Is It Too Late? How to Repair a Broken Relationship With Your Friend or Family Member
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Hey is run mell, and welcome to the male Robin's podcast. Today, you and I are going to have a very enlightening conversation about a topic that most people don't want to talk about. The topic is a strange man.

And don't you dare turn this podcast off. A strAngely is something that we got to talk about because researchers say it's a silent epidemic. Fifty percent of us will experience a strAngely in our families in our lifetime. And just over the past couple weeks, two fans of the male Robin's podcast have stopped me out in about in real life.

And when I ask them, what would you want me to do a podcast episode about? Both of them said, could you please do something about a strAngely? And there was such a look of pain in their eyes.

One woman hadn't talked to her sister in five years. And the other listener was A A man who is harper, broken over the fact that he, his wife, hadn't spoken to their daughter in seven years due to their daughter's mental illness. This is so much more common than you think.

When I stopped to think about IT, I realized, holy cow, this is present my own life in my extended family, it's present. And I even had an experience with my two closest friends. One of them stop talking to the other one for three years.

And I didn't have a clue what to do about IT. And so i'm listening, and I want to dig into this topic with you and learn from the world's leading expert on a strAngely so we can avoid IT and so we can reconcile if IT is happening in your life. He is here.

His name is doctor Joshua common. He's a practicing psychologist, and san Francisco, he's written for books. His research on adult to string ment has also been published in academic journals.

He's here to help you understand this topic. White happens, why it's on the rise. And more importantly, we going to talk reconciliation. Consider this conversation today an invaluable tool kit for you to use, for you to share, to help you understand a strAngely, and to help you, god forbidden happens to you, empower you to reconcile. All right, doctor jojo, common, welcome to the malroy bs broadcast.

Thank you. Thanks for me.

Let's just start at the most basic level. And can you define for all of us what is a strange man?

The way that I think of that is A A cut off in a relationship, uh, that maybe temporary, maybe permanent. I think of that as a either a complete cut off or near the complete cut off.

How common is a strange man .

is very common, and getting more common all the time. In recent study, out of the highest states of the twenty six percent of fathers are strange from their kids. Studies have found that ten to eleven percent our mothers are a strange from the kids.

But if you expanded out to family members in general, then um something like twenty seven percent of families in the U. S. Are strange from a family member. So it's it's incredibly common, growing more common all the time.

Why do you think it's growing more common?

Think a variety of reasons. Our culture is becoming more identity focus, more trivialised. We have kind of in group, out group ideas. And that no longer includes family economy of families radically changed. Prior to the, you know, nineteen, nineteen sixties or so, there was the idea of honor my mother and my father respect that elders is famous forever and that's really been turned on its head or increasingly the idea is that um of chosen family, the famous who you make IT um that people don't know their parents anything. That the most important thing is the preservation of my happy is my well being, my mental health.

So there's always been a strAngely but never before they have been based on the idea that it's actually good for one mental health or it's even an active exceptional courage to cut off a parents or a family member um and it's time to what the sociologists have any guides talks about is the evolution from the role itself or as IT used to be the very clear ideas prior to the twenties century, the ideas about what IT takes to be a number of a family was fairly early to find. Be a good part, good child set up, we can get adult child um and then that changed much more president orientation to itself. We've had the evolution of what he calls the pure relationship. Relationships are now purely constituted on the basis of whether not their relationship is a line of that persons ideals, their goals, aspirations for happiness is said, and if they are not, then that the relationship is viewed as being domain and corruptive and not worth pursuing.

Just at last point, I want to highlight because it's true if someone thinks a relationship, whether it's a friendship, a sibling relationship, parent, child, if you view IT as a problem, people do go to each other. Council culture isn't just limited in the media. It's happening in friendships and family.

IT seems like there's zero tolerance or maturity to have a deeper discussion with people about what you disagree about or why you're mad at somebody. And i'm sure that you see this between friends, siblings, not just parent child relationships. So dr.

Or coleman, i'm fascinated with how you got into the work of counseling and supporting parents who are strange from adult children. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to do this? sure.

IT was married and divorce in my twins. And how about a fully ground daughter who are very close to, but he was a paid in time in her early twenty years, which you cut off contact for several years, and large response to my becoming remarried and having children in my second, my current marriage of some thirty plus years in there are many ways that he felt displaced by that heard, but not so much the divorce, because he was so Young, but just by all the kind of things that can happen with divorce and marriage and blink of blended family and the light. And at the time there was nothing really written to advise me or help me. I wasn't therapy the time trying to get help and me advice I got was terrible.

as IT often is. What was the advice?

You know, you need to remind her of all the things that you've done for her and correct or memories, and just show up at her place some kind of, you know, demand that you see you not of them really caused red to feel understood, IT or cared about, or you know, like I had any degree of compassion for what heard experience or was.

So he really wasn't til I just learned in to how to stop explaining, stop defending, stop blaming and respect where he was coming from. That things began to turn. But during that time of a stranger, he was easily the most painful, awful, this army clean i've ever been. Forever hope to go through again.

