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What should a divorced and dating mom do? · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today on Headshrink Inc., a divorced and dating mom asks me a question.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: What should she do about her mother-in-law?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Listen in.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to answer a question from a divorced dating mother.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've been dating, engaged to my boyfriend for three years.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: We both were divorced with kids and have had issues with merging families, in parentheses.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Got engaged but ended it due to numerous issues, but we're still committed to each other.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: His mother-in-law from day one has not wanted him to date, saying his focus should be 100% on his teenage kids.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Although my relationship with her was okay in the beginning, it has gotten worse as my boyfriend and I have fought over issues.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: He talks to his parents about everything so they know about our arguments.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's now at the point where I am no longer welcome in her house and I wasn't invited for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: She has sent him emails telling him I'm using him for his money, that I'm a bad influence on him, that I'm not normal, etc.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um my boyfriend has told her repeatedly that she can't control him and needs to watch what she says about me.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, situation now is his mother planned a family vacation to Hawaii.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: This includes my boyfriend, his sisters, husbands, and all their kids.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm once again excluded from the vacation.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: He told his mother she can't put conditions on him.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um even if I were allowed to go, I know they would treat me with disrespect, so I have no desire to go.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's fair that we spend our summer vacation apart because his mother doesn't approve of me.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I told him his teenage kids should go absolutely, but what he but that he should stay with me and we do our own vacation.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: What should I expect from him when it comes to holidays, family parties, etcetera, if I'm not invited?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Good good question, Jennifer.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um so here's here's the a uh it's a challenging situation that you've gotten you've made the choice to go into.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um make no mistake about it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is a choice that you went into knowing um that there were all these variables that you were gonna have to deal with.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you shouldn't be surprised that there's gonna be all these uh challenges that come up.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So initially I have three ideas.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: First, um in in no matter the situation, whether you're divorced, married, remarried, um, separated, in my mind, the kids always should be coming first because the kids didn't choose who you divorced from.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The kids didn't choose to move where you're living, the kids didn't get to choose any of that.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You as the adults get to choose that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you as an adult want to choose to live your life any dumb way that you live it, that's your choice.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the freedom of will that we have.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But kids often don't get that choice because they're stuck with the parent and the bad decisions that the parents make.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to questions like this, I my default is that the kids are the ones that um come first.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And my typical default also is that when um when there's a divorce situation where there's uh kids in the home still, I usually recommend that the parents don't uh date or even get married until those kids are up and out of the home.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and that seems outrageous.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the and the typical response I get is I should have a life.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I should be able to have a life still.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on one hand, yeah, I agree.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You should be able to have a life still, but then on the other hand, your kids shouldn't suffer because of the life that you want to have.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and typically what I've seen is when a blended family works and makes an attempt to get together, kids suffer because they have to share things with kids that maybe they hate.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They have to listen to now a step parent of some sort that uh doesn't love them like their bioparent does.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's all sorts of comp there's you know, mother-in-laws that you have to deal with, father-in-laws you have to deal with, sister-in-laws you have to deal with.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's so many m complications, potential complications that come when um with a blended family that excuse me, that I think it's uh often better just for that parent to focus in on the kid and just wait because uh your kid's worth waiting for and it's it's not worth messing up future relationships because you have to date or because you have to get married.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's typically a default.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I say it's typically because there are some circumstances where I think it's not gonna apply.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times it's with uh widowed uh families um where there's a spouse that dies.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and sometimes you know blended families do work out, but I don't think that's the norm.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think that's anecdotal mostly.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and again, that's my experience of working with lots and lots of blended families.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um so in this situation in this question specifically, the kids come first.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think uh your boyfriend needs to be focusing in on his teenage kids because he's only got a couple more years with him.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: On the flip side, and you didn't really talk about this in your question, Jennifer.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have kids of your own that I think you should be focusing on.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this question really f only focused on you and uh this boyfriend, and not really on your kids or his kids.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it makes me wonder maybe you should put some uh focus back onto your kids rather than worrying about your love life.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So secondly, you were worried about um him talking to his parents.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have a feeling that his parents are are his main um support network in regards to these children of his.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so you are basically asking him to cut off his support or either tell his support network that they're a bunch of fools because they d don't like you or they disrespect you.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I can understand uh and I can understand where that could be hurtful to you, Jennifer, but um I I think that again if we were to focus in on the kids and that this is the the support network of the kids, and if the dad wants to stay connected to his kids and to his mom and dad, it's very understandable that he shares a lot of information with them.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you could you know, there's an off chance that you could be marrying or you could be dating a mama's boy.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mama mama's boys tend to get stuck in the middle between their significant other and their mother, and they tend to tell a lot of information to their mother, and they tend to say these things like, You can't control me, but yet they are controlled.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's possible you could be married to a mama's boy, but I think the the thing that's important to me in this question is that there's these kids that are involved, which makes me wonder if maybe he's not so much of a mama's boy, but he he recognizes that he needs to be there for his kids, and you are taking him, you are actually taking him away from his kids.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so while that may be hurtful and maybe may seem hurtful to you, it's just the truth of the of the matter from the question that you've given me.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the last the the last thing I was saying, this is more of a question for you, Jennifer, or for people that are listening to this podcast and this question is are you actually doing what's best for your kids?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um when situations like this come up, you know, it's helpful for me to ask a person and I'll ask you, Jennifer, what who what are you doing uh with with this behavior that you're doing?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it in the best interest of?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now that and reading your question here, if I were to answer who is this in the best interest of, this is in the best interest of Jennifer.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the I think that's uh the wrong interest.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think anything that you do, Jennifer, should be in the best interest of your kids and should be in the best interest of his kids.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout this whole question, there is nothing about the best interest of either child either kids on either side.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about you and what you want.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that actually seems kind of selfish.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and I and again I would question why even stay in this relationship?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because from your description, it sounds like there's uh always gonna be this rockiness, even when these kids are up and out, they're gonna have a perspective of you um that they probably love their grandparents, and that's just gonna eat at you and eat at you because you've been slighted and you've been hurt by them.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so my suggestion to you is that maybe this is a relationship you want to extract yourself out of.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've got to be in a relationship, find one that's gonna be more compatible and that people aren't gonna have like disagreements with you all the time.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the biggest way that I think that's gonna happen is if you focus in on your kids more than and then you find someone else and you focus in on their kids, um that could be a game changer.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in this relationship, it could be a game changer.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you put yourself second and put his kids first and thought about the welfare of his kids rather than the welfare of yourself, it could totally turn this relationship around.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But that's usually hard for people to do.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been listening to the Headshrink Inc.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: podcast where we answer questions, we talk about life, and we talk about relationships.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you have a question yourself, please feel free to email me at headshrinkinc at gmail.com or check out my Facebook page, DocDavid, and give me a like or ask me a question or make a comment there.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you like what you heard here, please share and like and tell your friends about us.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.