Transcription
[Music] Should I try to open up about the elephant in the room of my relationship with my mom, even though I know she will probably deny any wrongdoing?
>> How old are you?
>> Uh, I'm 22 23. Sorry, I forget. I get it mixed up with my wife sometimes. I'm 23.
>> Okay. And you're married?
>> Yes. Just a quick aside, you're you're married pretty young, which I I I love. Why did you decide to get married?
>> Well, um we kind of grew up in a uh a kind of niche, like conservative Christian culture where it's pretty normal that people are getting married before their 20s.
>> Is it niche or is it culty or kind of both?
>> Uh maybe a little cultish, but maybe not enough to be an actual cult, but
>> it's cult. Okay. Very good.
>> Yes. And I I don't regret being married that often. Uh that early. And it's been an amazing two years.
>> So
>> Oh, two. So you're already two years in.
>> Yep.
>> Wow. Good for you, man. Congratulations.
>> Thank you.
>> I got I got married young, too. Not Not as young as you, but I got married young, too. I I just I I have I have a soft spot in my heart for it. So, all right. So, what's what's this elephant in the room?
>> Uh it's like a lot of past trauma. And I tried to to think of a way to just answer that quickly cuz I knew you probably would ask that. But it's more the more I look at it, the more it's just patterns of the way she treated us. But I did write down some examples if you would want some.
>> Yeah, we'll we'll get to those that you wrote down, but you said there were trauma. Um, give me a couple of bullet points.
>> Okay. So, um it was basically an environment where us the kids were never good enough. And um we would constantly get yelled at and punished for not, you know, cleaning up the way she wanted to. If she was stressed, she would make sure everybody else was upset with that. And then later in life, it ended up uh leading to my sister leaving the house when she was 19 uh because of similar issues. And then my mom and her had this conversation that I never heard, you know, I've heard both sides and they both say different things, but basically they're not in contact. And one of the big things that she did was uh she told me and my little sister that she would kill herself if we ever did what she did.
>> Uh what if we ever did what my older sister did.
>> I
>> Is it part of your religious heritage that 19-year-olds don't leave the house? That seems common across the board.
>> Yeah. Yes. Um, we we grew up in um the uh under like the IBLP type stuff where it was like the umbrella of authority. So, if you do anything that your parents don't want to, it doesn't matter how old you are, as long as you're not married, you're under your father and mother. And so, if they don't want you to move, then you can't move, basically.
>> Wow. That is a uh twisting up of the honor your father and mother to a new level, which is you do whatever they say for as long as they say it.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. That's I hate that for everybody. Um, Yeah. So tell me tell me why. Well, let's just say this. No, it it doesn't based on what you've told me, it doesn't make any sense to quote unquote confront your mom because it there would be two things at play here. Either you're confronting her because you want to heal this relationship and have her a part of your new marriage and your new life and if you'll have kids and all that. Um, and it may even be an extension of your religious heritage, which is she still gets a vote in how we run our our marriage, which I'll disagree with, but is what y I mean, y'all do you. There's no So, that's number one. and I want to heal this thing. And she's proven to you over time that healing or working together or having a a relationship that is one of equinimity is not anything she desires. She is your boss. She tells you what to do and when to do it and how to do it. And anything other than that results in threats, screaming, yelling, or even um threats to take her own life. Or the other reason you'd want to do this is because like I'm 23. I've been married two years. It's time I stand up for myself. And I understand that, but I would much rather see you stand up for yourself with your actions and not just say something to have had said it. Does that make sense?
>> Yes. Uh could I add a little bit of context to that?
>> Add whatever you want, man. Yeah.
>> All right. So about five years ago, I did start, you know, kind of standing up for my side with um standing up for myself. And I was in counseling at the time and he told me it was probably a good idea to move in with my dad cuz I had just recently divorced. Um and you know, she she made a she made a lot of assumptions like when I was bringing things up like, "Well, I wouldn't have yelled at you if you were a good a good kid. How dare you be depressed? Let me stop you. Let me stop you. Let me stop you. Let's don't go back 5 years anymore. You're talking about a woman who is unwell, okay? And maybe she was trapped in this religious cult adjacent niche group or whatever and she has been squashed and um silenced and whatever her whole life and who knows what her dad did to her, right? And so I'm not giving her an excuse. I'm just saying even going back to those moment a mother that looks at a kid and says how dare you get depressed or maybe you wouldn't be depressed if you weren't such a bad kid. That's the end of the conversation. There's literally nothing else to say there because that in and of itself is um it's so out of bounds it it doesn't make any sense to continue the conversation.
>> Yeah. And when you get and you when you I'm going to use a gosh an example I don't like to use here, but it's just the first one that popped into my head. Okay. Um I I can't even count them. I could probably sit down and get a piece of paper out and count them. But I've had too many students over the years at the universities I've worked at either attempt to take their life or to actually go through with it and die by suicide. Okay? And I can't tell you how many people whether it's parents, siblings or other students and friends um and faculty members etc who are trying to figure out why why did this happen and usually the result of that I mean the bottom line of that question is what did I do wrong what could I have done and there are some things people can do etc but I always used to tell folks if you're trying to reverse engineer these things there's not a rational response to an irrational act. And so you're not going to find the math problem generally speaking that you can lay over a plus b equal c here. And so what I want to tell you is it's irrational to look at your teenage son and blame him for his biochemistry and his life experiences. It's irrational to look at a son with anything other than compassion who's hurting as he's heading into a new marriage. It's irrational. And so you trying to find rational responses to that is just a waste of your energy. And it's pulling precious resources, love, time, attention, connectivity from your brand new marriage, man. And I'd love to see you redivert that energy into something productive in making sure this cycle stops with you and your new wife. Do you get what I'm saying?
