CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: It's Not About Childhood. It's About How They Treat Me Now

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

In this conversation, Whitney Goodman answers two caller questions about the complexities of estrangement and the challenges of communicating with parents. She emphasizes the importance of self-protection, setting boundaries, and understanding the dynamics of parent-child relationships. Goodman also discusses the need for accountability and emotional intelligence in reconciliation efforts while acknowledging that not all relationships can or should be repaired. The conversation provides insights into how individuals can navigate their feelings and expectations when dealing with estrangement and communication with parents. Chapters 00:00 Navigating Estrangement: Understanding the Need for Communication 06:50 Setting Boundaries: The Importance of Self-Protection 10:01 The Complexity of Parent-Child Relationships 15:36 Protocols for Reconciliation: When to Seek Help Quotes "I think we should always try to explain ourselves." "You have to be doing this because it's something that you want to do." "You don't have to forgive your parent." Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Join The Calling Home Family Cyclebreakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at www.CallingHome.co. IG: @sitwithwhit TikTok: @whitneygoodmanlmft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where's your playlist taking you? Down the highway, to the mountains, or just into daydream mode while you're stuck in traffic. With over 4,000 hotels worldwide, Best Western is there to help you make the most of your getaway. Wherever that is. Because the only thing better than a great playlist is a great trip. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Book direct and save at bestwestern.com. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you.

Your regular side listens to classical music. Your adventurous side rocks out with the dynamic sound Yamaha. Regular U owns a library card. Adventurist U owns the road with super all-wheel control. Regular side? Alone time. Adventurous side journeys together with third row seating. The new outlander bring out your adventurous side.

Mitsubishi Motors. drive your ambition. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Calling Home. I'm Whitney Goodman. I'm a licensed parent and family therapist. And today we are going to be answering two caller questions that called in and left me a voicemail. Just a reminder this month for the whole month of October, we are talking about family estrangement at Calling Home.

And that means that we're going to have groups every Wednesday where you can meet other people who have either initiated a family estrangement or thinking about becoming estranged from their family. And we also deliver new content to your inbox and on the site every Monday in the month of October to help you navigate family estrangement. So we're going to be talking about why family estrangement happens, how to tell a family member if you are becoming estranged, what are some of the ways to repair after estrangement, what to do during the time that you're not speaking to one another. I'm going to be talking about if estrangement is actually on the rise. And this month on the podcast, I'm also going to be doing

a three-part series about adult child and parent estrangement with the survey results that I collected, about 3,000 respondents who took that survey. So look out for that episode. Next week will be that three-part series is starting. All right. Let's go ahead and dive into some of those. call her questions. Hi, a lot of the stuff I see is geared towards like when it maybe happened with our parents when we were young and I realized it 25 years old and I was the target for about three or four years in my 30s and, you know, when I try to explain to my mom,

she just keeps going back, I guess, because there's so much information out there about, like, when it happened in our childhood. But it really happened to me, like, the verbal and manipulation in my 30s. And I did work for her at the time, so there was that as well. But, you know, a lot of people in my siblings are trying to, like, focus it on, like, oh, your childhood trauma and kind of, like, making fun. or whatever. But it, you know, some things I'm looking back, it is messed up, but my oldest sister was the target when we were kids. But what happened to me was in my 30s. So I don't know. I don't know if you have any insight of like, you know, the treatment that I received that was not good and now, you know, we're low, no contact, but it was in my 30s.

So this is so relatable and so common. I'm really glad that you called in and asked this because I think this is something that we've been talking about a lot in our groups that calling home inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club is this idea that it's not necessarily what happened to you as a child, but it's about what's happening now. And I think that is something really difficult for parents to grasp because a lot of times they think like, oh, if we're having issues, if you're upset with me, and must be about your childhood and look at your childhood and look how great it was and look how wonderful it was. And there can be a lot of this defensiveness that comes up on the part of the parent.

And then there's also the adults like this caller who's calling it and saying like, you know, it wasn't really about my childhood. It's about what happened in my 30s. It's about what's happening now. And even now in adulthood, I'm having trouble relating to my parent. I'm having trouble being around them because they're just treating me poorly. And I think one of the hardest things about this dynamic is that we have this belief that because we are adults now, our parents shouldn't necessarily have power over us. We need to learn how to tolerate their behavior. We're both adults.

