CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Family Dynamics, Religious Changes, And Parents Who Didn't Do Their Best

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

In this episode, let's get into the complexities of family dynamics, particularly when two families merge through a relationship or marriage. Understanding and accepting differences in family systems, communication styles, and cultural backgrounds are all key for success ... but not always easy. A good reminder to distinguish between differences that are merely annoying and those that are problematic or dangerous. Listener questions this episode include navigating relationships with religious family members after losing faith, and another about reconciling with the idea that parents did their best with the tools they had, even when it feels like they could have done more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone and welcome back to another solo episode of The Calling Home Podcast. I'm Winnie Goodman. I'm so excited to be back here with you today. In these solo episodes, I talk about some of the things that I've been seeing online and shows I've been watching conversations that I've been having with other people that I think would be interesting for you all to hear. And I also answer listener questions. So remember, you can always call me at 866-2-25-5-4-66 to leave a voicemail. And I might choose your question for an upcoming episode. Today, we have some great questions at the end of the episodes. So stick around for that. The first thing I want to do is thank you all so much for listening to this podcast so far.

I have been so shocked by the response and the comments that I've been getting. And the other day, I was scrolling through my comment section. I saw a comment from someone about my episode with Dr. Joshua Coleman about parental estrangement and estranged between adult children and their parents. And this person shared that they listened to the episode and they decided to send the episode to their parents and they've had like low contact or no contact with their parents for quite some time. And I just want to say like that was the biggest compliment that I could possibly receive from anybody that you listened to that and thought like this would be a great and I want to put myself out there to share this with my parents. And this person shared that their

parents really were like, oh, I think I kind of get it now. And it's not like anything is fixed or that they're talking again, but it's incredible to me that a conversation that was had on this podcast between two people could potentially have such a large impact on your families. And so that's just something that has been on my mind all week since I saw that, that that's like all I could ever ask for. And I think this podcast is a success, just if I helped one of you, you know, do that. So thank you. Thank you so much. And if any of you are dealing with estrangement with your parents or your parents not really understanding what things are like from your perspective, you might want to go back and listen to that episode with Dr. Joshua Coleman that I did

two or three weeks ago because people are saying that it is helpful. All right. So the next thing I want to talk about is I have been watching the show Love is Blind. For those of you that are not familiar with this show, it's like a dating show on Netflix where the people date inside of these pods without ever seeing each other. And it's a really wild look at human behavior. But I have a rule with myself that I don't talk about real people. on this show or in my post because I don't know them and I don't want to talk about people that I

haven't interacted with. But I do want to talk about a couple of themes that I've been seeing on the show that I think are so relevant to the stuff we talk about here on the podcast. And the first is like these families mixing together. So on the show, there are two couples at the end that are engaged and they're introducing each other to each other's families. And the differences in these families is like so glaringly obvious, even though we only get to see them for like 10 minutes, you know, interacting. And I'm sure these scenes are cut up and edited to look a certain way. But we're talking there's families who are quite reserved, maybe even cold. They seem a little bit guarded or they are not overly emotional. And then there are parents who are crying and really

overly emotional or just really more emotional in comparison to that family. And they're hugging and they're cheering. And you see these people together. And it's like, wow, these two adults grew up in such different family systems. And I think so many of the people listening to that, myself included, can relate to that, right? When we partner with someone, we might really partner with who they become as a result of being in that family system. But once we get around their family, we're like, whoa, what's going on here? Like, this is really different than what I'm used to. And this can be different for our family members as well who are spending time around this person and their family. And I find that when people get into serious relationships, when they

partner or even just when they go away to college, they move to a new city. This is one of the first times where they start to realize that families out there are different from theirs, especially if you grew up in a really insulated community or a place where most of the family systems were the same, potentially coming from the same cultural background, the same race, the same ethnicity, the same religion. If you grow up in a community like that, you tend to operate from the perspective, you know, as a child and a teen and a young adult that like this, is how all families are. And when you get around people that are not like you, you have this awakening of like, whoa, not all families are this way. And this can be a positive thing of you

realizing, I love how my family is. I'm glad that my family is not this way. It can also be a negative thing of like, wow, I didn't realize that this was dysfunctional in my family or I didn't realize how this was going to feel for me. And when this happens, you can start to become very critical of your family. You can start to want to change things or criticize things or question things. And sometimes this is a good thing. And it's necessary and it needs to happen. But other times, it causes a lot of disruption in the family system. And I find that this is when most parents of adult children who may not be able to see the nuance happening here will start to look at their child and be like, you've changed since so-and-so came around.

