‘I’m a dad who can’t stop crying that family holidays with my daughters might be at an end’

QuestionWe had a family holiday a number of weeks ago and, for the whole build-up to it, my wife said this was the last of our real family holidays. She was saying this because my two youngest kids are now both heading towards 18. And we have an older girl. The youngest will probably have a friends’ holiday next year and the older girl has big plans already in progress.We have always done lovely family holidays since they were very young, both at home and abroad. I am gutted about this, crying over it on and off during this last holiday, but my wife says it’s start of new beginning for us.At the moment I can’t accept this.Is this usual for a dad?READ MOREAnswerChange is a fact of life, and if our kids are to be successful adults, they will need to develop independence and ultimately leave us, and this is a sign of success.However, more and more, the age of real independence has moved well into people’s 20s, so as long as you are paying for family holidays, they might continue to come with you.However, this does not help explain your sadness and grief.When things are good or very good, we experience loss at their passing, and it seems that your family holidays fit into this category. In one way, how lucky are you? But, of course, the loss (or anticipated loss) of this comes with grief and this is a very human response. Grief has to be borne and endured, but in this case, it can be peppered with delight as you watch your children develop and grow into fully functioning adults.There is a danger that your children will try to stop your suffering (they will intuit how you feel even if you hide your tears) by staying with you longer than their instinct tells them to. If this happens it might inhibit their development a little, so you might take this into consideration. Honesty in relationships is important, and your grief and your handling of it can act as a model for their own future losses.It is entirely possible to love someone and to let them go, it is all based on your wish for them to grow and live their lives to the full. It will help them to know that your tears are an expression of the passing of a stage of life but that you have no need to fix anything. Acceptance is central to our response to grief, but this is usually a process and not a once-off event.[ ‘It breaks my heart that our son will not have a committed father in his life’Opens in new window ]We should not try to hold on to moments of happiness, as they wither and die with this grasping. Rather we should let these moments pass with the expectation that there will be many more blissful moments in our futures. Your wife is trying to put this possibility in front of you, but perhaps you are not yet ready to open up to it. For you, acceptance might be assisted by conversations with your wife and other friends about moving through different stages of life and exploring how new, more adult relationships are formed with your offspring.When we feel understood, we have a much better chance allowing self-compassion to work and this is very healing. You ask if it is usual for a dad to experience this level of loss and of course it is: as a father faces into the fact that his role is changing from being the font of all wisdom, protection and being needed to a role of more distant caring.What might be a little unusual is that you are expressing your grief through very natural tears, where some men will block any expression of sadness with a facade of stoicism. You are modelling that it is human to feel sad, to express that sadness and to allow comfort in so that recovery and healing can happen.If we do not properly process each loss, we can bury it so that it surfaces again later in the next grief, making it more complicated and difficult to cope with. So allow yourself to feel fully what is happening, explore and figure out what meaning this has for you and accept support and comfort from your inner circle.There will be more sadness and changes in your future, and you will be able to apply all your learning from this experience so that you move from suffering to healing with more ease and grace.The driving factor behind this plight is love, and you can rest in the knowledge that you have loved long and well and that this does not stop but transforms into a more mature backbone for your children to draw from.To send your question to Trish Murphy, fill in the form below or email tellmeaboutit@irishtimes.com