Jocko Underground: How to Rebuild The Bridges You Burnt With Your In-Laws
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This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 152. Sitting here with Echo Charles, who sometimes thinks he needs to make his statements. I'm doing the best I can over here. You are very, your attitude in that whole exchange. Which one? The one we just had before you hit record. Sure. You really thought you were right. Hey, if I don't know, this is just a hint for future reference. Sure, what's the hint? If I don't know I'm right, I don't, I don't.

Won't even like remotely imply that I'm right. Yeah, so if I'm like no it's this and you say well you're gonna be Well, and then say like that I see what you're saying and look look my attitude was off you're correct about that But can it an attitude just exists? It doesn't have to be right or wrong. See I'm saying what I was saying was wrong Yeah, and your attitude is wrong as well Incongruent

All right. Nonetheless, we got to the bottom of it. And hey, here we are. So, yeah.

There's no more question on that subject matter, but we got some questions from the people. All right, let's hear what we got. Yes. Okay. So first question. I recently started dating a woman my age and I've had the opportunity to get to know her family, including her grandmother and her mother, 46 years old. I've stayed at their house a few times and have developed a relationship with them. Unfortunately, her family has fallen on hard times. While I'm not in a position to fully support them financially, I've tried to help by covering small bills when I can.

Her mother is understandably under significant stress and I've witnessed occasional outbursts involving yelling, screaming, name calling, and other erratic behavior. My girlfriend mentioned that bipolar disorder runs in the family, but I'm not a psychiatrist. Recently, I didn't send my girlfriend $40 for the clothes that her mother wanted her to have for a new job. My girlfriend herself didn't want the clothes.

How'd that work out for you?

Her mother later sent me a text that I interpreted as a partial apology. Rather than leaving it there, I responded with a lengthy message stating things like, I'm not going to tolerate that behavior and respect is earned, not given. So you should check yourself if you want respect. My response was disrespectful and inappropriate, and she understandably took offense. I'm no longer allowed to stay at her house.

password i deeply care about my girlfriend and recognize that maintaining a positive relationship with her mother is crucial for long-term success in our relationship i failed to detach from the situation that my emotions take over and made a poor decision in the heat of the moment how do i fix this if possible well i hope that you already fully apologized and took ownership of the situation

That would be the best first move. I maybe even write a letter that like apology letter. Sorry. Maybe some flowers, you know, something like that. If you're really trying to patch things up a little bit.

And then it's just going into the relationship building 101, right? Trust, listen, respect, influence, and care. That means, you know, you're taking care of their daughter. You're listening to what, you know, sorry, I won't come over. Treating them with respect. This is not going to clean up easy. This isn't like, oh, yeah, just tell her to give her the old one, two, three combo. You know, flowers, apology,

you know a bottle of wine and everything will be good to go it's not gonna work like that dude the mother-in-law is gonna hold she might even hold a grudge indefinitely by the way so keep that in mind so if you do that if you just are respectful and listen what she has to say and you know treat her with respect like just all those things over time you might be able to rebuild somewhat of a relationship and I say might a little emphasis on might because it sounds like there's

some level of irrational behavior in this scenario and Irrational people do irrational things and it's very difficult to rationalize with irrational people Irrational people aren't thinking about the con. They're not thinking like we think they're not thinking like a normal person like she because you did that you're a hateful person that's gonna beat their daughter and

it's an irrational thought but this is the kind of thought that she's gonna have and there's nothing you do to change your mind that is possible so just just this is going to be rough you know what i mean and and it sounds like a volatile family it's like a volatile family situation which is you know just use caution there be prepared to have to detach off often and by the way it sounds like you had a really hard time detaching i mean when you have time to

Reply to a text and you take the time to write the text and you didn't detach enough to not to recognize What a bad situation you're gonna put yourself in that sucks because you're gonna be having to do this all the time with a volatile family like this that's sort of having hard times and has people that are bipolar in it like this is chaos you're gonna have to be a pillar of calmness and rational behavior and even that's not gonna work at least 50% of the time because you've you know, you're in a family that's chaotic and

And irrational. So you're going to have to not get wrapped up in the mayhem. Cannot get wrapped up in the mayhem. And, you know, listen, family is part of the calculus when it comes to relationships, man. You ever heard the thing like, oh, she comes from a good family? Yeah, of course. Comes from a good family.

So that's usually considered to be a positive thing usually yeah, right? No one's like oh, yeah My my wife comes from a broken family with a bunch of drug addicts and they're super stoked about it. You know No Now I'm not saying it comes from a perfect family and by the way, there's people that come from terrible backgrounds that are the most awesome people and there's people that come from awesome backgrounds that are terrible people right and

Like, you know, there's a wealthy family with the mother and father intact and they're all great and they're lovey dovey and they go to church every Sunday and their freaking kid is a psycho, right? That happens. There's also the alcoholic dad that's totally abusive and crazy and it's just total mayhem and the kid is 100% squared away. So that totally happens. But you need to think about that.

