Archive for January 2009
There comes a time in a child’s life when they are supposed to venture out into the world, find a spouse and start a family of their own. Their loyalty should then be switched from their family of origin (their parents) to their new family. That is not to say there shouldn’t be contact, or that the parents shouldn’t be involved, but there needs to be boundaries around the new family, even if there aren’t any children yet. The new couple need to forge through their own lives together and create what it means to be their own family, separate, yet connected to their extended family. It is ok for the new couple to set boundaries with their parents and inlaws so that the sanctity of their relationship stays intact.
Here is a letter from a listener to the ABC Radio Show “Today’s Best Hits” where I do a radio spot every Thursday morning and answer listener questions on their website. You can check out their website at www.todaysbesthits.com
Dear Carol….
I am a 39 year old professional male who recently got engaged to the love of my life in October. We have been together for a little over 3 years. She has two children from her previous marriage and that situation is going very well as we interact as father and son/daughter. The relationship between the four of us is going very well. Now, to the problem……it’s my mother. My mother is a 69 year old divorced single woman who works 2 part time jobs (out of boredom) and is very healthy. She is a very domineering woman and has been so with me all of my life. Unfortunately, I typically placated her to keep life as smooth and simple as possible. This has now come back to “bite me.” She likes to butt in where she shouldn’t, which of course, is offensive to my fiancée. However, this involvement is definitely beyond the typical Mom who wants to make sure her son does well. I believe it is rather psychopathological and rather frightening. A recent example of events may illustrate this more clearly. This is one of many similar examples I could provide.
We were debating as to whether to purchase a particular home and I told my mother about this. She insisted on seeing the house to give her opinion. My fiancée and I were both against this and I attempted to gently tell her to let us decide if we were going to buy it, wait until we moved in and then we would invite her down. Well, I evidently ignited a time bomb. She ranted and raved, which I stupidly listened to on the phone. She did not come to our house on Christmas Eve as previously planned, but instead arrived on Christmas Day. She placed the packages on the porch, stated that she was delivering her packages and was going to go where she was welcome……and she left. This was a 6 hour round trip for her to do this. A couple of days later, I received a phone call from her best friend, stating that she was in the hospital with a possible heart attack. We visited her and found out that it was an anxiety attack. The visit was rather cold and uncomfortable. We gave her her Christmas presents, which she found fault with all of them and returned them to the store. She even complained about a gift card!! After being discharged from the hospital, she called me twice. The first phone call consisted of questions of our mother-son relationship, my fiancée getting “in the way” of it, why my fiancée doesn’t like her, etc. The second phone call on the next evening was purely hateful, with lots of yelling and screaming, including insults about my fiancées parents financial status, blaming my fiancée for her hospitalization, and “throwing up” the Christmas gifts she got us, among many other guilt trip type comments. A couple days after that, she requested that we have our “back up” car ready (which is in her name) that belonged to my deceased grandfather that I have had since 2005. We got the car ready, as well as placed all of the Christmas gifts in the trunk of the car, and left the keys in a safe place as we did not want to be here when she arrived.
It was a pretty lousy Christmas. I believe my mother is jealous of our relationship, as well as the fact that we both have good jobs, and actually get along. Some friends of mine believe that my mother may be “in love” with me as they feel she behaves like a jealous ex-wife would do. Unfortunately, I agree with them. Additionally, my fiancée also has to deal with this, which it is definitely not her problem to deal with….it’s mine. If possible, I really want to have my mother in our lives, but at some level of normalcy without the hostility, anger, jealousy, etc. I know I can’t change her, but I feel I should try (possibly for the last time) to include her and provide her some type of boundaries to abide by. I’m having a hard time doing this and would appreciate any help that you can provide. I am getting to the point where I am considering eliminating my mother from our lives, although that’s not the path I want to go. However, one family can only deal with a certain amount of drama. Thank you in advance…….
Sincerely,
Trying to avoid being Norman Bates
Dear Hopefully NOT Norman Bates,
I think you hit the nail on the head when you identified that your mom is jealous. She has had you to herself much longer than a “normal” Mother-son relationship and has gotten used to getting her needs met through you instead of more appropriate places like through a husband or through herself. So, your fiancé really is taking you away from your mom. The fact that your mom would go to such dramatic lengths to tell you this also tells me that your relationship with her was probably very unhealthy. You are right, your placating did not help and now you pay the price.
I think the first thing you need to do is sit down with your fiancé and create a list (write it down) of where the boundaries should be with your mom. There may need to be rules about how often she calls or stops by or there may need to be rules that she doesn’t give you parenting advice. Go through different scenarios with your fiancé and decide as a couple how much involvement you want from her. Be specific, she will try to find loop holes. Put it is writing so you have something to fall back on. Then I would sit down with her and lay it all on the table. I would tell her that you love her and want her to be in your life, but that your life is different now and if she wants to stay in your life she will follow your rules/boundaries. Don’t get emotional about it, be brave and calm. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in her hysterics, as I am sure she will try to sway you away from the rules you have created. You may even want to create a “disciplinary chart” so she knows what the consequences are if she breaks any of the rules. I would expect her to push the rules and see if you are going to uphold them, so 1. you need to be prepared for that and be strong enough to hold your stance when she pulls out all of the stops and 2. You need to know where your breaking point is, so that if she does go enough over the line, you enforce the consequences you have set up, whether that is much more limited contact, or that she goes to counseling, or complete cut off. If at any time she becomes dangerous or destructive, I would think you would probably move straight into consequence zone.
Unfortunately, you have to be the parent with her now, to protect your new family. You are supposed to change loyalties when you get married and it may take her a while to come around to that.
Good Luck and Happy Wedding!
Carol Agnew, MA, LMFT
Online Counselor
www.asktheinternettherapist.com/online_counselor_ag.asp
Well, it is that time of year again, time for the dreaded resolutions! Somehow with the start of the new year reminds us that we can start new again as well, when in actuality, we can start over every day and not have to wait for the new year to roll around. Although the new year reminds us to take a look at our lives and take stock of what is working and what isn’t. It helps us to realize how grateful we should be for all of the wonderful things that ARE working in our lives or the blessings we have been given. It also gives us a chance to evaluate what isn’t working and to search for ways to make changes for those things to work better.
The key to making those changes is to:
1. be open minded about other possible ways of doing things. If you shoot down every idea before you even get a chance to develop it, most likely you won’t be able to find a good solution to your problem.
2. Don’t be judgmental with yourself about how you got into whatever mess you are in. Chalk it up to life experience and focus on how you can fix it and make things better.
3. Be willing to take a risk to try something new. Often times our fears are what prevents us from doing what we need to do in the first place. Typically the hardest thing to do is the right thing to do, so get brave and push forward!
4. Never stop evaluating and looking for new alternatives. You never know what will come up or what new idea will pop in your head that will be exactly what you are looking for.
Good Luck and Happy New Year!
Carol Agnew, MA, LMFT
Online COunselor
http://www.asktheinternettherapist.com/online_counselor_ag.asp