So we should be able to just be in this dynamic. But two adults can behave in some really unhealthy ways. And you know that I have said this many, many times on the show that I really believe that a parent continues to have a substantial level of power over their adult child, even through adulthood. And we cannot erase the relationship that was established and built over those first 18 plus years that you were in your parents' life. And even when you are an adult, your parent likely has some type of emotional power

over you, maybe physical power, financial power, whatever it is. And this caller mentioned, you know, I was working with my mom. And so that makes me think that this might be a situation where there was a significant power differential, especially if your parent was the one who maybe was in charge or owned the business or was in control of your employment, that that would create a huge differential if you are not only that person's child, but also their employee or at their mercy in that arena of life, that makes things even more challenging. And I discussed this in a previous podcast episode with Patrick Tien about how that dynamic really doesn't start to shift until a parent becomes elderly, where they have some sort

of disability or illness, whether that's intellectually. We're thinking about like dementia or Alzheimer's or they're just aging. or we're talking about a physical illness that makes them reliant on you the child as their caregiver. When that happens, I tend to see a power shift where the adult child might then have more power over their parent in a couple of key areas. They might be the ones making decisions. They might have physical power over them. They might have financial authority, things like that. But when we're talking about two adults that have not entered that caregiving stage or that elderly stage of life, I really believe that the parent still has a lot

of power over that adult child in all of those areas that I explained. And so it doesn't matter if you are 12 or 35. If your parent is using their power to harm you, control you, abuse you, belittle you, use constant criticism to control financial resources, your employment, where you live, all of these things, it's still going to affect you, even if you are that age. And as caller also mentioned, you know, my siblings are like, oh, your childhood trauma kind of sound like they're making fun of it, which is really a huge bummer. And I hate to hear that happening because I think that that doesn't help anyone. But it also really shows where those family members are at in dealing with the dysfunction in the family.

Because if somebody is making fun of someone else, someone else's trauma, what they're going through, what is upsetting to them, that is a really clear sign of some emotional deficiency there, right? It's that I am coping with this issue by dismissing it, invalidating it, joking about it, making light of something that you're saying is impacting you and hurting you. because I can't handle thinking about it. It's a totally different story when the family decides to maybe engage in that coping skill together and it's something that's working for them than if some are doing that

at the expense of another family member and trying to deny their reality and validate what they're going through so that they don't have to face the reality of what's happening in the family because ultimately that ends of really harming that sibling and all it does is perpetuate these dysfunctional dynamics. So if you're someone like this caller who is saying, you know, gosh, I still feel so impacted by what my parent is doing to me today. And I could get over what happened in my childhood. But I can't find a way to relate to them if they are going to behave this way. You're not alone in that. And there are a lot of reasons why your parent is still impacting you in adulthood.

One of those I mentioned is that power differential. It also is that they are likely invalidating or dismissing your concerns. They're not changing their behavior. They're not being accountable. All of these things, you know, compiled together are going to make it feel as if you are still going through a similar powerless dynamic that you likely felt as a child in different ways. all children are really powerless in so many ways in the face of their parents. And their parents get to decide so many things for them. I am the one that is making all of these decisions

for my children. And they have to live with those decisions and decide in adulthood what they're going to continue in their life, what they think was helpful to them, what impacted them in X, Y, Z way. And I also have to be ready to be accountable for how the decisions I made, coupled with their unique personalities and their temperaments and what was going on in the world at that time and who they were spending time with has impacted them. And all adults look back on their life at some point and say, okay, these events that I went through impacted me in this way. That's a healthy stage of development. And so when you reach adulthood and start to look at the way this is that your parents interact with you and the ways that they treat you,

it is normal and developmentally appropriate to say, I don't really know if this had such a good impact on me. I don't really know if I like the way that my parent is treating me in adulthood. And if you have a parent who is emotionally savvy and has the skills to be able to talk about that with you, then you can, of course, bring that to them. And a lot of times there can be a lot of healing and growth and change and relational repair that happens when we do that. But if you have a parent that responds with, get over it, it's not that big of a deal. This is just how we talk to each other in our family. It's a joke. It's not really a problem. You know, they're being very dismissive. They're denying it. They're calling you dramatic.

