Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: How to Rebuild The Bridges You Burnt With Your In-Laws

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

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This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 152. Sitting here with Echo Charles, who sometimes thinks he needs to make his statements. I'm doing the best I can over here. You are very, your attitude in that whole exchange? Which one? The one we just had before you hit record. Sure. You really thought you were right.

Hey, if I don't know, this is just an hint for future reference. Sure. What's the hint? If I don't know I'm right. I don't I don't I won't even like remotely imply that I'm right yeah so if I'm like no it's this and you say well you're gonna be wrong first of I didn't say well and I didn't say it like that you're 100% I see what you're saying and look look my attitude was off you're correct about that but can an attitude just exists it doesn't have to be right or wrong see what I was saying what

I was saying was wrong yeah and your attitude is wrong as well I was off yeah it's in Gruent for sure. Yes. Okay. All right. Nonetheless, we got to the bottom of it and hey, here we are. So. Yeah.

There's no more question on that subject matter, but we got some questions from the people. All right, let's hear what we got. Yes. Okay, so first question. I recently started dating a woman my age and I've had the opportunity to get to know her family, including her grandmother and her mother, 46 years old. I've stayed at their house a few times and have developed a relationship with them. Unfortunately, her family has fallen on hard times.

hard times. While I'm not in a position to fully support them financially, I've tried to help by covering small bills when I can't. Her mother is understandably under significant stress, and I've witnessed occasional outbursts involving yelling, screaming, name-calling, and other erratic behavior. My girlfriend mentioned that bipolar disorder runs in the family, but I'm not a psychiatrist. Recently, I didn't send my girlfriend $40 for the clothes that her mother wanted her to have for a new job. My girlfriend herself didn't want the clothes. This triggered one of her mother's outbursts, and she called me disrespectful, a bad boyfriend and more. My ego got the better of me, and instead of staying calm, I made the mistake of attempting to, quote, quote, put her in her place.

How'd that work out for you? Her mother later sent me a text that I interpreted as a partial apology. Rather than leaving it there, I responded with a lengthy message stating things like, I'm not going to tolerate that behavior. and respect is earned, not given, so you should check yourself if you want respect. My response was disrespectful and inappropriate, and she understandably took offense. I'm no longer allowed to stay at her house. Pass word. I deeply care about my girlfriend and recognize that maintaining a positive relationship with her mother is crucial for long-term success in our relationship.

I failed to detach from the situation that my emotions take over and made a poor decision in the heat of the moment. How do I fix this? if possible. Well, I hope that you already fully apologized and took ownership of the situation. That would be the best first move. I maybe even write a letter that like apology letter. Sorry. Maybe some flowers, you know, something like that.

If you're really trying to patch things up a little bit. And then it's just going into the relationship building 101, right? Trustless and respect, influence, and care. That means, you know, you're taking care of their daughter. You're listening to what you know sorry if I won't come over Treating them with respect This is not gonna clean up easy This isn't like oh yeah just tell her to give her the old one two three

Combo you know flowers apology and You know a bottle of wine and everything will be good to go It's not gonna work like that dude the mother-in-law is gonna hold she might even hold a grudge Indefinitely by the way so keep that in mind So if you do that if you just are respectful and listen to what she has to say and you know Treat her with her respect like just all those things over time you might be able to rebuild somewhat of a relationship and I say might a little emphasis on might because it sounds like there's some

level of irrational behavior in this scenario and irrational people do irrational things and it's very difficult to rationalize with irrational people irrational people aren't thinking about They're not thinking like we think. They're not thinking like a normal person. Like she because you did that, your hateful person that's gonna beat their daughter. It's irrational thought, but this is the kind of thought that she's gonna have

and there's nothing you knew to change your mind. That is possible. So just, just, this is gonna be rough. You know what I mean? And, and it sounds like a volatile family. It's like a volatile family situation. situation, which is, you know, just use caution there. Be prepared to have to detach often.

And by the way, it sounds like you had a really hard time detaching. I mean, when you have time to reply to a text and you take the time to write the text and you didn't detach enough not to recognize what a bad situation you're going to put yourself in, that sucks because you're gonna be having to do this all the time with a volatile family like this. that sort of having hard times and has people that are bipolar in it, like this is chaos. You're going to have to be a pillar of calmness and rational behavior. And even that's not going to work at least 50% of the time

because you've, you know, you're in a family that's chaotic and irrational. So you're going to have to not get wrapped up in the mayhem. You cannot get wrapped up in the mayhem. And, you know, listen, family is part of the calculus when it comes to relationships, man. You ever heard the thing like, oh, she comes from a good family? Yeah, of course. Comes from a good family. So that's usually considered to be a positive thing.

Usually, yeah. Right? No one's like, oh, yeah, my wife comes from a broken family with a bunch of drug addicts and they're super stoked about it, you know? Super stoked. No, they're not. Yeah, typically. Now, I'm not saying it comes from a perfect family.