You're different. They're changing you. They don't want you to be close to us. And sometimes, like, this is happening, right? There are certainly partners out there that are malicious, that are emotionally abusive, that want to isolate people from their families. but there are also some partners who are just like illuminating dysfunction in their partners' family and in their world by just kind of calling it out and being like, hey, have you ever noticed that your mom yells at you a lot and she criticizes you? And once you hear that and wake up to that, you might start making changes in your life. And of course, if you have a critical mother, she's going to be like, well, you didn't start changing until so-and-so came around. They're the

problem, they're evil. And really, it's just that you started to notice things. And so I think we have to think about what happens when we're merging two families together. What happens when you have a union of two families that have very different styles of communication, potentially different, again, cultures, religion, ethnicity, all of these things that make it a difficult transition. And it doesn't mean that either of the families are bad. It just means that there needs to be a level of compromise and discussion and learning and also trying not to label everything that's different as bad or as problematic or something that needs to change. And so I want to give you something tangible here that if you're in a position where you feel like you and your spouse or your

partner's family are fundamentally different, you have to be different. You have a to ask yourself, like, is it different or is it dangerous? Is it annoying or is it problematic? And this requires some reflection. It requires a pretty significant level of emotional intelligence, right? To be like, okay, my husband's family wants to celebrate holidays in this way or they tend to be like running late a lot or they interrupt each other. Like some of these just like little communication things that you're like, oh, that doesn't happen in my family. You know, we're a lot more quiet. We're more reserved. We're always on time. And those are things that can fundamentally shape the culture of your family, even though they seem like little things.

But those are things that I would say could fall under the category of like, it's annoying, it's different. It's something to get used to, right? Versus if you have a partner whose family members are doing things that are a direct violation of your boundaries, like they are calling you names, they're screaming at you, there's substance use when you've asked for there not to be, they're showing up at your home unannounced and being belligerent, you know, they're doing things with your children that you ask them not to do. These are things that I would consider to be, you know, more problematic. They're things that need to be boundaries around, and they're things that you can bring up in a sensitive manner with your partner. And so that brings me,

to the next part, is that when you are going to start bringing up these things and illuminating them, approach this with a lot of grace, right? Because this might be the first time that this person is realizing this, hearing about it. It's likely that they might be quite defensive because it's difficult to hear negative things about your family. And we have to give people the time and the space to come to certain realizations and to decide on their own what they would like to do about that. Now, that doesn't mean that in the meantime, while they're processing these things, you can't come back to yourself and think, what boundaries can I institute to protect myself? You know, if my spouse is okay with his mother yelling at him and I'm not okay with it,

is that a boundary that I can set with her while he's in the process of working through? this issue and deciding what he wants to do. And thinking about how can we approach this as a team, but how can I also remember what it feels like to have someone criticize your family, to have your family be different, and to feel like your family is the problem. And this is something I come up against often in therapy. And when I used to do a lot more couples therapy, I would see this a lot, that nobody wants to be the dysfunctional family in the partnership, right? Nobody wants to be. Nobody wants to be the one who is constantly being told, your mom's crazy, your dad's doing this, they don't follow our boundaries because it's uncomfortable. And I think you wish that you could be

the one with the same normal family. And if you are that person in a partnership, I would imagine that you can feel feelings of shame and judgment and loneliness and wishing that your family could just be normal because you know that it's causing distress for your partner or your family unit. And that can be a really lonely place to be. So to recap that, I think it's important to remember that when we are joining families together, there are going to be a lot of different personalities and there's going to be inherent just chaos and disruption a lot of the time that you need to navigate and you need to figure out. It doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong if everyone doesn't get along or do the same things from day one. It's totally normal.

