Dear June,
I’m a 79-year-old married male with a grown daughter and son, both in their 50s. Our son married a young woman 25 years ago who brought hostility into our lives. She would often not visit on holidays, would never give us the children’s schedules, and essentially excluded us from their lives.
She wouldn’t be rude, just indifferent, and my son took the position that his role was income-producing and hers was family management. They’ve experienced some marital issues resulting in a brief separation.
During a Thanksgiving dinner following a disagreement over the JFK assassination, she walked out and her oldest soon followed after I said the assumption of a lone gunman was “simple-minded.” Now, the problem: After about a year of the silent treatment, I reached out to my son and he countered by ad hominem and specious attacks, half-truths, and exaggeration.
I tried again four more times at intervals and the attacks got worse, one-sided and accusatory. Essentially, I was a venomous old fool incapable of original thought. It has gotten to the point there’s no communication and only a text on his mother’s birthday and important occasions. His mother is an angel but one who’s unwilling to defend me and respond to his thoughtlessness except to say, “He will mature eventually.”
Finally, my childhood was a nightmare. I lived with an alcoholic single parent; my father left us with nothing in a strange city before I was born; I had 20 addresses by the time I was 15 when I left home for good, joined the military, finished college on the GI Bill, and have lived a life beyond most people’s wildest dreams.
My son’s most recent comment was, “Why should I respect you, all you have ever done is make money.” My spouse is brokenhearted. He has betrayed us and violated a sacred oath from thousands of years ago ... honor thy Father and Mother ... to complicate the issue I’ve survived two deadly health issues and am now under treatment for cancer. During this time, I have not once received a telephone call.
---
Dear Desperate in Georgia,
It sounds like you have had a remarkable life and overcome great difficulty to attain your success. And despite growing up in a broken family, you managed to provide a stable home for your children, which I would count as another great achievement.
Your current situation does seem like a very heavy one. A strained relationship with a child is certainly hard on the heart. I have some thoughts; see if any of them work for you.
First, a question: What sort of relationship do you want with your son and daughter-in-law? One of mutual respect? Or friendship? Or something else? And then, are you willing to sacrifice in order to have this relationship? The basis of any harmonious relationship is sacrifice on some level.
When I read your question, my first concern was for your state of being. Here you are facing a severe illness and also dealing with the stress of this relationship. So my first suggestion is to surrender the situation. If you believe in a higher power, give your emotions over to that higher power or, if you don’t believe, just send the emotions up into the universe to disperse.
Next, accept the facts of the situation. Accept that your son has the emotions he has—whether right or wrong isn’t important. Accept that your daughter-in-law is who she is—if she isn’t a loving and kind person, then so be it. You don’t need to fix or change anything.
Forgive and Take Responsibility
Forgive your son and daughter-in-law. Forgiveness, as I define it here, is a step deeper than the surrender and acceptance I outlined above because it’s directed toward the person who did us wrong. It transforms the space in the heart where there was pain, resentment, and desire for justice into a clear and peaceful space. Of course, forgiveness may take time, because instead of just giving away the emotions, you have to face and remove them.One thing I have found very helpful in raising my children is telling myself that for each of their faults, I bear some responsibility—either for unintentionally imprinting it on them or for not doing enough to help them overcome a shortcoming nature bestowed on them. I think children are nature’s way of holding up a mirror to us as parents; they copy our shortcomings very well, and since it can be very hard to see some of our own shortcomings, their behavior clues us in. Is some of what you are seeing in your son learned from you?
You don’t mention anything about your relationship with your parents, so perhaps you’ve already forgiven them. But could it also be that in part the attitude you’re now seeing in your son arises from your attitude toward your parents? You certainly would be justified in feeling resentment toward your father who abandoned you. But if this is what you showed your son when he was young, then you may have unknowingly set the example of “This is how to treat a father.”
Listen for the Heart Message
If and when you’re ready to approach your son again, be ready to listen to what’s coming from his heart. Your son is angry and resentful toward you now. When people allow themselves to be controlled by such emotions, it speaks to a pain in their hearts—one which they may not really understand and can’t control yet. From this perspective, I agree with your wife: Your son does need to mature a bit.One thing to consider is that your son “took the position that his role was income-producing” and has thus, in your eyes, eschewed some responsibility toward his family, yet he might feel the same about you. He asked you: “Why should I respect you? All you have ever done is make money.” This to me sounds like he may think you also neglected some responsibilities as a husband or father. I wonder also if his current resentment arises from a cry in his childhood heart—“Dad, How do you see me? Do you respect me? Do you believe in me? Do you think I’m worth spending time with?” A negative answer to any of these unspoken questions (whether intentional or not by you) would deeply hurt a child’s heart.
Your own childhood was very difficult, I would guess you weren’t given nearly enough love, encouragement, and general emotional nourishment, and you certainly had no father to teach you how to father. It would be natural that although you clearly did much, much better than your parents, your son may have needed something from you that you had no idea how to give because it had never been given to you. This could be part of what is coming into play now. But the only way to really know is to listen deeply.
Prioritize Kindness Over Being Right
Truth matters very much, but if we want harmony in the family, then it must be weighed with consideration for the feelings of the other person. The book “How to Have Impossible Conversations” by James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian reframes the rules of debate in a way that is very relevant to family and to our polarized times. One of the suggestions is to: “Invest in the relationship, independent of your political views. Friendships engender trust and openness, which act like bridges across divides.”So, in regards to the Thanksgiving conflict with your daughter-in-law, I would consider apologizing for calling her idea “simpleminded” because, although this probably wasn’t your intention, this phrasing insinuates that anyone holding her ideas is also a simpleton.
Take Care of Yourself
And speaking of filling with love—make sure you keep yours full. I’m glad you have an angel of a wife to take care of you. This can make such a big difference.My last piece of advice is to care for yourself by applying the previous suggestions to yourself first: Forgive yourself, listen to your heart, and be kind. This will also help your body heal, as negative emotions are stressors to it.
And I’d like to leave you with a bit more inspiration: the book “Love as a Way of Life” by Gary Chapman, which breaks down certain key principles of loving relationships and is full of inspiring stories about how people have brought these principles to life. This book has taught me a lot about how to bring more love into my family relationships.
It does seem crazy to continue to support such abusive and toxic relationships. But with the right mindset, we can all strengthen our hearts so we’re less affected by the toxicity in the world around us.
Sincerely,
________
