Navigating A Strained Relationship On Father’s Day

Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, can feel awkward and confusing. Whether you’re no-contact with your father or navigating a distant, strained relationship, it’s weird to celebrate a person you hardly know or like. There’s also the guilt; we all feel an innate desire to be close with our parents or caregivers. When this desire doesn’t match up with our realities despite our best wishes for it to be different, it disorients our relationship.

If you’re feeling these complex feelings as Father’s Day approaches, know that you’re not alone. A 2025 YouGov survey found that 16 percent of Americans are estranged, or no longer have a relationship, with a parent. Another recent Princeton University study reports that nearly 40 percent of children in America lack strong emotional bonds with their parents. 

There is a casual stigma against strained parental relationships. It’s seen in pop culture, memes, and jokes about absent fathers, and even in dating. It’s no wonder that the topic itself is uncomfortable, making it difficult to navigate through these muddy emotions.

An important step of making it through a difficult Father’s Day is recognizing that you have these complex feelings instead of talking yourself out of how you should or shouldn’t feel. Struggling to fully understand the relationship between you and your father is normal, and you don’t need to have it all figured out at once or start reconciliation with yourself (or your father, if that’s an option). You can still love your father and still dread facing the celebratory day.

Grief is another sentiment that you may not even recognize you have, but it’s a common one. You may be wishing you had a different relationship with your father that is less contentious, lamenting over a conversation or situation you wish had gone differently, or just feeling depressed over a positive father-child relationship you never had. Grief doesn’t apply to just the loss of life; it’s a non-linear response to losing something, including a relationship, that meant something to you. 

On Father’s Day itself may not be the time to start repairing your relationship, but you may feel the need to reach out or send a gift. Or maybe you’re just not ready to talk to him yet. There is no correct way of coping with challenging parental relationships, but the simplest thing to do for yourself is to just acknowledge that it will be a hard day. As Psychology Today puts it “one of the most useful things you can do is stop trying to make yourself feel differently than you do.”

Everyone has different circumstances and ways of communicating with their parents. Even the seemingly perfect father-daughter duo from an outsider’s perspective has its struggles. It’s a normal part of life and relationships. We can’t control our upbringings and who is and is not in our lives as children. You are not wrong for feeling the way you do.