Think about like what are you seeing? What do you seen in this scenario? Is the is the daughter like yeah my mom will never be like her or does she emulate her behavior? You need to pay attention to those things because you know when you if you this is a long-term thing you're getting married You're marrying the whole family. You're marrying the whole family now You can marry the you can you can marry the family but keep the family out of it That's possible might not go over too. Well, but just think about it man. Just think about it. I

Yeah, that's what I got and it's gonna take time you messed up. I'm not a miracle worker You know what I mean? I know what you mean like this is not this is not an easy to save situation a Bipolar irrational mom that you pissed off. It's not gonna go over well And by the way, you pissed them off in like a written way. Yeah, like a documented way Like they'll go back and read through that remember when you told me this like you really screwed up. Mm-hmm

So even you know it. You say my response was disrespectful, inappropriate. She took offense. Yep, exactly. So it's going to take time, dude. Time. Quite a bit of time in my estimation. Do you, when you and your current wife, when you guys were dating, did you meet her parents early on?

I mean, early on. I mean, I met him probably a year into the whole gig. Yeah. Actually, that's kind of late on. Really? Late? Maybe. I mean, they lived in England. I was here in America. So it wasn't like we were walking down the street. Yeah, gotcha. Can you think of off the top of your head any, not good, but any, we'll say for lack of a better word, acceptable reason to get into an argument with your mother-in-law or girlfriend's parents?

Maybe if they were physically attacking my my wife. Mm-hmm trying to beat her Yeah, maybe like a high level of verbal abuse but even that even that when you say I I wouldn't obviously if my wife was being beaten by someone I would intervene and save her and you know handle the situation But even like a yelling screaming parent, I'd be like, okay, we can leave now I would be conflict would be the lowest

Form of my response the latin least probable form of my response Yeah, my response would be de-escalation and avoid and probably leave not storm off but like hey We're gonna you know, we're gonna head back. We call from work. I got to get back early. Yeah, I'm gonna leave tonight So perfect then so that so a way to determine what to establish terms will say get into argument means not De-escalation because de-escalation is literally the opposite of getting into an argument, right? So I'm not in whatever way

Right, none, right? I mean, I get...

- When do you like, because technically, and I'm here with this guy trying to figure it out as well. Thankfully, I've never got into argument or never saw any value in getting any kind of like escalation did argument. - Yeah, with anyone. - Well, I can't say with anyone. - But honestly, when's the last time you had an actual argument with someone? - Yeah, fully. And as an adult, especially after this outfit was established, yeah, no, no, no. - Like, no, why don't you go? - You know what I mean? Like, when's the last time you did that?

Like, no, why don't you do it? You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'll tell you what. You know what I mean? I'm not going to tolerate this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You listen to me. You see what I'm saying? Like, this stuff is crazy talk. Bro, I felt weird just saying it as a hypothetical, so yes. I'm not going to tolerate this. Yeah. So it's kind of like if you just have that consciously to be like, there is no circumstances with very few exceptions in the world to...

or should I say not to not deescalate the situation. Just know that. We are deescalating. Deescalating 100%. 100%. 100%. No matter how disrespectful, no matter how much you think, what did he say? Respect should be earned. Yeah. I'm not going to tolerate this. Like all this stuff. Yeah. It kind of feels like it. Yeah. Right? I can't find it. And what really kind of sucks is this is an opportunity for you to like gain a lot of,

leadership capital because she knew she was wrong and sent a text that was a partial apology which is an apology look it might not be well crafted it might not be fully sincere but there's some portion she knew she was wrong and you have the opportunity to be a bigger man take the moral high ground and be like hey all understood just you know I'm glad it all worked out you know

You're right, you know like if there's anything she needs, you know I'm here and those clothes would she look great in those clothes and you know, I mean whatever the thing is You can just take that moral high ground and just be come off like a better person Here's actually a tip which I said long time ago, but I think it's very important to remember You can't say you're taking the moral high ground. You can't oh no, no, no, I'm being a bigger person So watch out for that cuz some people that's how right? You know what? I'm gonna take the high ground. I'm gonna take the moral high ground Yeah, you jammed it. That's right up there with calm down

You know what I mean? I think you might be right about that. We're not doing that. I do. We're not praising ourself. Yeah. No, no.

Not at all. At the expense of the other person. Yeah, fully. Like, yeah, when you're like, I'll take the high ground. I'll be the bigger person. You know what that means? Yeah, you're the smaller person. You're the smaller person, by the way, in this scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get back on your good side. I don't know, bro. I don't know. I think, personally, with the flowers, like, you know, get flowers or whatever, I think that'll have more weight than you might think. Okay. I thought you were going to say, I thought you, as soon as you said that.

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