Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / "Inlaws From Hell": Why They Aren't The Problem

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"Inlaws From Hell": Why They Aren't The Problem · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

0:05
Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom, show before I
0:10
get into today's requested topic about in-laws.
0:14
I wanted to tell everybody to subscribe for change, not like I
0:17
tell you every single time I'm going to be doing something
0:20
newer and putting a lot of the old episodes on to subscription
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only because obviously you've had a chance to hear them by
0:26
now. But if you haven't you want to
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go back. That would be a reason to
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subscribe and or if you didn't get to all of them and of course
0:33
there's a whole bunch Chon there with sex parenting.
0:36
Empathy narcissism just everything and of course, oral
0:42
sex on women got to mention that one every time because it's a
0:45
big draw. Okay, so today we're going to
0:48
talk about in-laws from hell as somebody put it that requested,
0:52
this topic. Now I'm going to say something
0:55
that, I mean, whatever if is controversial, it's can't be
0:59
controversial. It's like God's honest truth.
1:01
The in-laws are not the problem. I told it to Like constantly,
1:05
it's always true when they think about it.
1:08
The in-laws are not the problem how can these crazy people be
1:12
the problem? They're just some crazy people.
1:14
What the problem is is how your partner handles the in-laws.
1:20
That's the problem. That's super liberating because
1:24
you can just look at these people as some wacky people.
1:27
And then you can go to actually solving what you can solve.
1:31
You can't change them. You can't do shit about them.
1:33
They are old. Old they're not changing, trust
1:36
me. You've tried and nothing is
1:38
going to change them. So what you can change though,
1:42
if you're in a committed relationship with somebody who
1:46
wants to make it work with you is how you and your spouse
1:50
handle their parents. This is transformative.
1:55
So what does this mean? This means that you change how
1:58
you think about them, how you talk about them and the
2:01
boundaries you have around them and maybe you even Work in
2:05
couples counseling about how to incorporate them in a way that
2:10
can work for your family and the spouse may even want to do
2:14
individual therapy about why they have found it.
2:18
So difficult in the past to be in the middle as they may say
2:22
between you and their parents. It's is always a problem.
2:26
Never have I had anybody come into therapy.
2:28
That's like my husband and I totally agree that it's
2:30
families, batshit crazy but we are here in couples.
2:34
Counseling to tell you funny stories about it, like because
2:37
that is literally why they would be there, if their husband or
2:41
wife agrees, here's what they say.
2:44
My in-laws are, the problem. They are intrusive, they are
2:48
terrible. They never understand what I'm
2:51
trying to say. They go against me at all turn
2:53
at all turns. Do you know that?
2:55
I told them what I was going to get the kid for his birthday and
2:57
they got it first. Can you even imagine?
2:59
There are so horrible and then like almost as an afterthought
3:03
and we Fight about his parents all the time.
3:07
So what are you fighting about? Like you, you laid out a pretty
3:10
good case. They seem crazy.
3:12
Oh well you're fighting about is that there's a whole other side
3:15
to it. So then the partner will say, my
3:18
parents mean, well, they're well-intentioned, you know.
3:21
Yeah. Like maybe they have some
3:23
Tendencies to be self-absorbed but honestly it's not like what
3:27
she says. They mean well that birthday
3:30
thing was a miscommunication and really what I want to be able to
3:34
do is Just live life peacefully with my family being involved,
3:38
but she seems to have a vendetta against them.
3:41
So, that's a different story, right?
3:43
So what is the problem there? The problem is that the couple
3:47
did not come up with a coherent Narrative of the one person's
3:51
parents or possibly, both person's parents because then
3:54
this can get very spiteful where one person's like.
3:56
Yeah. You think my parents are crazy.
3:58
Your parents are crazy. Let me enumerate.
4:01
The reasons that your parents are crazier than my parents.
4:05
And that, of course, is a road to hell right with this
4:09
competition over whose parents are crazier.
4:12
There's going to be any such competition that makes you
4:14
bombed, by the way, it's whose parents are crazier.
4:17
Like each person is trying to say mine.
4:18
Oh, mine are crazier. The listen to this, not so story
4:22
from my upbringing, that could actually be something that
4:24
brings people closer together. Speaking of which, I'm actually
4:28
running group therapy online for people in a bunch of states.
4:32
That there is a licensing agreement.
4:34
Agreement about. So if you, I can actually link
4:37
to that because it's relevant adult children of dysfunctional
4:39
families because and that's going to start next Friday.
4:45
Friday, May 6th. If you want to join that, just
4:47
just click on the link and see if you're in a state where you
4:50
can join that, that is not free. That's group therapy.
