~ Robert A. Glover (No More Mr. Nice Guy)
I met with a young father today who candidly revealed that he was feeling resentment toward his preschool son. He said that every time he had to end playtime, his son would tearfully beg him to stay longer. The child's protesting annoyed him so much that he found himself emotionally withdrawing from his son before actually leaving him to play alone, which he usually did in a huff.
When we looked at what was underneath his anger, beyond the layer of resentment toward his child for wanting more of his time, we discovered a second layer of blame. In the father's mind, the child was putting pressure on him to spend more time with him, pulling him into a tug-of-war of wants and needs: his vs. mine. Once he realized that it was actually himself, not his son, who was asking him to relinquish his needs, he stopped feeling both blame and resentment. Instead, he grasped that the real enemy was a standard of "good" he had set up to measure himself against (because he was always wanting to be Mr.Nice Guy), which he felt trapped by.
As soon as he saw this, he was able to stop projecting blame for his feelings onto his child. He no longer saw his son as "pressuring" him but as expressing a healthy desire to spend more quality time with his dad. By taking responsibility for his self-imposed obligations of being nice, he became more emotionally available to his son. He stopped trying to look like a good father, and actually started becoming one!
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