This Is What It Feels Like to Be a Father Haunted by Regret (And How to Escape It)

Fellas,

There’s something that lives in the quiet moments. Before the engine starts in the morning. You feel it in the silence, just beneath your ribs. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t need to. It just waits.

That slow-creeping fog that hides in the corners. lingers. Replays things you said when you were tired. Brings back the moments when you snapped too fast, pulled away too soon, or didn’t show up the way you wanted to.

It quietly rewrites your story in your own voice. I call it The Gloom.

It’s the internal conflict every father faces, especially when he’s raising his kids from a distance. The version of you that wants to be the hero, wrestles with the one who just… couldn’t be, at least not that day.

It doesn’t show up every day however when it does, it makes everything else feel heavier.

It doesn’t wear armor. It doesn’t carry a sword, yet it draws blood just the same. It’s the war inside your head. You know you’re a good dad.

But in those moments? You don’t feel like one.

Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting those moments it’s about facing them without letting them define you. You can’t change what you didn’t know, and you can’t fix what’s already been done. But you can name it. Face it. Walk through it.

Part I: The Moments That Haunt Us

It’s 2015. I'm in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate. Divorce papers are signed. The fallout still echoes in every corner of my life, but I’m surviving.

It’s Sunday evening my weekend with the fellas. We’d had a good stretch. Laughter. Games, and Chicken nuggets.

My youngest comes running in the living room. He’s doing this wild SpongeBob dance, arms flapping like spaghetti noodles. And he’s holding this giant candy bar proud, like he’d won the lottery.

I don’t remember what I was doing. Maybe I just got off the phone with my ex. Maybe dwelling on something I saw on her social media. But I know this; my patience had a hair trigger, and he pulled it without knowing.

He’s dancing, smiling, candy bar waving around like a victory flag. And I smacked it clean out of his hand.

The sound of it hitting the floor was louder than it should’ve been. The room went still. His smile faded not in a flash, but like a slow door closing between us.

He didn’t cry. He just stood there. Holding back something. Confused. Hurt. Like he’d learned something about me he didn’t want to know.

And me? I stood there too. Watching that door close. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to take it back.

That night, I cleaned up the mess.

Not just the candy. I apologized. I hugged him. I said the right things. But the door… it stayed half-closed. And some part of me stayed on the other side of it.

That’s the pain no one prepares you for in fatherhood. Not the sleepless nights or the tantrums. It’s the tiny cracks the ones you create. The ones that show up years later when your child stops dancing altogether.

Part II: The Inner War

There’s a reason those moments hurt so much. They touch the part of us that wants to be great. Not perfect but great.

Present. Safe. Loving. Steady. The dad who shows up, even when the world is falling apart.

But life happens. You get distracted. You make mistakes. You let your past leak into your present. You react before you breathe.

Then the shame sets in.

It’s not just guilt; guilt is feeling bad about what you did. Shame is feeling bad about who you are.

That’s when the battle begins.

On one side: the voice that says you’re trying, you’re learning, you’re human.
On the other: the voice that says you’re failing, again.

This war doesn’t always show on the outside. But inside, it rages like hellfire. Especially for fathers who came from broken homes, or who are rebuilding after divorce, or who only get to see their kids a few days at a time (or all of the above).

The pressure to make every moment “count” is overwhelming. One bad interaction feels like failure. One missed call, one cold goodbye, one shrugged-off “love you, Dad” it eats at you.

You start keeping score. And the score never leans in your favor.

Part III: How to Forgive the Man in the Mirror

Here’s the truth that no one tells you, but every father needs to hear:

You will mess up.

You will fall short.

You will say the wrong thing, or nothing at all, when your child needed you most.

You are not supposed to be perfect.

You are supposed to stay in the fight.

Here are four Lessons I’ve learned through experience, mistakes, and some deep inner work to forgive myself and build resilience:

Part IV: The Fire That Builds You

You don’t build resilience by avoiding the fire. You build it by walking through the flames and realizing they didn’t burn you to ash. They forged you.

Every internal battle you fight the fear, the guilt, the doubt is a sign that you care. And caring, especially when it hurts, is proof that you are already on the right path.

Resilience isn’t built in your best moments. It’s built in the aftermath of your worst ones when you choose to try again.

It’s built when you stop trying to “win” at parenting and instead aim to grow. It’s built when you forgive the father you were yesterday, so you can become the one your child needs tomorrow.

Fellas, maybe you’ve got your own version of The Gloom. Maybe it has a different name. Maybe it only comes around when the house is quiet.

Or maybe it’s riding shotgun every time you drive away without your kid in the backseat.

But whatever form it takes know this:

You can rebuild. And you are not your worst day.

The Gloom might return… but it doesn’t get the final say.

That belongs to us.

Until next time,

Barkim