4:53
But but see if you can come to that because of an interesting
4:57
thing that I'm going to talk about, which is if your parents
5:01
are dysfunctional and you've set boundaries with them, Frequently
5:05
that makes you even more angry when your partner does not set
5:09
boundaries with their dysfunctional family.
5:12
So it's not just people that are like, oh, my parents are so
5:14
great and your parents, so crazy.
5:16
It's people that are like, yeah, my parents are crazy.
5:18
I can see that they're crazy and I've said boundaries, why can't
5:22
you see the same? So it's always when there's in
5:26
law problems. Always a problem between the
5:28
spouses that have not developed a consistent healthy and be
5:33
healthy. I mean, like a Compromise or
5:35
something that appeals to both people.
5:37
I mean there's any one particular way to deal with
5:40
in-laws but they have not arrived at something that's
5:42
healthy for the relationship where they agree.
5:45
It's much like parenting problems.
5:46
So it's funny. Like, could you imagine somebody
5:48
coming in to therapy being like, my kid is a fucking asshole, but
5:53
my husband insists on singing know.
5:55
My kid has good intentions. Can you explain to my husband
5:59
that my kid is actually truly an asshole and that is no good
6:03
intentions at all. And that my kid is, in fact, the
6:06
problem that is insane. Right?
6:09
There's no kid that is just the problem.
6:11
I mean some kids can be assholes but they are not that problem.
6:14
There's like a lot of stuff going on there.
6:16
It's the exact same thing when somebody comes in and is like,
6:19
can't tell my husband, his parents are just literally
6:21
crazy. No, I can't, you know, because
6:24
first of all, that is subjective.
6:26
And second of all this, extremely hurtful, for many
6:29
reasons that I've explained, a lot of people have a lot of
6:32
loyalty to their dysfunctional. We of origin because it's their
6:36
only family and frequently. They feel that at least one
6:40
parent did not get a fair shake and they feel very bad for this
6:45
parents life. So it's so if let's say a man
6:48
grows up, his father has horrible anger issues.
6:50
This is common and the mother. He feels is walking on eggshells
6:53
around the father for his whole childhood and the mother's life
6:56
was really garbage. He feels because of the father,
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he has a lot of anger toward the father but he very much wants
7:02
the mother to be involved in the life of the grandkids.
7:04
Whereas the If said your parents are not, they keep fighting.
7:07
Even in front of the kids, your father treats, your mother like
7:10
shit. I don't want our kids to hear
7:11
that and your mother, by the way is Queen of passive aggressive
7:15
and being a professional victim. And I can't stand there.
7:17
She's not nice to me. She's jealous of my relationship
7:20
with you. And it's real messed up, right?
7:23
This is not an uncommon Dynamic, but the man feels a loyalty to
7:27
his mother, so they're not on the same page at all.
7:31
So, when you start in a some Arguments many arguments by the
7:36
time I get to see them in couples counseling become what
7:39
we call polarized. So, each person is in a
7:41
different corner and they used to be closer together on a
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spectrum. Like, you know, like on a
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spectrum of 0 to 10, the guy, you know, if zero is my mother
7:51
is terrible. And 10 is my mother is
7:53
wonderful. The guy used to be maybe like,
7:56
you know, a seven and his wife when they started dating.
7:59
She thought, you know she was like a five about the mother
8:01
over time. She's gotten to a zero.
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She thinks that the mother is Herself.
8:05
And the guy is a 10, his mother is really should be canonized
8:08
any day now. And so that isn't really what
8:11
they even think. But they've just been reacting
8:14
to each other in this vicious feedback loop where they become
8:17
increasingly detached from one another's position and they're
8:21
almost caricature. So, she'll be like, your mother
8:24
is the worst person in the world and it'll be like my actually,
8:26
my mother's, the best person in the world and this doesn't, it
8:29
isn't real, neither of them. Even thinks what they're saying.
8:32
But to compensate for the Other person's extreme position.
8:36
They have developed an equivalently extreme position on
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the other side of the spectrum, it's called polarization.
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And when that happens in arguments, people get very stuck
8:45
in their opposite corners and they need to be brought back,
8:48
you know, gently to the Middle where they can say, actually we
8:51
both agree on some things, your mother has some positive traits
8:54
and some negative traits, you know, which is obviously true,
8:57
you know for like all people. So how does it work that you and
9:03
your partner can get on the In page about the in-laws, first of
9:06
all, you have to stop insulting, the in-laws, you know, you just
9:10
have to stop because it's not getting you anywhere.