You know, the idea that your child will cut you off, and you never may never see them again is horrifying, painful and and terrifying as well so so once we did ever reconciliation um I thought so many people struggling with this are my first book on the topic. In two thousand and seven, when parents hurt, I got a White following. The parents are here and in other countries who are dealing with this. And this result of that, I did a research study of sixty thousand strange parents that's been published in numerous academic journals, have developed .

a training program for therapists. So what typically drives someone to say, that's IT i'm going to cut my parents or somebody else out of my life .

yeah there's a number of pathways adult children with they typically will say as emotional abuse physical abuse, uh neglect, differences in values um those are the most common things reported by the adult child um but other pathways statistically in my own research study and in my own clinical practice, seventy percent of the parents have been through divorce. So there's a number of ways of divorce and can increase the risk.

One is that may cause the child to blame of any age, to blame one parent over the other. For the divorce, I can bring a new for new members of siblings, ha, siblings, a new step mothers. Step fathers have to compete for emotional and material resources.

Uh, IT may cause the child to support one parent over the other, even if the parents don't need that kind of support. Finally, the highly individualist culture, like hours they can cause child to see the parents more, is kind of individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses and not as a family unit that they're apartment. So so device is a clear risk, mental illness in the parapet, qual in mental illness, less in the child, the idle child, the role thera bad therapies or therapies is just arrival.

Educated in this was soon that every problem services. And a daughter has childhood rama at the at the heart of IT, which is necessarily true by so many therapies. Believe that. And put the adult child on the pathway to a strAngely.

I just want to make sure everybody hears that. So you're saying that there are lots of therapies out there that take whatever their kind is telling them and facilitate the linking of childhood issues with a strAngely being something that they should consider yeah consider .

or do I mean, I had numerous parents show me letters from the adult children when they said my therapy, said the year artist and you can change so i'm not willing to do family, they're be with you. And you know, these are often service, never met the parent for diagnosing the parent from a far and more problematical there, assuming childhood traumas that may may not exist. I think child od traumas are a real thing.

But in this day and age, there is the assumption that of somebody has a prominent adult had, well, you just have have to figure out where the childhood traumas ze and then doors to identity and happiness meaning will be open. But that's really problematic. We were really preoccupied with traumas this point in our culture and society in a way that's really causing a lot of harm.

My wheels are spending as you're talking about this doctor command. I know that you're not being cavor. You're not saying that trauma isn't real. If i'm listening to you correctly from your point of view, based on the experience that you have working with people who are trying to reconcile a strange relationship, you're highlighting the fact the childhood traumas when they get revealed with a child or somebody in therapy IT can easily become a trip wire that leads to a strange man.

And I can kind of see how that could happen because when you dig up all that stuff and IT gets revealed, its a lot of work to move forward and heal IT. And it's difficult to talk to your parents about the things that didn't go right, your childhood or the things that you wish had gone differently. So I can see how people would either get stuck in the process of blaming or just not wanting to talk about at all and .

distancing themselves. And the change is that generations of talking past each other so. Important uh article by nick aslam who was a australian psychologist and called called the concept cream he what he found was that over the past three decades what his article came up two thousand and fifteen so more met this point but um there's been an expansion of what we consider to be heard ful from traumatic, abusive, neglectful behavior.

So often the adult child saying is you neglected me. You emotionally abusive, traumatized me and the parents like why you know, because we're looking at IT from the way these terms were defined when they were rolling up. You was the adult child looking at IT in a very different way so often.

No, you don't tell you emotionally abuse me. The parents particularly love these parents who, given their children really good quality of life, just can't relate to IT. And so what I tell parents says it's clear that I have blind pose, that I wasn't aware, that I felt emotionally abusive to you. I'm glad you let me know.

I would like to learn more about what I thought like to how this impacted you ah is just something you like me to read would you like to get therapy around IT are the things like me to work on in my own therapy? So again, it's kind of to the point that you are making, the parent has to really go told the ult child complaints rather than away from them. They do have to show their a courage and willingness.

Ss, I can get into the into the rely, painful territory of how the child feels like they neglected, they hurt them or let them down. And no parent really particular wants to go there. Definitely a fun place to be.

So i'm sure that as people are listening, there's a brazilian bells going off. And so I, of course, want to go, okay, well, let's struck about a child hod drama on the step. But I wanted to in this topic because I personally believe that everybody listening has either had experience with a strange man, or they know somebody who's really struggling because of that.

I mentioned this earlier, but in my own extended family, there's a person that I love who died recently, and he had never met two of his grandkids. And I felt so helpless, just wishing somehow that this could have been repared right before he died, and knowing the headache and the frustration and the anger and the sadness and all the grief s that he Carried with him before he died. And that's just the reality of what happens when somebody makes a decision to unatoned cut you out of their life and you don't even really know why.

I have a question that made some kind of obvious, but how do you know if this is a situation of a strAngely, that you're dealing with vers, just the distance that can happen because you don't really like a relative you know like yeah, maybe you don't get along with your brother or your sister. They're not your favorites. You don't really call them that off.

And but you're not really strange. You just aren't make in much of an effort. They still get the Christmas card.

You still call them on their birthday, but they're not like you're go to for going out. And so there's a lot of distance there. How do you know if somebody has deliberately cut you out of their life?

Now take a question is not the answers in that all obvious? And I think the about us that they get up getting more strange because they're wanting more closely from their adult adult children was capable or of good doctor holman .

