Honor your father...carefully
Image description: The above image was made using Chat GPT by the author. It was prompted with a son who is lacking what his earthly father could not provide, but given everything he needs by his heavenly father.
Ever since I was a child, my father would go to Egypt once a year for about a month. At some point in my early teens, it became twice a year, and for longer than a month. Later it was for four to six months at a time. I remember the moment I had the realization that my father was gone for a majority of the year versus being home. I was in my bedroom closet trying to decide if I was going to wear Nautica or Tommy Hilfiger cologne for school and, maybe, impress a girl. I realized that one of the bottles was gone and thought my dad took one of them with him to Egypt. Right then, it came to me: the devil had gotten a foothold on my family, and my world would never be the same.
My parents officially divorced when I was about 17 years old. My father persistently campaigned for a divorce. He confessed that he had been in a relationship with another woman whom he had actually married while on his “vacations” in Egypt. Since I was the eldest of three, my mother would share her pain with me. To this day, being the main witness to her inconsolable weeping is one of the most painful experiences I have had as a 41-year-old man.
Prior to my parents’ divorce, I had been in a youth group since I was about 14 years old, mostly because my cousins, who I thought were the coolest people in the world, were in it. I wanted to do whatever they were doing. But, in my senior year of high school, a classmate of mine asked me if I was going to try to win “best dressed” for Senior Year Superlatives. For context, I had won in 9th grade (which is a testament to how much I wanted a girl to notice me). When I told my friend Matt that I had thought about it, he told me, “Yeah, you wouldn’t win anyway....you’re not popular anymore.” After that stinging comment, I decided to live entirely for myself without restrictions to win the praise of classmates. For me, that included abandoning the youth group.
With my father gone, my mother worked two full-time jobs as a registered nurse: a home health nurse during the day, and a telemetry charge nurse by night. She was barely home, and neither was I. As busy as she was, and without my father home, she could not tell me where I should and should not go. I did whatever I wanted to do in order to pursue a feeling of belonging. My new “popular” friends became my family and I did whatever they encouraged me to do. This ultimately ended up in using various substances, which led to severe depression, anxiety, and confusion that persisted into my first few years of college. Thankfully, Kean University had an extension of the youth group I attended as a teen, and God gave me course correction by making me the president of the Kean Chapter of Youth for Christ. It turns out that I did not have it in me to live a double life. It also helped that my then-counterpart in leadership had an undeniable purity and grace that motivated me to strive to be the man that she needed as a counterpart. After seven years of being in the “friend zone,” she is now my wife of sixteen years.
It is a major grace that when I was an infant, my Filipino mother, a devout Catholic, snuck me to St. James church in Newark, New Jersey to have me baptized. My father had refused to allow his firstborn son to be Catholic; he is Muslim, albeit a nominal one. It was through this Catholic faith that after their divorce, I made a conscious effort starting in my college years to follow the half of the fourth commandment that is personally more difficult for me, and honor my father. Honoring my mother has always been easier.
From the time I was in college until more recently, I would go visit my father on a regular basis when neither of my siblings would. He would ask me how my brother, his favorite, was doing and tell all of his funny stories about him. He would share every single gripe he had about my mother and her family and how he was neglected and discounted in his marriage. He would tell me all the ways in which I should live my life. He would frequently ask, “How come you don’t call me?” (Never mind that I did most of the calling and visiting and listening.) But hey, “honor your father.” And that is just what I did. I would just be there for, and with, him. My wife confessed that she did not know how I was able to tolerate it.
Well, just a few months before going on a Life-Giving Wounds retreat, my father called me to ask for advice, which was shocking. SHOCKING. In typical fashion, he wanted to do things his way despite my heart wrenching, gut-heavy outpour of the most solid direction I could give him. The amount of pain I have seen this man put himself through reached critical mass for me. While expressing this, out of left field he told me, “You’re so obsessed with the Church!” At that point, I used words that clearly demonstrated that maybe I am not as obsessed with the Church as I should be. I will leave my creative retort to the imagination of the readers here to save face.
All the “honoring” of my father over twenty-five plus years seemed to be like a slingshot band that had been pulled back with the bearing of every spoken gripe-filled, comparative, ungrateful, dismissive word that I decided to swallow. My intention was to honor, but what I learned through Life-Giving Wounds was that I was hoping that my father would just tell me that he loved me and that he was proud of me. I learned that the reality is that I may never get this from my father in the way that I want. I learned that this is a burden that I need to release my father from internally.
I did not know how to open lines of communication with my father again after I had spoken words to him that would make a sailor advise me to get to a confessional immediately. It took me months, but I called him. He did not answer, so I texted him that I wanted to talk to apologize for my transgressions. He did not call me back. He did, however, send me a text with a link to a YouTube video of The Beatles, “We can work it out.” My dad has never done anything so adorable that I can remember.
Today, I still believe in honoring my father, but God has shown me that I need to do so with a discerning heart, ever mindful of my intentions, while also protecting my own heart so that I can be there to love my own wife and three precious daughters from a heart that is as healed and whole as possible that they may know the love the Our Father who art in Heaven.
[Editor’s note: What does it mean to honor your father, or, more broadly, your parents as an ACOD? That is a question Life-Giving Wounds has given ample thought to and we would like to point you, dear reader, to a few resources:
Meola, D., & Meola, B. (2023). Life-Giving “Honoring Your Parents,” Sibling Relationships, and Boundaries. In Life-Giving Wounds : A Catholic Guide to Healing For Adult Children of Divorce or Separation (pp.257-276). Ignatius Press.
Rodriguez, G. (2020, October 29). Honoring your father and mother....as a child of divorce (Honrando a tu padre y a tu madre... como hijo(a) de padres divorciados). Life-Giving Wounds.
Rodriguez, G. (2023, April 15). Caregiving of our elderly parents. Life-Giving Wounds.
Howlett, S. (2022, March 20). Forgiveness: Why is it so hard?. Life-Giving Wounds.
Howlett, S. (2022, February 2). Against all odds: Christian identity, spiritual healing, and childhood wounds. Life-Giving Wounds.
A growing list of blog posts on this topic can be found here: https://www.lifegivingwounds.org/blog/tag/Fourth+Commandment]
Intercessory Prayer:
Our Lady of Zeitoun, you who fled to Egypt with your husband, St. Joseph, to protect Our Lord, your son, please speak to Adult Children of Divorce or Separation through your silent presence in our lives and cover us with your mantle, and help bring healing to your children.
About the author:
Salman is a 41 year old husband to one and girl-dad of three, Child and Adult Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, music dabbler, podcast host of “The Upstream Podcast with Salman, like the Fish,” CrossFit Masters division athlete, Ironman finisher, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu white belt, and, most importantly, an aspiring Catholic.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
How are you honoring your mother and father in your present circumstance? How have you honored them in the past?
If you believe you are honoring them, is there a possibility that you are doing so seeking their affection, approval, etc?
If they do not give you the love you desire in return, how will you respond?
What if they never give you the love you desire and need? How will you proceed?
If you have children, or hope to in the future, what would you do differently than your own parents?
Bonus Video
Prayers of a Fuddled Heart · Saving Ashes
This Is My Heart
℗ 2016 Salman Abouzied