They're calling you emotional. And they really are just so focused on your response and your reaction rather than what they're doing, then you might not have as much success. And that's when you have to decide, you know, what am I willing to tolerate in this relationship? What do I need to set boundaries around? What topics are really topics that I can't discuss with this person because of their communication style and their skill set, you know, around navigating these kinds of topics? But it is absolutely normal and quite common in my work to see adults saying things like this of like, I could get over everything that happened in the past, but I really cannot get past how my parent is treating me today and the way that that is impacting me. Thank you so much for calling in and asking this

question. And if this is something that you're struggling with, I want to encourage you to go to our website at calling home.co. And you will find a couple of different sections on the content page that I think could be really helpful for you. The first is the accepting your parents' content. So much of this work in there. We have workbooks, videos, articles that can really be helpful to use scripts for bringing this stuff up or talking about it with a therapist. And then also the parents who won't apologize section, I think would be super helpful. And then just a reminder that we do have two groups a month on Thursdays for adult children of emotionally immature parents. And this would be a great place to kind of connect with other people going through this and work

on some of those patterns. But thank you for calling in with this question. And let's get to our next caller. Hi, Whitney. I had a question for you about estrangement with a parent. I've been no contact with both of my parents, but most recently my mom. And I was just curious, I've been wanting to send her a letter, kind of letting her know, like, how I feel and everything. Because the last conversation I had with her, she would not let me talk and did not want to hear me out. And that's kind of been the ongoing issue is my feelings and my concerns are not ever heard. She's kind of always the victim and her feelings are at the forefront. So I just wanted to know kind of like, what would you include in a letter to send to an estranged

parent to kind of let them know all of your feelings, reasons for the estrangement, and what needs to happen in order for reconciliation? Thank you so much. Thank you so much for calling in and asking this question. I think, you know, I'm so glad that I listened to the conversation that I had with Patrick Tien before coming on here to answer this question for you. And if you want to go back and listen to that episode to get more help with this, definitely do that.

Something that he brings up in our conversation is how writing these letters and listing out all these things and trying to explain to someone can really be very destabilizing for those of us that have already tried to do that so many times, right? And so I hear you saying in this question, like, I have tried to communicate with my parent. I have explained to her and she didn't want to hear it. It's all about her feelings. She got upset, whatever it is. So if you've done that before and you're saying, I again would like to go to my parent

and I would like to explain to them the reasons for my estrangement, fine. That's great. I think that we should always try to explain ourselves when it is appropriate to do so. And what I mean by that is, are you not in danger when you explain yourself? Is this not a domestic violence situation or a relationship where you could be injured or hurt by explaining yourself and is the way that you're explaining yourself a good avenue for doing that? So this caller wants to potentially write a letter, which is usually one of like the lowest mistakes ways because you're not interacting with them in person, you're not putting yourself

in a position where they can respond immediately, yell at you, attack you, physically injure you, whatever it is, if they do not like what you are saying. Now, the other benefits of a letter are that you have the time to think about everything you want to say and put it in writing and really get clear on what you are communicating before you deliver it to them. And so it's likely that you're going to be a lot more thoughtful and intentional about what you're saying. Now, that being said, if you have tried to explain yourself to someone, whether that's a parent or another family member or partner, many times, and you noticed, like this caller has said that when you do that, you're met with a lot of denial, dismissiveness, maybe, you know, they become

really emotional and it becomes more like, woe is me. I guess I'm just the worst parent ever. I never did anything right. and it gets flipped back on them, I think you have to be doing this because it's something that you want to do, not because you're looking to elicit a particular reaction or response from the other person. So if I say, I want to explain myself because before I walk away from this relationship, I want to make sure that I feel confident in the ways that I describes my pain, my reasons for becoming estranged, and what I need from this person so that if and when they're ready, they're able to do that for me.