IT sounds like we're about to go down the path of all the things that we do wrong that can lead to a strangest or that keep us estranged. And so let's pause right here. Here's a quick word from our sponsors who allow us to bring this all to you for zero cosm. When we return, we're to dig in to the mistakes that people make that can lead to a strange man. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back. I'm ml Robins. I'm here with one of the world's leading experts on a strAngely and reconciliation between family members, friends, siblings, none other than doctor Joshua common. And we are just about to start talking about the mistakes that people make that can lead to a strAngely that the common yeah .

was survey done a university Virginia that said that a majority apparently raising children um why and expect to be best friends with their children once they're grown but a lot of adult children necessary what that will work close to antimacassars of the problems with social media is that IT allows a certain kind of intrusion of the parent of the adult child that they might not want.

Parents can reach their adult child anywhere in the world within three seconds. And so I think a certain part of adult children are very crowded. And you know, what's the most common complaint I hear in every single is strange to dole caller tors.

You need to respect my boundaries, right? So boundaries and become the most important thing. And it's in part because parents raising children over the past four decades armour worried, worried about getting the children through the narrow bottle neck that can land them in a successful life. So parents happy come more anxious, market, get ready, more intrusive, more surveilling. And that doesn't always work in the parent adult child relationship in the long drum. Um so so to circle back to your question, you may not start out as an a strain and IT may start out more as kind of Normal distance but as in the parent starts to active, victimized or hurt criticizing the adult child, then they're putting themselves on the path to potential the strangest.

You know, I can personally say there was a period in my relationship with my mom who I love deeply, and I know he loves me, and there is a period of time where I was newly married and I was so enthusiastic about my husband and about his family, and we were living closer to my husband's family. My parents are in the midwest. They're on the east. And I know IT was an extraordinary, painful period for my mom, because SHE, from a distance, felt like he was .

losing me to another family.

And I started to sense that resentment or that fear, and that started to upset me. yeah. And so we got into a period of time where we didn't know how to come together.

SHE would say something I would get offended. I would say something he would get offended. And I felt like our relationship had all of these landmines that neither one of us wanted there. Yeah, I just wanted to get back to that like, I just love you and you just love me. And without me doing a tremendous amount of therapy and without us even having almost like a period where we tolerated each other, that he could have made to a disastrous and hurtful situation for both of us, because were both very opinionated, big emotions were very similar, and we didn't know how to navigate this without hurting or upsetting the other person, and am so grateful I didn't end up differently because I feel closer to her now than I ever have but I can see how just going i'm not gonna call them i'm not onna pick up the phone i'm not gonna go visit i'm not onna do this how not talking .

to somebody .

yeah for a month or two months or a couple months and being that called uninterested, distant would actually throw gasoline on the fire because the emotions build and then every interaction is so high stakes. It's a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, I think you putting your finger around a couple of of important things when I was talking about the pathways to a strange, but I didn't was with the most common pathways and that's when the child, the adult d marries. And if there was conflict between the seven or uh our daughter law in the parent sometimes is something our daughter or law basically says to their spouse um choose me of them. You can have both and minor, particular or vulnerable to that.

But you're also putting your finger on the fact that the parents can commonly feel like what how can the other parents get to spend more time with you or the grandkids and in some ways, the parents of sense or more risk back because of what socialises referred to as the matter li al advantage, which means statistically, ally daughters are more likely to prioritize their own family but that is a really common source of estrangement beginning conflict and do your point that once conflict starts, IT can quickly uh spiral out of out of control and lead to and estrangement. And for parents, I think most parents who are kind of panic when the adult child sters to pull back and be more distant, become less available. And that causes, what john cotton refers to, is the pursue a distance CER right dynamic.

What is IT called the pursuit distance, or dynamic, and is associated with a high risk divorce, where one partner, more typically the wife is pursuing the other from more contact, more in macy, more communication, the other person more typically pulls back, more becomes were shut down. And over time, like that dynamic is more rejustify and harder to change until the couples it's up. A similar thing I observed with parents and adult children around the strangest, the parents start to pursue more and more and more. I you call me baba blood, you know? And then they're after the races.

One of the reasons why I was so excited to talk to you because you're my favorite kind of expert. You not only have all the credentials, but you have the lived experience. What are the big mistakes that you see? People who want to reconcile with somebody who's cut them off. Where are the big mistakes that people make or that you made yeah .

um there you I have a whole weber on this call the five most common mistakes of a strange parents and i'm shame IT all them um the first one is thinking that IT should be fair, you know so that you think I should be fair. Then you are going to first what you going to film more victimized by your child, which is not a good place to be both as a person, but also in terms of how you communicate.

It's going to make you feel more more angry and resent for and that's gona come out. Um the idea that this should be fair the idea like I was much Better parent than my own was think of all the sacrifices I made you know I was there for this kid so many ways um but if you know from the best perspective IT IT isn't fair. It's much more about practically what works and what doesn't work.

And that released to the second common mistake, and that is thinking that you're going to motivate your child through girl parents can no longer do that. Girl is now considered a toxic covers of corruptible of forest and its anatha called to the idea that the old child doesn't have the pap, anything that shouldn't feel gilt, so using girl is not going to work, uh, including statements like how miserable the total child, making the parent feel. The this strAngely third common mistake and I see therapist enabling this mistake as we're turning fire with fire the adult child says something angry or certain or critical of the pair of you know fires right back at them and tells them their own grade form chAllenges them and um you know so you can talk to me that way you need to respect me.

And maybe true that they want respect, but returning fire with fire never works. The forth is assuming that is all about the parent h, which goes to what you and I were talking about before, about there may be not as much contact, because IT also lds more preocuparse with their own life, their own children, their own career, their own social lives. You know, what I tell paris is, look at, we have adult children and grandchildren, their front service of our minds, our heart, our conscious ness.

