1: The Fraternal Order
of Broken Boys

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF US. We carry around leftover pain from childhood wounds.

As a result of this unprocessed pain, we act out in ways that damage our relationships. We’re easily offended. Fragile. We lash out. We withdraw. We’re baffled by our behavior. Frankly, we’re not even sure what normal behavior looks like.

We all want to silence the voices of the past, but the way forward is shrouded in mystery. We look at our lives and can’t help wondering, Is this as good as it gets? We’re terrified we might repeat the cycle with our own spouses and children, rather than break it.

What we really want—have always wanted—is for our parents to love us, believe in us, and be proud of us. We ache to be encouraged, respected, and valued. We yearn for their approval and affirmation—to be the gleam in their eyes. That’s what you and I need to thrive.

When a young man doesn’t get these things from his mom and dad, he ends up as a little boy with a hole. I know. That’s what happened to me.

IT’S PERSONAL

When my mother died from cancer, I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t sad. I didn’t cry. There was no emotional response. Nothing. At the time, I was fifty-three years old.

Knowing something was off, I made an appointment with a counselor to figure out why. Over eight sessions, my counselor helped me process the father and mother wounds I had never been able to put into words. That allowed me to grieve the childhood I had missed. It empowered me to forgive, heal, and make beautiful, lasting changes.

Not understanding our emotions is more common for us men than you might think. Researchers believe that many men are so emotionally impaired that not only do we struggle to express our feelings but we’re emotionally blind to what those feelings even are.[1]

Perhaps you also carry around the lingering, hard-to-put-into-words pain of childhood wounds. Maybe your father or mother was not in the picture. Or maybe one or both were neglectful and distant, or angry and abusive, or self-absorbed. Maybe they just didn’t know any better. But the result is the same, and you’ve never gotten over it.

If that’s you, I want you to know you’re in good company. Most of the men with whom you will cross paths today had fathers or mothers who failed them. In fact, renowned addiction expert Terence Gorski wrote, “In the United States today . . . it is estimated that approximately 70 to 80 percent come from dysfunctional families.”[2]

As many as eight out of every ten men you cross paths with today in your neighborhood, workplace, gym, or church also grew up in dysfunctional homes. You are not alone. Together, we are the fraternal order of broken boys.

What is your starting point today? Is it passivity, resignation, addiction, rage, a critical spirit, poor self-esteem, denial, or lack of confidence? Are you oversensitive to criticism, lashing out when it comes? Do you get moody and withdraw? Are you driven to win acceptance in the world because you didn’t get it at home? Are you an overachiever, a protector of the weak, or a champion of lost causes?

Whatever your starting point, the process is the same. The Bible prescribes a process for healing (and preventing) childhood wounds that has been in constant, successful use for thousands of years. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors refine or restate the process, but it’s also true that there’s really nothing new under the sun. And this process works regardless of your beliefs about God.

HERE’S THE PLAN

In From Broken Boy to Mended Man, I’m offering to guide you—as someone who has walked the path already—through this time-tested process. You can take control of your life. You can find healing—starting now. Your wounds may describe you, but they don’t have to define you.

By the end of this journey, you will

We will also work on building a more compassionate view of our parents, and we’ll see how to apply the lessons in a way that empowers us to be better parents to our own children.

Why compassion? For longer than I should have, I judged my parents without mercy. But with each passing decade of walking the same roads they had to walk, I’ve realized that everything is harder than it looks.

Starting in chapter 2, each chapter concludes with discussion and reflection questions to help you process and apply what you’re learning. To squeeze the most out of this book, I encourage you to form a small group of men or couples to discuss these questions together. A small group will give you a chance to hear and be heard, to understand and be understood. Over several decades of working with men, I’ve seen that most meaningful change takes place in small groups. (The “Guide: How to Lead a Discussion Group” in the back of the book has everything you need to get started.) Who are the people with whom you would most like to share your thoughts and feelings as you read this book?

Today, I’m not angry. I’m not bringing to you the rantings of an angry teenager who became an angry man who never meaningfully processed his pain. By going through the process described in this book, I learned how to overcome my anger. You can too.

When we remain stuck in anger at our parents, it’s only another small step to start blaming them for all our faults and shortcomings. But more importantly, anger diverts attention from the real issues that need healing. I knew healing is what I ultimately needed—and that’s what you need too.

With that in mind, let me tell you why I, too, am part of this fraternal order of broken boys.

MY STORY: THE CLIFFSNOTES

For six years I struggled over whether to write this book. On the one hand, men like me who have grown up in broken or dysfunctional families need help. I’ve received that help, it has made all the difference, and because helping men is my vocation, I feel compelled to pass it on.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to throw my parents under the bus. I loved my parents, and I honestly believe they loved my three younger brothers and me. All parents make mistakes, but I believe they made their mistakes out of ignorance, not malice. They were never trained or discipled in how to parent, nor was it modeled for them. If anything, that’s why I want to honor them for doing the best they could.

That said, the damage done to me was the same as if their actions, or lack of them, had been intentional: I grew up as a practical orphan. Our home was dysfunctional.

As a boy I always felt like I was on my own. I have no recollection of anyone telling me they believed in me, loved me, or were proud of me. I don’t even remember being hugged.

I don’t recall anyone telling me that my life had meaning, that I was created for a purpose, or that I could do something to make a difference in the world. I don’t remember anyone talking to me about knowing God, going to college, or choosing a career.

I’m not so naive as to say with certainty that none of these things ever happened, but I have no recollection of them. However, even if they did happen, the fact that I can’t remember them is significant in itself.

Eventually, all four of us boys went off the rails. I quit high school in the middle of my senior year and joined the Army. My next brother, Robert, followed in my footsteps. He later died of a heroin overdose. My other two brothers have had more than their fair share of struggles.

Once I left home, I washed my hands of my parents and didn’t look back. If not for the influence of my wife, I probably wouldn’t have had any contact with my parents at all. The best word to describe our relationship was estranged. That whole picture started to change in my early thirties—the beginning of a journey that has led me to share my story with you.

The risk in telling any story is that we tend to make ourselves the hero (or victim) and the other party the villain. This is especially true when we start talking about our fathers and mothers.

The tendency, of course, is to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt while holding our parents to a higher standard. But I pledge to give my parents the same respect and benefit of the doubt that I would want from them if they were writing about me. I’m guided by Scriptures that say, “Do everything in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14) and “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). I want to write about my parents with the same grace and respect I hope my children would give me.

Although my mom and dad are no longer living, I think they would strongly approve of this account. I’ve pictured the three of us in a room, going back and forth over the manuscript, until we could each say, “Yes, that’s it—that’s the way it really happened. And that’s a story that can help others benefit from our mistakes.”

That’s my goal—to share lessons I learned the hard way so you don’t have to. I’m writing to you not as a clinician but as an older brother in the fraternal order of broken boys.

Whatever these pages stir inside you, I hope you, too, will share openly with someone else, whether it’s your spouse or partner, best friend, small group, or, depending how deep the wounds are, a counselor. That’s because most meaningful change takes place in the context of relationships.

Now let me tell you about my counseling sessions. What an eye-opener!