you are to me, and I want to ask you to forgive me for making it seem like I was choosing your friend over you, can you forgive me?”
HER: “Of course, thanks daddy!”
It works! This is what it looks like to take ownership of each and every relationship in my life. I am learning to pay attention to how my words and actions are reflected in the feelings of those whom I love. I adore my daughter and would have carried her up the stairs 100 times had we not been in such a hurry, in fact, I do believe I have!
This next part is mostly for the men!
I talk to a lot of men who believe “relationship skills” are feminine and that duty belongs to the women. I’ve even been in large seminars put on by men who claim to help teach men how to be men say exactly that. I think the quote I heard was along the lines of “anything a man does to try to make a relationship better will only make it worse, it is a woman/s job to tend to the relationship”.
I started my journey because I knew my relationship to my wife was imploding and I wanted to know how to be a better partner and what I have found is that the tools it takes to be a better partner are the same tools it takes to be a better father, friend, lover, and more. The book that inspired this story is “The Seven Levels of Intimacy” which taught me that I had spent most of my life swimming in the shallow end of the intimacy pool and taught me the tools to have deeper connections with everyone around me.
Follow my journey here:
– on Medium where I share my journey of growth and perspective on love, connection, intimacy, and relationships
– on My Website: Where I share resources that have helped me along my path of growth and offer relationship coaching to help others just like you build happy fulfilling relationships.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Derek Thomson on Unsplash