But for I do children, that's not the same. We're not as a part of their arts and minds and consciousness. I know that was during my own parent as well and they were arrive and and like you as very close to them uh to my parents.

I also a grip in the middle, so I just knew that when I called, my parents were visited to them that I may, I like to both, but I knew that met much more to them than I do. My children call me or visit me. I know that means more to me than that does to them. So the mistake is assuming that every bit of distance are not responsible us, or not returning the text right away, or that email, whatever is personal.

Because once you make a personal, then you are on the pathway to a strAngely, the final mistake is feeling to recognize how long a strange to take to recognize it's a marathon, it's not a spread and then even if you're taking the best next steps that its not may be a matter of month or even years before you can get your child to to respond. So um those are the most common mistakes. Add one work, and that is one of the key parts of my strategy of parents having them right in a mense lam where they take responsibility with are not defensive.

They don't explain, uh they find the corner of the business of truth and chose compliance and a com mistake. I see what letters is that they say, well, if I did anything wrong or you i'm start you feel that way those kind of things which aren't really taking responsibility and not really facing the hard, hard truth about the mistakes that they made, because as parents, we all make them so. But it's a hard thing to do. I am I didn't love doing IT myself and I what I did IT. But IT is the most effective way to potentially bridge distance between appearances in adults.

What I would love to do is go mistake by stake and unpacked IT a little bit mars, that we can understand how that mistake that we make when we're trying to make immense or trying to make contact with somebody who is cut a sf, how IT backfires, and what IT feels like for the person that has cut you off. Because I think that would be helpful.

The person was to think that things should be fair, right? So why is that a mistake? And what do parents do that backfires?

You know, about one of the things that I teach parents particularly good in no longer term is strange. When is the principle of radical acceptance? And part of radical acceptance is saying that IT is what IT is.

You know, I can take all the best steps, but I may not be able to do any Better. And we think that things should be firm, really injecting a certain amount of resentment and bitterness and unhappiness into the equation. So IT isn't very helpful to one's mental health to sort of, this is unfair.

I shouldn't be treated like this. I was such a good parent, I was a Better parent. You know that my own parents were, they are. They're not acknowledged all the good things that I did, their rewriting history.

I mean, all those things may be true, but tormenting yourself with that that kind of feeling is just going to make you miserable, but is also going to make you more resentful to your doll child from your job, child respective. It's completely fair. They won't be doing that.

They thought I was. So one of the things I told parents to do when they write the mens later is to start by saying, I know you wouldn't do this. And lessons for like IT was the healthiest thing for you to do, because that's how views of the adults and the parent has to get. On the same page is the adult child. If this pair comes across as being defensive or blaming or not willing to take responsibility, game over the just going to give you that and that relationship.

This is why I did IT in the first place.

exactly. That's right.

That's right. And I think resentment is the powerful word there, because in this feeling that things should be fair.

right?

What you're not saying is I resent the fact that I gave you fucking everything. And this is what you're doing to me.

right? exactly.

And I see this even in myself. We were just yesterday after school, quickly trying to find a black suit for my son for prom this weekend, and we went to three different places. Thankfully, we found something and I turned to him and I said, hey, can you give me a lift home before practice and he said, oh, mom, i'm going.

It's going to make me late for practice. And I I caught the words before they came out of my mouth at what I almost said to him. Doctor comment was, are you fucking kidding me? I just spent an hour a half with you and spent hundreds of dollars on a suit to support you.

You can't drive me ten measly minutes home and then I thought for a second, how is shaming or being resentful or kind of like like that is a example of how I think i'm trying not to be transactional. I will love you. And if I buy you shit, you need to do something for me, but it's hard.

And so I can see how that opinion that i'm doing this for you. So IT has to be fair on my terms, on my terms because I could step into his shoes, which is what you basically ask your clients to do to get from the one side of the table to putting your armour around your child and trying to see IT from their point of view. Yes, I basically took him shopping because that was the window that was convenient for me. And so from his side, he was also accommodating me, and he didn't want to be late, which I can understand. So I love that because I think the resentment piece is what somebody who cuts you off picks up on, talk about guilt for a minute.

He just doesn't work anymore. Know is plenty of cultures where IT still works. You know plenty cultures where um the notion to feel your obligation duty to experience and rest of reactive and it's it's more tolerate or and accept IT because the adult child is embrace those values. But in in the rest of north american culture um there's the idea that adult children don't of their parents anything and the guilt is a excessive covers of corruptive demand uh and so if the parent makes the child feel bad, then somehow they are now putting themselves in the role of being a toxic. Notice c person who the adult child to cut off in order to preserve their own metal .

health doctor command. I can tell you really passionate about the fact that this is on the rise, and that you see this connection between the rise of individualism and estrangement from family members. What I want to do when we come back is I want to role play.

I would love to play the role of being the person who's been estranged. And you be the therapist and Walkers through. What do we do here? Will we write back.

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Welcome back. I melt robbins. And we're talking about a strange man which is on the rise.

We're here with doctor Joshua coleman, who is one of the world's leading experts working with families and friends around the world who are a strange seeking reconciliation. And I wanna do role play. I wanted put us all in a therapy session with doctor common. So doctor common, let's say that you're with a parent or a parent who's been a strange from a child or another family member. Where do you start with them?