If you are the partner who is pointing out the dysfunction in your partner's family or in their life, try to do this compassionately, try to give them time and space to understand it, and try not to be overly critical by saying things like, they're just crazy, I can't believe they would do this, I want to cut them out of our life. You really need to approach it from a much more compassionate stance. And I'll do a post on this later on Instagram to give you guys some scripts. You can definitely look back for that over the next week. And then the last thing is, if you are the partner in this situation whose family is disruptive, give yourself some time, some space, and some compassion when you're starting to realize

how your family system might be impacting your new family, because that is really, really challenging. All right. And definitely go and watch Love is Blind if you want to see what I'm talking about. I think it was in like the fourth or fifth episode where the families are starting to get joined together. And it's really interesting, especially after you've listened to this episode to kind of look at like, wow, how different all these people are and what it's like for them to even be in communication with one another when their communication styles are so fundamentally different. And the way the show is filmed makes it really obvious and like easy to see these patterns. You're working so hard day and night just being a parent that it can

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And I might choose your question for an upcoming show. I have a question about religion and connecting with other people. My family is Catholic-slash-Christian, depending on the person. And I've lost my faith in much of Christianity. And it's hard for me to take religion very seriously nowadays, especially, like, literally. And it just caused me to feel friction and some judgment towards other people. people who are religious. So what feedback do you have for someone who's not religious to try to understand and connect with people who are more religious, particularly with family, because it's such

a tricky subject for me. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you so much for that question. I think this is happening to a lot of families today because we're seeing membership in religious affiliation decline, especially among young people. I find that this is a very common problem, especially between generations. So I want you to first know that if you're this caller, you're someone like this caller, there are a lot of people out there that are going through this. So let's talk about this from the perspective of like connecting with any family members who do not share the same beliefs as you, whether that's religion or something else. I think we have to remember that families are always or more often than not made up,

of a group of people who all have very different beliefs, interests, desires, values, all of that. And that's what makes family challenging is that these are not necessarily people that you might choose to be around for one of those reasons. Instead, you're just connected to them because of, you know, living in the same place and people joining together and choosing to procreate and, you know, it just kind of happens. And I think that means that you're not always going to be in alignment with the people in your family. Now, that being said, I want to make a big distinction here. There is a really big difference between having different beliefs than someone in your family and needing someone to have the same beliefs as you in order to have a relationship

with them. And what that might mean is that I think there are in some families, there are people who will exile members of the family who do not agree with them. This happens in high control religions where someone might say, well, if you don't share my beliefs, if you're not a member of this religious affiliation, if you don't practice in this way, then I can't have you in the family. I can't be around you. They feel that there is some sort of risk to having that person around. And there are people who believe that their position in the afterlife or their position in the world today will be jeopardized in such a way that they are willing to excommunicate a family member because of that fear. And so I think if you're in a position

where you have a family member telling you, I cannot have a relationship with you because your beliefs don't align with mine. You're not doing what I want you to do. You know, you are not following things exactly as we do. That's a different story, right? And that's something you really have to think about is like, is that the kind of love or the kind of family environment that I want to be a part of, where I am only loved and accepted and treated with respect if I behave in a certain way, if I do exactly what people want me to do. And if I suddenly do not want to follow this religion and my family is telling me, well, now they need to excommunicate me from the group, that's not really love. They have no interest in getting to know who you are as a person

and understanding your needs and your wants. Their desire is to have a cohesive family unit where everyone shares the same beliefs, the same religion, and everyone does the same thing. And we know that, especially today, in the modern world that we live in, that is not always possible. And there are going to be families where there are multiple religions, multiple beliefs, different degrees of, you know, how much people follow a religion within a family. And so I think you have to decide, like, if my family is saying, I have to believe X in order to be a member of this group, what does that mean for me? And is that something that I can actually do? And how is that going to feel moving forward? That I know that my acceptance in this group hinges on me following

this religion and believing exactly what these people believe. And I may know that I can never be my full self. I can never express myself fully because I know that these people are not going to accept that about me. Now, it sounds like what this caller is talking about is more like I have recently moved away from the religion that my family is still very much a part of. They didn't make any mention of like being forced or having to continue to believe in something. But it sounds like maybe they're just having trouble relating to these people who still follow something that they no longer participate in. And this can be really hard because it can make you feel like, wow, there's so much distance between us, especially when you have a big realization

about something as integral as religion. I think it can feel like, how do you not see this? How do you not understand what I understand? How do you not like also want to move away from this if that's the place that you're in. I think that's a place that a lot of people tend to kind of inhabit early on in this process of deconstructing religion, deconstructing a belief, moving into a different set of beliefs. And that I find will often pass or improve with time and also feeling more secure in your beliefs. But there is also a chance that your family members could have beliefs that you feel are really incongruent with your values. And you feel like it is impossible for you to maintain a relationship with them when they have this type of belief.