9:13
Think about it. Like you want your husband, I'm
9:15
just going to use like, oh wife with the husband because women
9:19
complain more frequently about in Lost, I mean, that's just the
9:21
truth. So, so you want your husband to
9:25
be a good dad, right? You want them to be loyal to the
9:27
kids, how Ben could he not be loyal to his own parents, right?
9:31
I mean, how could he like, what how can he really?
9:34
Lee be a good family oriented man like you want while he also
9:38
cuts out his own family completely and has zero empathy
9:40
for any of them. Like that's that's very
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difficult and it kind of is irrational.
9:45
So what you want to do is stop the should talk about the
9:48
family. If you're doing it and actually
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say what you feel deeply, which is always about how your spouse
9:56
handles his parents. So you might say something like
9:59
this, which is a very common feeling more vulnerable feeling.
10:03
So it's harder for people to Then go on a walk Rampage
10:06
against the in-laws. They, you might say, it makes me
10:09
sad that you seem to take your mother's side over mine when we
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have arguments and you seem to always defend her but you don't
10:19
defend me. So I guess I've gotten very
10:21
angry at her but in reality some of the issue is that I wish that
10:26
you felt closer to me and more on the same page with me and for
10:32
you to say that, you know and that That is something that the
10:35
man can actually work with. So he could be like, I mean, you
10:39
know, most guys the situation are going to be defensive.
10:41
This is already a sensitive topic 3.
10:43
Like what do you mean? I never do that.
10:45
So already, we're starting off well, but very common.
10:48
So then you could say, well for example, my mother said, you
10:51
know, we always had ham at Christmas.
10:55
I don't understand this turkey stuff.
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Send you said. Yeah, I miss the ham and that
11:01
made me feel real bad. So in like those situations, I
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wish you would be like Well, you know, Mary's, great cook, and
11:07
whatever she wants to cook, is always delicious, Mary being the
11:10
wife and this hypothetical. So you see the difference?
11:13
They are, you know, obviously, and the man now has an actual
11:18
concrete example, something to work on very few, men are going
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to say I refuse ever to say that you're a good cook to my mother.
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I mean, like, that's a man who wants a divorce, so give it to
11:28
him, right? Then you never have to see the
11:30
Mother-in-law. Two birds, one stone.
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But the point is, most men will not say that they'll be like
11:34
Like, all right. But I mean and this is the
11:37
truth. They will say, if they're smart
11:39
and they're introspective, they'll say what I'm scared
11:42
about is I'm not going to remember to do that.
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And I'm not going to know when those things are happening.
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Like, I never do in the moment and you just gonna get mad at
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me. And then you're going to say, we
11:53
can't see my mother anymore. And then what you could say is
11:56
and that's why people go to counseling, right?
11:58
So they don't have to remember all these steps you could say,
12:01
is okay. Well, I'm going to like If you
12:04
like a code word or signal or I'm just gonna text you because
12:09
we're in the age of smartphones. And at that point I'd like you
12:12
to say something positive, that's on my side, you don't
12:14
have to shit, talk your mother. I just literally want to feel
12:17
like you care about me and what I want and that you're not
12:20
embarrassed to be on my side because honestly, a lot of the
12:25
in-laws that people have trouble with are people, who struggle
12:27
with narcissistic and borderline traits, and they really do like
12:31
to be the center of attention. So, over time, the adult child.
12:34
Child your partner has learned to put this parent as a center
12:39
of attention if they don't want trouble.
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That was very adaptive way to live in their childhood, but it
12:43
is a less adaptive way in their marriage and maybe in fact, you
12:48
know, decreasing the likelihood of the marriage succeeded.
12:51
So they're doing something that used to make sense.
12:53
When they were a kid, they still remember how to do it.
12:55
So they lapse into it when the parent is around.
12:59
But with work, they don't have to do that.
13:02
You have no idea. How many of these would be All
13:04
of these problems if the person whose parents are the quote
13:09
unquote problem, we're just more affectionate, loving and
13:14
positive about their spouse in front of the parents.
13:16
It's interesting too because then they could see in real
13:19
time, the parent may just completely decompensate, you
13:23
know? So like there are parents that
13:25
are so off the wall and have so much.
13:28
So they're so high on their, on their insecurities levels and
13:33
their Narcissistic traits. That if the guy says, well,
13:37
actually marries a great cook and I love her turkey.
13:39
Don't really turn around to be like, well, I hate her turkey.
13:42
Like they won't be able to stop themselves and at the moment
13:46
that your mother says that she hates your wife's turkey, even a
13:49
blind man, may be able to say, oh okay, you know, like, let's
13:54
not say anything like that. That's was pretty rude.