And by the way, there's people that come from terrible backgrounds that are of the most awesome people and there's people that come from awesome backgrounds that are terrible people right um like you know there's a wealthy family with the mother and father intact and they're all great and they're lovey-dovey and they go to church every Sunday and their freaking kid is a psycho right that happens yep there's also the alcoholic dad that's totally abusive and crazy and the you know what it's just total mayhem and the kid is 100% squared away So that totally happens. But you need to think about that.

Think about like, what are you seeing? What are you seen in this scenario? Is the, is the daughter like, yeah, my mom will never be like her? Or does she emulate her behavior? You need to pay attention to those things. Because, you know, when you, if this is a long-term thing, you're getting married, you're marrying the whole family. You're marrying the whole family. Now, you can marry the family, but keep the family out of it.

That's possible. Might not go over too well. But just think about it, man. Just think about it. Yeah, that's what I got, man. It's going to take time. You messed up. I'm not a miracle worker.

You know what I mean? I know what you mean? Like this is not an easy to save situation. A bipolar, irrational mom that you pissed off. off it's not going to go over well and by the way you pissed them off in like a written way yeah like a documented way like they'll go back and read through that remember when you told me this like yeah you really screwed up so even you know it you say my response was disrespectful inappropriate she took offense yep exactly so it's going to take time dude time

quite a bit of time in my estimation do you when you in your current wife when you guys were dating. Did you meet her parents early on? I mean early on. I mean, I met him probably a year into the whole gig. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that's kind of laid on. Really? Late. Maybe I mean, they lived in England. I was here in America. Yeah. That's it. It wasn't like we were walking down the street. Yeah. Across us. Yeah. Gotcha. Can you think of off the top of your head, any, uh, not good, but any, um, we'll say, for lack of better, acceptable reasons. to get into an argument with your mother-in-law or girlfriend's parents? Maybe if they were physically attacking my wife and trying to beat her.

Maybe like a high level of verbal abuse. But even that, even that when you say I wouldn't obviously if my wife was being beaten by someone, I would intervene and save her and, you know, handle the situation. but even like a yelling screaming parent I'd be like okay we can leave now I would be conflict would be the lowest form of my response the last least probable form of my response yeah my response would be de-escalation and avoid and probably leave not storm off but like hey we're gonna you know we're gonna head back we call from work I got to get back early yeah so we're gonna leave tonight so perfect then so that so a way to determine what to establish terms will say get into argument means not

de-escalation because de-escalation is literally the opposite of getting into an argument, right? So in whatever way, right, none, right? I mean, I get, when do you like, because technically, and I'm, I'm here with this guy trying to figure it out, figure it out as well. Thankfully, I've never got into argument, never thought any value in getting any kind of like escalation, did argument. Yeah. With anyone.

Well, I can't say with anyone. But, I mean, but honestly, when's the last time you had an actual argument with someone? Yeah, fully. And as an adult, especially after this outfit was established yet. No, no, no, no, why don't you go? Right. You know what I mean? Like, when's the last time you did that?

Like, no, why don't you do it? You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'll tell you what? You know what I mean? I'm not going to tolerate this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, you listen to me.

You see what I'm saying? Like, this stuff is crazy talk. I felt weird just saying it as a hypothetical. So, yeah, I'm not going to tolerate this. Yeah. So it's kind of like if you just have that consciously to be like, there is no circumstance. with very few exceptions in the world to escalate,

or should I say not to not de-escalate the situation? Just know that. We are de-escalating. De-escalate 100%. 100%. No matter how disrespectful, no matter how much you think, what did you say, respect should be earned. And I'm not gonna tolerate this, like all this stuff.

Yeah, it kind of feels like it. Yeah. I can't find it. And what really kind of sucks is, this is, This is an opportunity for you to like gain a lot of leadership capital. Mm-hmm. Because she knew she was wrong and sent a text that was a partial apology, which is, that's an apology. Yeah.

Look, it might not be well-crafted. It might not be fully sincere, but there's some portion she knew she was wrong. Yeah. And you have the opportunity to be a bigger man. Take the moral high ground. It'd be like, hey, I all understood. Just, you know, I'm glad it all worked out. You know, you're right, you know.

like if there's anything she needs you know I'm here and those clothes would she look great in those clothes and you know what I mean whatever the thing is you can just take that moral high ground and just be come off like a better person here's actually a tip which I said long time ago but I think it's very important to remember you can't say you're taking the moral high ground you can't oh no no I'm definitely not being the bigger person so watch out for that because some people that's how right you know what I'm gonna take the high ground I'm gonna take the moral high ground grab yeah you jammed it up that's right up there with calm down you know I mean?

I think you might be right about that. So we're not doing that. I do. We're not praising ourselves. Yeah. No, no. Not at all.

At the expense of the other person. Yeah, fully. Like, yeah, when you're like, I'll take the high ground. I'll be the bigger person.

You know what that means? Yeah, you're the smaller person, by the way, in this scenario. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get back on your goods.

I don't know, I don't know. I think personally with the flowers, like, you know, get flowers or whatever, I think that'll have more weight than you might think. Okay.

I thought you were going to say, I thought you, when you, as soon as you said that. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jaco underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast. which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way but we but we are

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