I think that is a good approach to take from the perspective of like, I'm doing this for me. And regardless of whatever I get back from this person, I want to be able to lay my head down at night on my pillow and say, I explained myself. I feel very clear about how I explained myself and what I said and what I need from this person. And I know that I'm able to walk away from this knowing that I did what I needed to do in order for this relationship to move forward and kind of like, like the ball's in their court now to do something with that information. If you are going to write a letter to a parent that explains all these things with the intention that they are going to read this and say, you're right, I'm going to change. I'm going to do all these things different.

I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to read the books. I'm going to do everything. You might be disappointed. And I think there are definitely a group of people who hear all these things. I've met these parents. I know that they are out there. and whether they did this on the first try or the 10th try, they got there.

They exist, but they might not always be your parent. And so I think that you have to go into this kind of with these temperate expectations of I don't know what I'm going to get from my parent. I know that I can't change them. I know that I cannot force them to be different or to change. And so I need to go into this knowing that they're going to be different. This is about me communicating and not me inspiring change in that. And I think that mindset shift can make it a lot easier to stomach it if it doesn't turn out

the way that you want it to. And if your parent does meet this with open arms and say, you know what, I'm willing to go to therapy. I want to work on this. You're right. I haven't been treating you respectfully or you're right. This thing from your childhood is painful. And I want to work through it with you.

Then you kind of are already. prepared for that reality, right? So going in with minimal expectations, going in communicating what you want to communicate for the sake of communicating it for yourself, not to elicit change in them, can take you a long way. Now that being said, I always say this, that it is your duty to show up as a respectful, conscientious adults if and when you decide to do these things if you are truly seeking repair and change. If you have been victimized by your parent, you have been abused, you have been abused in ways that we would never want anyone to be treated, you don't have to forgive your parent. You don't teach, you don't have to

teach them how to be. You don't need to show up with, you know, kid gloves on for your abuser and teach them how to treat you right. You have no obligation to do that just because this person is your parent. I think we have to remember that we're speaking to a lot of different groups here. There are people who were abused by their parents. They were abused in ways, like I said, that we would never tolerate in any other relationship. And if this was a stranger that was abusing you in these ways, we would never say, you should write a letter to this abuser and teach them how to how they,

should treat you and how they can have a relationship with you and tell them all the ways, you know, that they treated you wrong in the most kind and respectful manner. We would never do that. We would never ask a domestic violence victim to do that to their abuser. At least I would hope that we would never do that. I would never do that as a therapist. And so if you fall into that camp, I want you to know that that's not your obligation to do that. Now, there are a lot of adult children who are having issues with their parents that are more about boundary violations, values, discrepancies, communication skills that fall into this other bucket where I think that the adult children need to also model the behavior that they want back from that

parent if they are trying to pursue reconciliation, a mature adult relationship, and resolution of these issues. You are not going to get there by behaving in the way that your parent behaves with you. You're going to get there by likely modeling that behavior. And unfortunately, maybe having to take the lead before they do. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex presale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

Presale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex. bank more on course when you switch to a Scotia bank banking package learn more at scotia bank.com slash banking packages conditions apply scotia bank you're richer than you think in these situations and so if you are someone that's thinking I really want to resolve things with my parents I want to work them out this is not really an abuse situation this is more of a we can't the eye to eye. We can't communicate with one another or having a lot of issues with emotional

immaturity because remember, some emotional immaturity is abusive and some emotional immaturity is difficult, challenging, annoying, something that you do not want to have in your life, you know, and you are not required, I believe, to have a relationship with anyone in adulthood that is treating you poorly, but sometimes some adults want to pursue relationships with their emotionally immature parent for a lot of different reasons. And I don't think that we should shame anyone for wanting to do that. And I don't think that there are these strict hard and fast rules about what type of relationship you need to have with your parent based on X, Y, Z behavior that they might be exhibiting. It is not my job to tell you.