13:57
And or even if they don't have the balls to say it to their
14:00
mother, right? Then after the mother leaves,
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they may turn around and be like, whoa, I didn't think she
14:05
would go that far that was pretty nuts.
14:08
You know, and then voila, the couple is on the same side so
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let's say that you feel like your parent is so crazy.
14:16
You're not your maybe starting therapy soon or or your even
14:20
you're too scared to start their happy about your family of
14:24
origin stuff but you tell yourself it's because you're a
14:26
private person or you're so busy or whatever, excuse you make.
14:29
And and so you just can't even imagine calling your parent out
14:33
in any way. Is there a way than to still get
14:37
closer and to resolve any of these problems?
14:40
So now I'm addressing the, the person with the in-law who is
14:44
with the parent, who is the problem.
14:45
Yeah, you can literally just try to look at any of the stuff that
14:49
your spouse says about your parents, that is that you
14:52
actually kind of agree with without coming at it from a
14:56
defensive mode. So like if you are so that thing
15:00
happens with the turkey, right? And you can bring yourself to
15:03
confront your mother. When she leaves your wife is
15:07
going to burst into tears and be like, I can't believe that she
15:09
had sold to my food. I can't believe what a bitch she
15:12
is. Oh my God I never did anything
15:13
to her but nice I mean you know like this got a little bit
15:16
extreme and not the real truth but whatever, you know, and you
15:20
can actually just agree. You can just be like you could
15:23
pick what you agree from what your wife is saying and be like
15:25
yeah that was completely out of line.
15:27
What my mother said about the turkey, unbelievable.
15:29
I was shocked right, right away. Your wife is going to look up at
15:33
you differently, right? Away.
15:34
She's going to start the process of calming down.
15:37
Now. Many men, they fuck up right
15:39
there and they're like, but she's not a bad person.
15:42
So I want her to be continued to come to all our holidays.
15:45
What are you saying you almost were being empathic and then you
15:50
stopped? So you just literally keep
15:52
saying that same thing. She's gonna be like, and this is
15:55
why I hate her because of this, this this this and you be like,
15:58
yeah, man, that comment about the turkey that was unbelievable
16:02
and she's gonna be like, I know and it reminds Give this this
16:05
this this don't you think that your mother can be really
16:07
self-absorbed? And you're like, man she has her
16:10
moments. I mean, what kind of in law that
16:13
Sparks animosity in a partner doesn't have their moments of
16:17
being self-centered? I've never met one so there are
16:19
certainly ways to empathize with your spouse has experienced
16:23
vis-à-vis, your parents, if and only if you can prioritize the
16:28
marriage over your relationship with your parents, this doesn't
16:30
mean you shit on the relationship with your parents
16:32
or you don't respect them anymore.
16:34
It means that you are literally in your mind, placing the
16:37
marriage, and it's sanctity and it's happiness as the Paramount
16:41
priority in your mind, which is where it needs to be.
16:44
And the relationship with your parents can be right under that.
16:48
Similar to how I say to put the marriage first and the catering
16:52
to your children's every whim second, you know, because if the
16:57
marriage doesn't work, none of this works.
16:59
You know, the whole family like your mother, she can keep doing
17:03
whatever she's doing but if your wife Your life's going to get a
17:05
lot harder if you actually do want to divorce one another over
17:09
the in law issue, you know, there is also, the fact of you
17:13
are always going to have to keep on hearing your kids, talk about
17:16
these in-laws. They're gonna be seeing the
17:18
in-laws even more after the divorce.
17:20
So it's better to work on this stuff now and getting on the
17:22
same page about not, villainizing them, but also
17:26
trying to understand how to set boundaries.
17:29
So if you are an expert level and up to where you really even
17:32
want to set boundaries, you Can you can talk about that with
17:36
your spouse and they'll be very happy to do.
17:38
So any any win any little bit that you said a boundary that is
17:44
going to make your marriage better.
17:45
So you could even if let's say you always pick up the phone
17:49
from your alcoholic mother constantly, you could say to
17:52
your spouse. You know what?
17:53
I see that talking to my mother all the time causes conflict
17:57
here. It probably puts me in a bad
17:59
mood and so I don't think I'm going to pick up after 8:00.
18:03
All right, so your spouse will be like really, you're not?
18:06
And you'd be like no, I'm not. It's really our marriage comes
18:08
first. Something saying our marriage
18:11
comes first even with a small boundary set with parents can
18:15
really be transformative and in law issues.
18:18
So, what do you take away from this?