Most typically, the apparently wants the therapy in the adult child is being kind of cocked into IT. If i'm reaching out to them to see if we'll do IT on helping the parent, uh, reach out to them in a way that will make up more likely that the adult child consider during the family therapy. But what I explained to both parent at your child um particularly parents, is that reconstruction therapy is not moral therapy, marial therapy, both equally come in with equal claims.

What the marriage can look like, negotiate, you, compromise you meet some in the middle, reconcile theron, adult child is much more on the adult d's terms because everybody shown that they are willing to walk um and that from their perspective, they're not the same kind of pain that the parentis now they may have been in pain that caused them to cut off the parent particularly if IT was abuse of parent. It's said they were childhood mise and childhood promise do exist that not that are all saying that they are a myth. I am saying that we overstate them, but they certainly plenty of kids who have had real child d travis, and they feel a certain sense of india in getting into the room with a pair of, because they feel like the strangest is a way to protect themselves in their mental house.

So I think IT cleared to them as well, that I have your back that that this is really about helping your parent learn how to become more impatient, to become more respective of your boundaries, to take more responsibility for the ways that they are hurtful to you, and have a deeper understanding of why you felt like in a strAngely was in your best interest. I told the parents t that as well because I don't want them. Do I get into therapy session and then feel kind of you know broad sided by me? I will say to them, if I sign with anybody in the session, it's going to be with your adult child um because first of all, way to keep them in the room but second of just how I think about these dynamics.

I think that even parents who did the best they could, could still be really hurt for um and even if it's something that might not have felt hurt for to another family member if IT felt hurt for the adult child is still in coming on us, his parents to take the lead, to take the high road, to show leadership, make the moves in the right direction towards healing. So if we can get past the initial phase of therapy where the pair can do a good job and empathy and taking responsibility and accepting the child's terms, then we can kind of proceed to a new phase where the pair can talk more about what a good relationship would feel like to them and and the adult of that point is more willing uh, to consider that than as a sale guaranteed to consider. But and a much Better place if they know that there other boundaries of limits could .

be accepted and adapted. Can you and have you achieved reconciliation with people when the person that cut them out of their lives won't come to reconciliation therapy?

sure. A really good, immense later can work miracles. That said, they don't always work.

There's really nothing I can tell every parent that SHE, if you only just do commons five steps towards reconciliation because some adult children, they're just not ready. The two matter heard. They're too influenced by the other parameter of divorce.

They're too influenced by their therapies, by who they are married to. They may have a need to feel separate from the part. So these strategies don't always work, but they often work. And when they do work is because their parents doing the right thing.

There is a tremendous amount content coaching people to cut people out to have boundaries, which are important. But when you get to that point where you feel like I don't have the ability to have this person in my life, it's easier to just stop having a relationship with them. What are the five steps for somebody who's on the receiving end of that? Because we don't talk about that a lot, right? Your parents do the best they could.

If you look at the way your parents were treated to growing up, IT explains a lot about what they did. Dos doesn't justify a doctor, common, but IT certains explains IT. So what he do? I mean, what are the steps to reconciliation? And are they the same steps if it's an adult child coming to work with you who wants to reconcile with a parent?

Yeah, I increasingly am having more adult children. Contact me who the parents cut them off for the one who help yeah, even if they just want improved relationship .

is this process of reconciliation and the amense letter also work for sibling ings or friends .

siblings are more complicated because their parents it's very easy for me to get a para um to to take the high road to take responsibility because there are so much things with servings is more tRicky because parents are ready to walk walk over hot coals which is sometimes required um but seven typically air so somebody has to take the high route.

Somebody has to be willing to not support into the weeds, make amends who probably take more responsibility than they think is fair. I mean that both siblings are equally motivated to to heal the relationship, and I have worked with those kind of siblings. That's easier then then it's more like marriage therapy, you know.

Then you can examine the dynamics to check them both and get them or communicate more and kind of make cautious processes much more conscious. But more typically, one sibling is completely a strange, and the other sibling is in pain about the a stranger. So take talking, the person is in the most pain. Has to show more leadership. So that's bar.

Can you explain a little bit more about what you mean when you said that's the tRicky part .

if a choice of a pair, there's a feeling like, well, IT is my obligation to heal this even if they feel like their in as they can feel in order sense of shame that their child feels like they've failed them. There are parents who won't do what I tell them to do. I can't tell them, if they will. I to tell parents this isn't about, you know, right or wrong. Precise about the practicality isn't they're rare.

wrong when somebody cuts you out of their life, I mean, particularly if they don't even tell you why they stop talking to you.

I mean, I do think that there is a uh a moral basis to to what I reach. The parents should take the high road their children didn't choose, have them their forties and come on our parents to take the high road and take responsibility and not get pulled into the weeds.

not return far with fire. I love what you said, and I just wanted take a highlighter and make sure that everybody heard something that you said. You said that your personal belief is that the parents have a moral obligation to take the higher road because they chose to bring their children into the world.

And I think that's an interesting think to think about because you're right. We forget as parents that were the ones that brought them into the world, they didn't choose us. We chose and created .

them exactly.

And that doesn't mean they over anything. If anything, that means we owe them something.

Yeah, I would say two things that what is the extent that even to walls, like a lot of depends of electors, you have been treated miserably by their adult children and IT win. Surprise me. I'm simple thing, like some of these parents who want to coffee is out over well. But I say I don't support parents doing that. why?

