Kindred Conversation

Posted by fxckfeelings on March 29, 2012

Before we discovered communication as the solution to family conflict and misunderstanding, we knew better. Back then, people thought before they spoke, believed silence was golden, and had to live without remote controls. Communication satisfies a yearning, but if you think first about your goal before opening your mouth, you’ll usually discover that it’s good to communicate a positive vision and bad to share feelings before remembering how your first-degree relative will almost certainly respond.
–Dr. Lastname

After my son left home, he became very distant and uncommunicative. Then last year, almost ten years later, he finally starting calling me regularly, then opened up and confessed he had a problem with drugs and alcohol. I was delighted by his openness and thought we were on the right track, but now, a year later, I’m starting to wonder. What now happens is, after he’s gotten wasted on one thing or another for a few days and run out of money, he calls me up to tell me how bad he feels, how sorry he is, and how much he hates himself. I try to be sympathetic, but I hate to hear his misery, I’m tired of telling him he’s really OK, and I’m angry that he doesn’t stay sober for very long and doesn’t do anything about it except dump the problem on me when he’s feeling low. My goal is to see him get better, so I don’t want to cut communication, but our talks are not working.

Shared feelings can be a good step forward if your son knows what he wants to do with himself, other than share feelings.

Hurray, he’s discovered you’re supportive and not mean, punitive or critical, and sharing with you feels good. Unfortunately, that’s his only goal. You’re not reconnecting, you’re becoming his favorite hangover cure.

Aside from the fact that this kind of listening wears you out and makes you angry, it’s no good for him, either. I don’t mean that the pain of his hangover isn’t a good incentive for him to stop, but neither is relieving that pain. What helps is for him to think hard about what he wants for himself and the sacrifices he’ll need to make to get there. Right now, the only sacrifice he’s willing to make is giving up precious cellphone minutes to give you his confession before repeating the same bad behavior again.

No, I’m not about to advocate a talk about choice and responsibility, because you really don’t know whether he has a choice and, without choice, there’s no responsibility. I advocate a different kind of come-to-Jesus/an AA meeting conversation.

Tell him what you see, without any negative emotion, and that you think he has a control problem that’s pretty bad and not getting better. Your guess is that he just doesn’t have the strength, and you’re sorry about that. If you thought talking about his feelings would help, you’d listen, but they don’t, so you won’t. You’re sad that he’s fucked, but you’re fucked if you get trapped listening to him go on and on about how he’s sad.

Tell him he has to find strength in himself by thinking hard about what he wants for himself and what drug and alcohol abuse does to him. He’ll need to get a lot stronger before he can stop and stay stopped, and talking to others about addiction and hearing their stories can give him the strength. Still, he’ll have to work hard every day, and the part of him that wants to use is pretty strong and will never go away.

No, you’re not discouraging him—false hope yields false courage—you’re telling him that life and his own feelings have totally discouraged him and he’s going to have to learn how to think differently in order to get his courage back. You’re not telling him anything he won’t learn from AA, but they’re the lessons that will help him take back his life.

The immediate response may well be negative; he may claim you’re letting him down and making him feel worse, and may openly regret talking to you. Instead of getting defensive, tell him you see a positive way forward and that your vision differs from his. Then stand pat, don’t argue, and stand ready to help him whenever he takes a positive step.

It may be awhile before you feel close again, but, if and when you do, it will be the real thing. Until then, you can talk all the time, but every conversation will make you feel further away.

STATEMENT:
“I’ve gotten very pessimistic since the new intimacy with my son failed to do him any good, but I believe that communicating positive ideas about addiction will be more helpful in the long run and that real intimacy must wait until he’s stronger.”

My mother means well, and it’s important for us to spend one-on-one time, but whenever I make a date for us to have dinner, I wind up regretting it. She has a way of quizzing me about what I’m doing that sets my teeth on edge, and then giving me advice as if I’m an idiot who needs to be cautioned about everything that can go wrong. I’ve tried to point this out to her, and it just hurts her feelings. To tell you the truth, I miss not being closer to her, but, whenever we meet, I go away angry. My goal is to be able to have a good, adult relationship.

Before assuming that closeness with your mother is good, no matter how good it would feel, ask yourself whether your mother is a hard person to get close to. In other words, is she insensitive about the impact of her questioning on her kids, or is she just an insensitive person, period.

If your mother is needy and believes that intimacy is a matter of sharing spontaneous feelings, it’s natural for her to try to get close by asking you direct, intrusive questions and then sharing her honest response. Anyone who does that is, however, is just somebody who has never figured out that this method never works (and probably never will). She gets an A for expressing her feelings, and you know what grade she gets from me.

Don’t make the same mistake by assuming that sharing your honest objections (to her honest questions) will lead to improvement; she might never learn her lesson, but you should know better. If your goal was to see whether confronting her negative behavior works, now you know. No need to repeat the experiment, the results will always be the same (and awful).

So put aside your disappointment and consider other approaches, like steering the conversation to pleasant topics of common interest, or politely refusing to talk about personal topics. The more you stifle your own need for intimacy, the more likely you are to steer the dinner table agenda towards topics that work and come away appreciating the desert and not hating the conversation.

STATEMENT:
“I’d love to have a closer relationship with my mother but, truth is, she’s not great at sharing. I’ll put aside my yearnings and try to build the best relationship I can by sticking to the simple stuff and exerting my adult power over the agenda to stay away from fear and criticism. Whether it will get us close or not, I don’t know, but I do know that I’ll have done my best and it will be better than what we’ve got.”