And I think the problem with that is that we think of that in like a good sense, but that can also be weaponized, right? If you remember how I started answering this question, there are people that could say, well, what you are doing with your life is not in line with my religious values. And so I am going to distance myself from you. And so I think we have to think about like what are our personal values. How do we want to relate to people that are different from us? And that is a huge spectrum. You might say, I'm willing to walk with you up to this point. But the second you start doing X is where you step outside of my values and my ability to have a relationship with you. And so this is really nuanced and really needs to be like carefully navigated. I think a therapist can

be very helpful in a situation like this. The number one like tip that I would give you if you're in this type of situation and you're saying, I want to have a relationship with my family and I'm trying to figure out how is to really think about what is something I do have in common with this person and what would it look like to carry that out in daily life? What would it look like for me to maintain a relationship with this person that feels good? So that might mean talking on the phone once a month. It might mean sending birthday cards, checking in via text, only seeing each other for big holidays, not seeing each other for religious holidays, but being able to maintain a relationship about sports or current events or something else. And so really deciding, like, if I want to

maintain a relationship with this person, what will it look like? And how can I maintain one without getting into this, like, really dicey space where both of us feel like we cannot be our full selves? This is really challenging. And honestly, I hope to do a full episode on this in the future. So if you're interested, definitely send me a DM on Instagram or leave me a comment, like telling me if this topic resonated with you because I think religion and leaving religion is a very salient topic for a lot of families. And I would like to approach this again. Hey, Whitney. My name is Kelly. I really have loved your social media page. And something that I think about a lot is the statement that, you know, our parents are often doing the best they could with this. the tools they had at the time. And it's something I have a hard time with, I'm having trouble letting go because I don't think

my parents did the best they could with the tools they had. I think they could have tried harder. And I just feel like it's breeding a lot of resentment and I don't enjoy being around my parents, even though I rely on them for childcare and they do help out and they love their grandchildren so much. But I'm finding it harder and harder to let go of this idea that they were supposedly did the best that they could with the

tools they had, but I feel like they could have done more. I don't really know what the question is in there. I guess maybe like do other people experience this and then how do you resolve that if you even resolve it at all? So anyway, thank you for your time and thank you for so much for having this platform. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for that question. I think a lot of other people feel this way. And the first thing I want to say is you're absolutely not alone in feeling like this line doesn't fit your situation. I don't know the specifics of your situation, but I will say that some parents out there did not do the best they could with the tools that they had. Some parents rejected any tools that they were offered.

They didn't seek out other tools or other options. They didn't ask for help. They didn't read books. They didn't try. They didn't attempt to do better. And I think that that phrase, your parents did the best they could with what they had or with the tools that they had or with what they knew at the time fits some people's situations. And it might feel empowering to them.

And it might give them some relief, you know, some situations that I think of are particular. like in situations where families are working several jobs or in immigrant families or some of these situations that are bigger than our parents and that they really are trying to work through and navigate. But then I see people who grew up in homes where there was abuse, where there was access to other tools, where there were resources being offered. And the Parents either didn't have the ability mentally or emotionally to access those tools or they deliberately chose not to change things, not to do things differently. And so I feel what's at the core here is that what is this statement doing for you? Is it helping you? Is it hurting you?

