A considerable challenge in the work that I do with my patients is helping them to distinguish between responsibility and culpability, which is often a difficult distinction to make. Something done deliberately is different from something done accidentally, and an accident resulting from negligence differs from an accident that was truly unavoidable.

But just because we are not culpable does not mean that we have nothing to think about, nothing to ponder—and nothing to regret. This is particularly relevant when it comes to parents of young adult children.

Let’s examine the relationship between 50-year-old Donovan and his 23-year-old daughter, Inez. Their relationship has grown uncomfortably distant over the last several years, and they finally agree, at Donovan’s urging, to make some time to sit down with me and sort things out.

Inez tearfully admits, “You were a tyrant, Dad, you pushed me and pushed me in school and I never felt like I was doing enough, never felt like I was good enough. You wouldn’t let me go out with friends, you wouldn’t let me play any sports, everything was school, school, school. I grew up feeling like I was a terrible disappointment to you, that I was worth nothing.”

Donovan, of course, feels terrible as he learns more about the ways in which he made his daughter so miserable growing up. But, as he thinks about it in a subsequent individual session with me, he considers the possibility that one of the reasons he drove Inez so hard was because he grew up with a younger sister, Estella, who never finished high school, who became addicted to opiates, who gave birth to a child at the age of 17 and put that child up for adoption, and who is currently living a marginal existence at the age of 47.

So, Donovan has begun to conceive of an explanation for why he fathered Inez in the way that he did. He obviously didn’t want to torment her, he just wanted to protect her from re-creating his younger sister’s dismal life. But, nevertheless, from Inez’s standpoint, he was an overly demanding, ruthless, and unyielding dad.

Donovan clearly feels regret, but where can it take him when it comes to healing his relationship with his daughter? Here are some possible pathways:

He can stick with his burgeoning (and very legitimate) explanation of his behavior as a way of justifying it, letting himself completely off the hook (exoneration and vindication).
He can accuse Inez of not appreciating how hard he was working to protect her from following his sister’s dark pathways (blaming).
He can make a quid-pro-quo agreement with Inez—“I’ll admit I was too hard on you if you admit that I was a good father and doing my very best” (conditional).
He can become consumed by self-loathing and commit to punishing himself for having failed as a father (ashamed).
He can live in the in-between: “I really did mean well, and I now am beginning to comprehend why I behaved the way I did, but nevertheless, my daughter was deeply hurt by my behavior. I want to take responsibility for my part in that and allow what I am hearing and learning from her to change the kind of father I have been into the kind of father she now deserves to have.”

Just because we are not completely culpable for causing someone else pain does not mean that we turn away from the reality that they are in pain and that we may have played a role—inadvertent as it may have been—in bringing about their pain.

Experiencing regret is not the same as declaring that our behavior was morally unprincipled, malicious, or negligent. Nor does it have to result in vigorously disputing the validity of another person’s experience.

But to make our regret meaningful, we have to mourn the difference between the kind of parent that we intended to be, and the kind of parent we actually were in our children’s eyes. The reality is that, as loving, imperfect people, we valiantly strive to make good decisions in our important relationships that may nevertheless result in unplanned, unforeseen outcomes.

So what we want to consider is that an acknowledgment of regret does not have to automatically be conflated with a confession that we are at fault or to blame. In the case of Donovan and Inez, it is not necessary for him to conclude that he was a vile or despicable parent in order to feel constructive regret about the ways in which being his daughter was frequently trying and arduous for her.

We can grieve an outcome without having to torture or exile ourselves, or put ourselves on permanent, Kafkaesque trial. None of these approaches have anything to do with healing, nor will they help us to make amends and attempt to repair a relationship that may have been injured or damaged. In fact, they actually impede the very repair that may be longed for.