Because because IT seems like my natural reflection is, of course, if you're going to cut me out of your life, why the fuck would I give you any money? Because i've been paying for your ask your whole adult life. Like why would I continue to do that if you don't even do you see how quickly I could go into that? I'm an angry, resent fall.

Yeah.

no. Why would you say that? Why, why should somebody who's had a kid cut them out actually give them money?

The reason is that where parents forever, and we're parenting long after we're gone, I mean, my parents, you know, are both dead and they still continue their influence, still persist with me. You know, some good ways and some bad ways. I don't think our responsibility of parents is when we die.

And as much as I hate away, some of these adult children treat their parents how contempt to his house software tires are rejecting. They are how much they've been miserable, the life of the parent. I still think that the rule apparent continues after the parent tize.

And it's also issue a question of what do you want your legacy to be? Do you want your legacy to be that you to punish your child from the grave? Um and does I mean parents have to give their child every single penny, but that they might give them what they would give them if they were still alive?

A and b of these other symbols are greatly complicate. A similar relationship of one of the children is kind of of a will. So yes, I did you think there's a moral obligation to press and then going to also IT is a moral obligation from adult children that we have lost side of in this culture. I actually do things that that um adult children, oh the parents.

something I agree with your docker common. But this is what pisses me off is when people cut other people out of their life without any explanation and they use silence as a power move. If you've been friends for a long time or you're related and grew up with somebody or there your parent or your child, I personally think is wrong. I think it's wrong at a basic human level that you own your former best friend or your family member explanation period, you don't have to reconcile, but to just drop the guilty in on communication and not explain why that's not a sign of somebody whose mature.

And for those of you that are now going to a get pissed off and write to me about i'm never listening this podcast again, ask yourself of this, why are you triggered? Why are you trigger? Are you triggered because you know that the explanation is out and that IT is somewhat cowardly to just stop talking to somebody and then avoiding them and not responding to their outreach? Or are you triggered because you're dealing with somebody who is abusive and you feel like the explanation has already been given based on what happened? And if that's the case, then you already communicated and there's no reason to be triggered by what i'm saying.

You were the mature person because you pointed that out and then you left. I'm talking about the person who just stone wall somebody. And it's very clear from the immense letter or the outrage or the phone calls that this person has no clue why, even if they're just a to his hell, consider doing them the favour of writing IT out. Because if they have IT in writing, at least then they can go to a therapist or professional and perhaps work on themselves .

to legree with you. I just don't think that parents can demand that or extracted or guilt trip the child into doing that. Some of the reasons that they all just cut off contact aren't because the parents was abusive and good life because, you know, there therapists convinced them that the parent is more responsible for how their lives turned out than they were or the the kid got married to somebody who hates the parent.

The kid is a strongly to stay out after response and say no. But my parents, I wanted them to see them, and I wasn't to see their grandchildren regardless. So in the same way, the pants of a moral obliged, I think, adult children do to.

That's a really important point, doctor. Common, there's another person in our extended family that I can think about right now who married someone who turned this person in our family against the entire family. But now here's a thing.

Of course, as soon as there was a funeral, boy boy did they show up sweet as pie stress to the nes because there's inherence come on, there is stuff to pick through. So I know this is happening probably in everybody's extended family. And look, I realized their important situations where cutting off contact is the healthiest, safest option for you. That's not what we talking about here.

That doesn't mean that they're obligated to stand contact no matter how abusive or hurtful or critical, assuming rejecting the parent is. But they are morally obligated to give the parent a time to do diligence, to repair, to do therapy, to hear them out, to think of the parent in more three dimensional way, to view IT from the perspective that you earlier that they did the best they could, not the way that they're just getting big, forgiven for the matter how crap their parenting was, but that perspective of compassion rather than contempt. So I think both sides, there's moral obligations.

That's beautiful. And I mentioned about, you know, this second person in my family that i'd never met his two grandkids. I mean, I was heartful breaking, and they did show up at the memorial service.

I don't know what to say. Yeah and I I think you probably see that a lot that people show up in death because there is something deeper that connects a soul. And I think that that's what that speaks to. And we have this inability as emotional beings to navigate what feels like endless land mines that can develop between us. Let's focus on the five steps.

Like, what do we do if you know, OK and a gosa doctor common, what are the five steps that people can take in any situation, in any relationship where there has been in a strange man? Where are the steps? Doctor.

yeah well, I have tell parent is, um there is obama things you can do wrong, then you can do right so you know the things you can do wrong, or containing the the five most common mistakes that we ready discussed, the things that you can do right are to um to show compassion, to take responsibility, to find the corneal is not the bushel of truth and the child's complaints to to communicate that you know that they wouldn't cut off contact and was they feel like I was the healthiest thing for them to do uh if you have no idea um what the reasons are and some parents don't to say that is clear. I have significant blind spots as a parent, as a person that I don't have a deeper understanding that I want to uh would you feel comfortable writing me and telling me more about what your thoughts or feelings are that make you feel like this is the healthiest thing for you to do? I promise to listen to read really from the perspective of learning and not any way to defend myself um you know on the one end did not give up but but is somebody you might have to stop as a show of respect.

Can you give us an example of when you should stop reaching .

out if you're getting your letters returned to the option turned? No threads of the police called on. You communicate through an attorney or your kid just get so unravel and you should just stop completely for a year.