Is it making life a lot more challenging for you? And how is it impacting your relationship with your parents today. Something I want to point out in this question that I think a lot of you might be feeling is particularly when there are grandchildren involved and you see your parents doing better than they did, you see them maybe learning new things, showing love in a different way, trying things differently. There can be this feeling of jealousy even, of resentment. And I know that it feels weird to say that.

especially about your own kids. And you know, you're grateful that your kids have a grandparent that is good. It sounds like this caller is grateful that they have a parent that is providing them with support and with care. And you might kind of have this internal feeling of like, I should just be grateful for what I have. I should be grateful that I have a parent that's helping me that I can rely on now. But there can also be this really confusing feeling that comes up of like I see my parents doing things differently now. I see them being different people. And that hurts to know that maybe they had that capability. Maybe they had the skills or they picked up the tools now. And I'm grateful that my kids are getting that. I'm grateful that they're able to have this type of grandparent. But I wish I had that. And the inner child in me still feels very hurt by the fact that I didn't get that. And so they're

can be this friction there. And I totally get why you are feeling that way. And I know a lot of people that feel that way. And I've talked to people that feel that way. So there's, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're walking around the world with this belief of my parents did their best with what they had at the time. And that belief gives you peace. And you're able to say, I feel like my parents are good parents. And they tried their best and they did the best with what they could. And I am grateful that they did that. And that brings me peace in adulthood and it allows me to have a good relationship with them. Then I want you to keep that belief. And I want you to use that belief to your advantage. If you are walking around the world like this caller with the belief that

I don't think my parents did their best. I don't think my parents really did it. I don't think my parents really did everything they could. And I actually really believe that they could have been different. Then I want you to consider in what ways that belief is serving you and the ways that it's harming you. And I want you to reconsider the role of that belief in your life because you don't have to walk around thinking that. You could transform this belief in a couple of different ways. the first is that my parents didn't do the best they could and I accept that maybe I'm mad at them maybe I have chosen to accept the fact that at the time they for whatever reason could not and did not do better than they did and there are consequences to that and I'm working through those

consequences and if I want to have a relationship with my parents today it means accepting that and also looking at what are they doing differently now? What are they doing now that is different from what they did then? What about them has changed? What about them is better? What's worse? What's the same? And really working through like, I may never get to do my childhood over again. I may never get to have that be different, but what is different today? And sometimes we don't get to go back to that childhood piece, but we do get to heal some of those things that happened with our parents today. Now, there are others of you listening that might say my parents didn't do their best. They are still doing their worst. They are not trying to be better.

And frankly, I don't know what I'm getting from them that is positive in any way, shape, or form. There are some of you listening who have parents who maybe still abuse you, who still yell at you, who call you names, who treat you poorly. And if they were anybody else in your life who had been consistently behaving this way for the last however many years you've been alive, you might say, why am I spending time with this person? Why am I hanging out with them? Why am I continuing to put myself in this situation? And so this is where I always come back to this place of like, we have to accept what is in front of us. We have to accept the people that we are dealing with. and we can say this is who they are today.

I hope, and I wish that they might be someone better or different tomorrow, but for today, this is who I'm working with. And if I accept this person as they are in front of me, what does my relationship look like with them? What does that mean for us going forward? And every person is going to have a different response to that question. every person is going to have a different reality of what that looks like, different choices to make. But I think if you are in a position of saying, my parents didn't do their best, they're still not

doing their best, and you know what, maybe this is their best, and their best sucks, then that's something to think about and to consider. But for this caller, it does kind of sound like my parent didn't do their best, but now I feel like they're doing better. And I don't know how to, like, reckon with that. I don't know how to integrate that. And the only thing I can say in that situation is that people change as life changes. People react differently to certain circumstances. People go through different stages. Their mental health changes. Their resources change who they're with, what they're doing changes. And we have to decide that if that person does change for the better or for the worse, can we integrate them into our life in a way that makes sense and also include

all the different experiences that we've had with them leading up to this point? And what does that look like. And sometimes that means, you know, working on healing the versions of yourself that had negative experiences with this person. It's not easy. It's challenging. But I hope everybody in these different versions of this scenario gets a little bit of something out of my answer to that question. Thank you so much for setting in your questions this week. I hope listening to those questions and the insights helped you feel less alone and maybe gave you the confidence to navigate a difficult situation you're having in your own family. If you would like to leave me a voicemail or ask a question in an upcoming episode,

please call 866-225-5-4-66. I'll see you at home again soon. Oh, oh, oh.