>> Yeah.
>> And I know this is even more complicated cuz God is wound all up into this. And by the way, where's your dad in all this?
>> Uh my dad is now like separated from him. uh from her living separately and kind of we've both talked about how we both kind of feel like there's that denial and gaslighting of like I never said that, I never did that. You're making this up. The devil's using you to attack me. Different things like that.
>> So, you've got you've got an unwill person. You both have experienced the same person. And I would hope with you and your dad, not in a gossiping or attacking kind of way, but you can both realize, oh, we have a shared experience here. We're both not crazy. And once you realize I'm not crazy, then the onus is on you to go do the next right thing. And so based on your past, you've tried this. Your dad has probably tried this over and over. Your sister tried it. It now makes you irrational to think that you can sit down and have this magic conversation or this magic confrontation that will produce anything other than more of the same. I guess I kind of just want to get rid of the guilt I feel of feeling that way about my mom.
>> Yeah. The the greatest gift, the greatest way to dispose of that guilt is you go through an exercise of mercy, of forgiveness. Forgiveness is for you, not for her. I'm no longer mom going to carry all of the cinder blocks you put in my backpack growing up. I'm not carrying them anymore. I'm especially not going to hand them to my new wife to help me carry. And I'm especially not going to hand them to my children. And mercy is just assuming the po the most positive intent. I have no idea what you went through, Mom, as a little girl in this in this niche tradition, as you called it. I don't know what you went through. I don't know what demons and scars you have, but I am going to opt out of this dance. And so, I want you to choose guilt every single time because what's going to happen is you're going to start to resent this woman. You probably already are there. And that is an exhausting way to live your life. Do you get what I'm saying?
>> Yeah. I guess I I half like going over there to her house of visit, but part of me doesn't like the obvious walls up,
>> right? Do you know why you like going over there? Because there's
>> She's still my mom.
>> Yeah. There's a nine-year-old boy still wondering what you did that was so bad that she turned on you.
>> There's a little bitty kid inside of your chest trying to solve her. And if you've ever listened to this show, I say I've said this often. The work you have to do is to let that nine-year-old boy off the hook. He never did anything wrong. He was nine. He had a dad who didn't get involved to protect him. And he had a mother who was very unwell. And he had an oppressive system that said, "God set this up this way." That is that is strike one, strike two, strike three on a little boy trying to make his way in the world. And so your work moving forward is not to try to solve your mom. It's an insolvable problem. Your work moving forward is making sure this never happens again. Here's what that means in real life. That means a I want you to write that nine-year-old boy a letter. And I want you to read it out loud to your new wife. And I don't want you to skip the part where your dad just ducked his head and let your mom talk to you this way. I don't want you to skip the part in the letter where the church leader said, "Yes, this is exactly how this is supposed to go." I don't want you to skip the part where your sister broke free and your family system blamed her for it. Okay, I want you to let that nine-year-old boy go. Have a good time. And you're always going to want to have peace with your mom. That it would be nuts to not want that. And you're not going to get it. And there's a lot of grief there because it's not supposed to be that way. Moms are supposed to be ride or die with their boys, right? You hear what I'm saying?
>> Yeah.
>> I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry all across the board, but I want you to begin to working working on your new marriage and talking through like those fun, hard, scary, playful conversations that are who are we going to be in our marriage because I don't want to do that. And who are we going to be as parents? Because we're not going to do that. And then you'll have some bigger questions to answer like, are we going to stay in this in this faith community that teaches adult children that your main mission in life is to do whatever your mom and dad tell you to do for as long as they tell you to do it, which I'll die on this hill is different than honoring your father and mother. It just is. And does that mean you have to have a big I I would not recommend a big send off cut off party here. I just wouldn't. You can do that if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it. What I'd recommend is you and your wife saying, "Hey, what does Christmas look like this year? What does holidays look like? What does weekly gatherings look like?" And when mom calls and says, "Hey, y'all are coming over for lunch today." You say, "Hey, mom. We already have plans. Thank you so so much for the invite. We've got plans with some other friends from work, from our community, from our new church. We've got some friends and so we're going to be um hanging out with them. I hope you have a great day. I can't believe you're abandoning me. Oh, thank you for sharing that with me, Mom. I'm going to let you go. And you're going to feel that knot in your chest and you're going to put your fist in your chest and exhale through it. And it might weigh on you all day. And then you're going to go hang out and you're going to practice doing life with new people. When your dad wants to complain about your mom, hey, come on over here. Let's talk about whatever. Hey, Dad, where were you, man? Where were you? And have that conversation, too. But I want you to do your best to begin to face towards the future because the past is what the past is. And going back to conversations you had when you had when you're 18 and going back to conversations you have when you're 13. They're helpful if you don't know why you feel the way you feel right now as an adult. You do. And so now going back is just a way to hit yourself over and over and over again. And you've been hit enough, man. Emotionally, psychologically, probably physically. It's time to orient yourself to the future, man. Thank you so so much for the call. I want to help out your new marriage. I'm going to send you the questions for humans couples decks and the intimacy deck. I'll send you several of those things and hook you up with those. I want youall to begin building a new marriage. Man, I'm excited for what comes next for you.