Sometimes stopping completely works because the adult child can feel like, uh, the parents is respecting their boundaries. Finally, uh, can make them respect the parent more of this and not just continuing to try to matter what that was saying. How can I miss you if you don't go away sometimes to and family life I can create you know that for of space the child come into. So there's a lot of reasons why sometimes just stopping is the right thing.

There is something that you write about on your work doctor, common that you call the lights model. Can you explain that to this .

is particular to a parent who have been victims of printed alienation, where they've been brainwashed against the parent by the other parent after a divorce? Is to invite what I call out of the lights model that you're just there on the beach. You're steady.

You're like broadcasting life from a definite point on the beach while your child is being pushed up and down out to sea by the waves. And sometimes they come out and see you standing on the beach there broadcasting light. Now get entry logy with them. We'll be Carry back out to see and .

place the underwater. Oh my god, as I said, you're listening to a doctor. Can I can think of a bunch of people that I know that i've gone through a divorce and that's exactly what happened. The kids drifted toward one parent, and the other parent felt completely alienated. And come to think of IT. I've experience this kind of dynamic or feeling too, as a parent, when our kids have been in a relationship with somebody that we really like, and they kind of drift away from us toward the person there in the relationship with. So this analogy that you just explain that people can get caught up in the waves of life and Carried out to see it's so useful because the bottom wines, what you need to do when you feel like your kids or your parents or your friends you're drifting away from, you just keep broadcasting the light and the love from where you are so that they know you're there. And at some point, as you so beautifully said, they'll be Carried back toward you.

Your task is appearance to be steady and loving and compassionate and available and responsibility taking and hope that over time your child can can find a way back to through those efforts.

Can you describe what an immense letter is and how you write one?

Sure um first of other much short than the big parents often think they should be uh typically two paragraphs. You don't want to be so wrong that you know so have so much of that you can hang yourself with IT. This should be courageous and fearless. Moral inventory of your uh, character flaws. If your child has made complaints about you to be able to to really fearlessly um say what those were and how you can see how that could have impacted your child, how that might have been hurtful or traumatizing to them or damaging to them or effective their feelings of trust or safety or security in you are the relationship with you um that's that's critically important to to not blame anybody else, to not make excuses and I say a single mother or your dad in child support or your mother, you know, blame sort of worse and that was my fault. You know you had A D D or learning disabilities.

You your own issues or no no, I know is on the present about empathy, responsibility taking that has to be, you know what, on the tracks, meaning that the parent has to actually show courage in facing their own character flaws, not in the self hating way, but just in a way, and at that critically important as well. Couldn't be an exercising massa isn't, even though IT is a painful thing to do. I understand from my own personal experience, they are not fun letters to write. They're actually super hard.

What wasn't like for you to write one to your daughter when SHE cut you off?

Well, I mean, these two things that go into that one, is this just going to work, and the other is just having to face the the reality is some of her complaints. I mean, I can emphasize with the ways that he felt sort of sideline when I remarry another children and how my children from my second, my current marriage, had a much Better quality of life and were raised in the context of stable marriage. And SHE didn't have that. He was in that kind of, went back and four between two homes. There was conflict with me and her mother, and was a lot, there was a lot there to be court upset and feel displaced about so um is my painful you know numerous times we have cried together about IT because I was um just really painful.

What was her response to your .

letter good and SHE to her credit I was just lucky that my daughter had whatever IT is that causes an adult child to different give and to except not all parents are just as dedicated or and public is me or communicate just as well or Better than I did was the adult child wasn't or isn't willing or able to do that. Uh, but I was lucky that that he was able to I didn't happen right away.

And IT often does IT that's why, say, marathon not a spread. So uh, took took a while and actually IT wasn't just like once simple thing like, oh, great class apart, I was forgiven. Now IT still comes up, period. Ally, those kind of things are fault wines at a parent to dual child relationship. They will always be there in one four or another.

What if you're the one that's in the middle? I've been in a situation where my two closest friends, one cut the other one off and didn't doctor over three years, and I was in a relationship with both of them, and one kept trying to reconcile. And absolute stone wall from the other.

Yeah.

what do you do if you're the sibling? Or the other child or your the friend in the middle yeah well um is often that one child's .

a strange and the other sibling is not a strange from the parents and when I told parents you can't really have your nona strange child advocate for you first of all if one of your children is a strange from you they are showing the are capable of using a strange so they may well a strange at singing second of voting may say that if you acting like our parents advocate um I will cut you off so often the strange siblings um makes the notist strange siblings swear that they won't reveal what the reasons are with thinking we're feeling sometimes even where they live so I talk that they have to except that boundary and limit as as difficult as IT is the other thing I told parents is that you have one kid is a strange you don't want the not a strange kids to feel like they after sort of hold up summer of you as the great parent.

They know how much pain and you're Better off saying to them something like your sister, your brothers are strange but I don't like you to feel like you have to sort of in a repair myself, a steam by making me feel like i'm a great parade, whatever. You may have the same complaints about me or you may have different complaints, but I want you to feel like you have room to do that without worrying about really burden songs to me now if you're a friend um is not of similar dynamic where you don't really have that kind of power to really change very, very much about IT really want to serve your friendship to be over allied one against the other even if you think that you know one person's more food and more troubled and more difficult. So we can be synthetic, but if you put yourself in a position of advocacy that can cause the person is being addicted against, to feel more misunderstood, gained up on at that kind of thing in.