18:20
There are many ways to skin a cat here in terms of setting
18:23
boundaries, empathizing with your spouse has experience with
18:26
your parents and remembering that your spouse is preeminent,
18:29
desire. That is fueling all of their
18:31
rage and animosity. Is to be prioritized and to be
18:37
defended and how you don't have to take out your sword and start
18:40
swashbuckling with your mother defended means that if a parent
18:45
says something you're always squarely on the side of your
18:48
wife, even if you don't believe it much or husband much, like I
18:52
tell you with parenting. So if the kid is out there
18:55
throwing the ball with his father, I talked about this in
18:59
my post or I did also a podcast on that your Ben's allowed to
19:03
treat the kids different than you do.
19:04
So, if your husband is out throwing the ball around with
19:07
your son, and your son drops the ball, and your son, and your
19:11
husband teases him for a second or a couple of seconds, you
19:16
don't come out there and be like, oh my God, leave him
19:19
alone. Oh, that's so mean.
19:21
Oh my God, honey. Go into the house.
19:23
No, you say to yourself. Oh, I'm gonna watch this.
19:27
I'm going to see. Maybe this is something a way
19:29
that males interact with one another, maybe my husband.
19:33
And show him a different personality style that isn't
19:36
mine, where I bend over backwards to compliment him,
19:38
even when the ball just went over his head and he just looked
19:41
at it go, you know, so it's the same sort of thing you can.
19:45
Then talk to your husband later if you want, you can be like,
19:48
hey, maybe lay off a little bit with the teasing.
19:50
I don't know if you saw be started a little bit crying and
19:53
maybe you're too far away to see so he really respects you and
19:56
maybe be a little bit Kinder as long as you don't come out there
20:00
and blow up your husband spot in front of the kit.
20:02
In a situation, of course, where your husband's not being abusive
20:05
or something. So it's the same kind of thing
20:09
in public present, a united front in public, and then later,
20:14
maybe you could say to your wife after you say about the turkey,
20:18
maybe you could say, if it's really bothering you, you could
20:21
say, you know, I don't think she meant anything about the ham,
20:23
you know, I really don't but you can't see that if you already
20:27
blew up your wife spot and did not present a united front in
20:30
front of your mother. You know, in that point, she's
20:32
going to be Oh my God, you're picking your mother over, man,
20:34
in to some degree, she's going to be right.
20:36
So the point is to present a united front empathize with your
20:40
spouse's experience. And if you are the one who has a
20:43
problem with the inlaws stop trash-talking, the in-laws.
20:46
All this does is make your spouse defensive.
20:48
All you want is to be prioritized, this is not an
20:51
in-law problem. There's people with batshit
20:53
crazy in-laws and parents of their own and both spouses Bond
20:58
over how crazy the parents are. You know, both of them are on
21:01
the same page as As our parents are difficult, we need to set
21:04
some sort of boundaries and those people can Thrive despite
21:07
having in-laws from Hell or parents from Hell, or whatever
21:11
people with flagrantly narcissistic and or borderline
21:14
and or substance abusing traumatized, super negative
21:19
traits of any sort. But if the couple is United and
21:23
how they feel and how they act there is no in law problem,
21:28
they're not a problem. Because the people in the
21:31
partnership The marriage, they are prioritizing their own
21:35
relationship, and they are bonding and trying to create an
21:39
integrated way that they can both be happy with the treatment
21:46
of the parents and the in-laws. So, in law problem is a couple
21:51
problem and if you cannot figure it out on your own, which many
21:54
people can't? Because this is a hot-button
21:56
issue, just like sex finances parenting.
21:59
This is another one of those then couples counseling can.
22:02
Really helped. And if you really can't tolerate
22:05
hearing anything negative about your parents, at all, then
22:08
individual therapy can help. Because usually, the less you
22:11
could tolerate, hearing negativity about them, the
22:14
worst, they are. Because the more shame you have
22:16
and the worse, you feel listening to things, you know
22:21
are true, you know? And and it's you have even more
22:25
shame. When you know something is
22:27
right. You know, if you had really such
22:30
a wonderful upbringing that you would Able to tolerate your wife
22:34
saying, anything because you'd be like, well, that's obviously
22:37
wrong. This must be her problem.
22:38
Gee, I wonder if she feels bad about her parenting or I her
22:41
something, you know. But if you know, something's
22:44
true, then people can really lash out.
22:47
So if you think even at some level, that that might apply to
22:51
you, and how you handle comments about your parents, then therapy
22:54
could be useful. You know, of course, unless
22:57
there's what we just constant rants that are just like,
23:00
literal like, like On mitigated hostility and name-calling
23:07
towards your parents, which nobody would like.
23:09
All right, so hope you guys got something out of this and please
23:13
do subscribe, so that you can hear everything else and I will
23:15
talk to you all soon. Have a great day.