My Relationship With My Father Analysis

For a while, I have noticed that my relationship with my father is not the strongest. We are close in that I see him often, but we both do not have very strong communication skills. I believe our lack of communication negatively affects our relationship. I will first evaluate my relationship with my father for the positive elements of communication, equality and openness. Then, I will look for ways that I can resolve the issues I find in the communication on my end.
My father holds to the belief that the parent is always right, no matter what. My Father and I have had many disagreements. His favorite things to say in our conflicts is that I can not tell him anything because he has been my age and has lived longer therefore he is right and knows …show more content…
My family does not share feelings frequently. Our household values peace over all else, even if it means packing down years and years worth of anger and malice. This is especially true of my father. He will not share his true feelings with anyone unless it is out of anger and frustration. I also have a hard time sharing and being open with other people, especially my father. This may have to do with a lack of trust, as stated above. For whatever reason there is a lack of openness between us, I know that my father and I will need to make great effort to overcome this. I can be the first to introduce openness into our relationship. I can do this through self disclosure. In an essay in the Bridges Not Walls book, David Johnson mentions that self disclosure is “revealing to another person how you perceive and are reacting to the present situation…” (211). I can see how sharing my feelings in the moment could encourage my father to do the same and henceforth, deepening our relationship. However, I must remind myself to focus only on the present. I have the bad habit of dwelling on the past mistakes of myself and my father. In order for me to begin to inspire openness, I must focus on what is happening