I think if there's one thing i'm taking away from this incredible conversation is that when this happens, there is typically on the part of the person that is strange, this story or feeling that you just don't get IT yeah and i'm tired of trying to explain IT and i'm tired of you defending yourself and it's just easier and Better for me to remove this from my life right now. IT must be a profoundly painful and chAllenging and humbling thing to do. To say this is so important to me that i'm going to be the leader in this process and the only way they would to make progress if the person that cut me out actually feels like they've been validated and understood without me defending myself.

Yeah no, I think it's really well, well, sad because really good, good summary of of what this looks like and and feels like .

so when you get to the point where it's like, okay, I have gotten the message you don't wanna talk. I'm going to just go silent for year. Do you send somebody flowers on their birthday? How do you engage with somebody who doesn't want to engage with you?

Yeah, well, the edges between, you know, some actors of minor, which I would would say that parents shouldn't give up. This is worker fledge adult. If somebody he's going to let the line go called for my recommendations, I recommend they don't do anything because I think that for some adult children, they really need to feel appearance absence.

For some, strAngely, they're really trying to get in touch with a certain part of themselves that they don't feel like they can access with the involved in their life. The parents, some ways, is too important in the my, the parent feels really unexpected ant, because the adult child is sort of closed of contact in every avenue of access. The old child is doing that because they feel like the parents too important in their mind. So if the parent can be no contact and allows the the adult child to feel themselves in a different way in relationship to the party, so what I call lower parent, find yourself.

I want to make sure that we leave people feeling empowered. We are gonna link to absolutely everything from your books, to anything that you have about how you write an a men's letter, so that people have a temper. I would love to know if this is happening to you. What is the first couple steps that you want people to take immediately after listening to this?

The most powerful things, to write a really good, immense letter. And those also urge really easy to do. There are conjured. M, you know, getting to write them in a way that doesn't sound defensive or over we explain itself inside of that's a single most important thing you can do, stop defending, stop explaining, assume your chAllenge, very good reasons, even if you do not understand, even if you feel like the rewriting history.

A, to really approach them with the perspective of love and learning and respect for their boundaries or that they get to set the terms of the relationship. Those are really the most important principles. And I think of people these dynamics early enough on, they're a much Better position than if it's .

gone for twenty years. If you are in a situation where you are sensing that the boyfriend or girlfriend or new husband or spouse is starting to pull your child away from you, what should you do now to stop that sort of distancing? That can happen, but you have to see that .

that person is the gatekeeper to your child and to your potential or current grandchildren. So you can say anything that's going to threat man. And some people married really troubled people.

So the more troubled here saying what I and life is, the more you have to kind of walk on excells. You can't demand anything from them. You don't want to say anything critical about them to your child because they are likely he'll be passed on to that some of our daughter on.

When that happens, you kind of screwed if you have done that as many people have and you want to work your tail off to that, make a sense to that sunday law or garden law. Uh, but there are a gay caper there, a new alpha. You know, once you you can marries, you are in sometimes being replaced, but is the developmentally appropriate. But the more parents complain about IT don't accept that transition. The worst that .

is in all the years that you've been counseling people, what is the hopeful message here?

And the hopeful message is that statistically, most people do have reconcile that happened right away. But um the majority of the strangers do eventually reconcile.

Why do you think that is mean?

I think as people make sure and grow, they are probably able to see their parents with more clarity. They may become parents themselves, either be able to face what that would be like or they want their children to have um you know always be with their grandparents even though the notion of family being forever is a much more deluded concept than that works well as I think it's still part of our cultures. I think people do feel some kind of a tendency in that direction which may motivate them more towards just pursuing that.

So we started this by talking about this really interesting shift in culture that is LED to the silent epidemic of a strAngely, there is less emphasis on family and more on kind of your chosen and family. And you know, your friends being the family that you choose, what do you wish you would see in our culture on how people are thinking about this?

Yeah I think that were sorely lacking in empathy and compassion in this culture and its rooting us as a society having compassion and forgiveness. Um IT doesn't mean you're giving somebody a pass has been heard for to you.

Um IT in some ways can feel more more grounding people who are strongly have kind of a more victimized identity where you hurt me, I don't know you anything and I been victimized by you from cutting you off and that makes me a stronger person. Well, doesn't really I don't really know that that IT does. I think parents have to do a Better job in taking responsibility and showing compassion and empathy. And I think all children have to do a Better job to a compassion and apathy for their, for their talk.

Your common, thank you so much for your work. It's been a real honor spending time and learning from you.

My glass is going to talk to you.

Thank you. And I want to make sure that you hear me tell you that I love you, I believe in you, and i'm not going in anywhere. I'm here.

Monday's thursdays. There is no a stranger in between you and me. I am going to hold your hand.

I am going to put my arms around you. I'm going to do whatever I can understand and disappoint you, because that's what I want to do. Already are talked in a few days.

Okay, so let me think about this um on this I don't think I want to start there but say, no, I think why do you just closed this down and just kind of a talk to talk to I start over on my god, sorry OK. Here you these kids are yelling out there. Can you see that our recording light is on? I'm gonna strange, these friends of my sons from myself, that's not a thing that could happen.

Okay, here you ha, okay, who is that? The cat are my, okay? He does not want to listen to the topic of a strAngely, but you deal. Okay X.

Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue ber. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read dial.

This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a license therapies, and this pocket is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.

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