when or how you should relate to your parent who is emotionally immature or even abusive. It is only my job to teach you that you are deserving of love, respect, and reciprocity in your relationships, even with your parents. And if they are doing things to hurt you, harm you, treat you poorly, that make you feel like it's difficult to have a relationship with them, you have every right to pursue a variety of avenues to form the relationship that works for you with that person. And that might range anywhere from full-blown close relationship all the way to total estrangement where you are kind of walking around the world feeling like this person is no longer living. And there are a million shades of gray in

between. And so I think when you listen to an episode like this about what should I include in that letter. It's not about what needs to specifically be included. It's about what do you want to feel like you explained that you owned, that you, you know, tried to put out there. And for some of you it might be, you know what, the things that my parent did are unforgivable. No one should ever treat another person the way that they treated me. And I feel like I don't need to explain that. And I feel like I don't need to put that out there because any human should know that that is not okay. And then there are some of you that will say, you know what? I want to tell my parent the ways that they hurt me. And I want to give them a roadmap to fixing this because I feel like there is the

potential for resolution if they are able to understand where I'm coming from and if they learn some new communication skills and if we set some boundaries. And so I would really get clear on what is it that I want them to know about how I feel? What is it that I feel like they need to do in order for us to have a relationship? What am I doing to help us have a relationship? Are there books I'm reading therapies? I'm doing things that I'm pursuing to try to understand the situation better and work on my communication skills. What do I want from them after they hear this information? Do I want them to contact me. Do I want them to go to therapy? Do I want them to apologize? You know, I think this is the theme what I'm seeing coming up among a lot of estranged parents is that they're

reporting, you know, my child did not tell me that I needed to apologize for something specific. I feel like I have apologized. And so if your parent has apologized, if they feel like they don't need to apologize for something specific, then that might be the point where you're at an impasse. And that's where again, I'm repeating this again, that like, I want you to do this if you feel like you want to write a letter, if you feel like you want to put this in writing, I want you to do it because you want to feel like you were clear and concise and approachable and like you really put out there what you need so that you can walk away and say, I know what I need in order to have a relationship with this person. And it's kind of on them to decide if.

they can provide that. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to this. I wish there was. And that's something that got brought up when I did an NPR interview about estrangement is like, why don't we create a protocol for this? And I think there are a lot of protocols out there about nonviolent communication, about repair after trust violations and boundary violations. You know, the the Gottman's have done a great job in creating like a fair recovery process. protocols that I think are actually really relevant to this work. There are a lot of different protocols for apologizing, for taking accountability. But I said this on that NPR interview, and I'll reiterate it here, is that the thing that is

required in all those protocols is accountability, recognition of harm, changed behavior, and communication skills. And if you don't have those, it doesn't matter what protocol we put out there, people are not going to be able to actually participate in it. You need to have emotional intelligence and awareness and accountability in order to participate in any of these protocols. And just as in couples therapy, it would be counterintuitive. It would not be recommended. And a therapist should not do couples therapy when there is domestic violence going on, when there is abuse, when there is emotional abuse, physical abuse, any of that going on, the goal should be to separate

the two and to work on creating awareness, accountability, and changed behavior in the parties that are abusing before there can be any reconciliation and you can actually participate in that joint protocol. And so that's a lot of why many adult children are not wanting to participate in therapy jointly. They're not wanting to write these letters. They're not wanting to explain themselves again because they have faced consequences to their well-being, to their physical and their emotional health, when they have decided to do that in the past. So we have to really consider, like, what is the cost of trying to reconcile with some of these protocols? And are they actually effective with certain members of these

populations? Thank you again for calling in and asking this question. Like I mentioned with the last caller, I really think anyone dealing with this who maybe wants a parent to apologize or is working through writing these letters could really benefit from attending our calling home content that we have this month, which is about estrangement working on that through the entire month of October. And then on the website, I also have the accepting your parents and parents who won't apologize content modules on the content page. So if you go to www.callinghome.co, you will see the content page at the top. click on that, and it will take you to all of those sections. And you can see all of the resources

that we have there for people who are dealing with this. Thank you so much for calling in. As always, you can call and leave me a voicemail. And I look forward to hearing questions next week. Thanks again. Bye. Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866 225-5-466 and leave me a voicemail. I do these episodes every Thursday and I love being able to get to

help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the Calling Home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more. And those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to www.callinghome.com and join the family Cycle Breakers Club. Thanks, and I will see you all on Tuesday for another episode. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified

health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.