Hey to your Therapist listeners.

It's Lori and Guy and we have a quick update.

Many of you have told us that you get something new out of each episode when you listen to it again the second or third time.

In fact, when we listen to the episodes again, we also get takeaways we didn't remember.

We're They're therapy is like that too.

There are so many learning moments in a session, and it's difficult to absorb them all at once.

So while we're not taping new episodes right now, we are offering you our most popular sessions as encores so that you can continue to gain value from them.

We love doing the Therapists episodes, but we're each busy with new and exciting projects that we hope you will love.

Just as much.

I have a new advice podcast called Since You Asked, which you can get wherever you listen to podcasts.

And I have a new book coming out.

It's called Mind Overgrind, How to Break Free when work Hijacks your life, and it will be published by Simon and Schuster.

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And meanwhile, we hope you find these Dear Therapist sessions as valuable as we have making them for you.

Hey, fellow travelers, I'm Lori Gottlieb.

I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.

And I'm Guy Wench.

I wrote Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy call Um for Ted.

And this is Deo Therapists.

This week, a woman struggles with resentment toward her sister, who always seems like the perfect sibling to their parents.

Sometimes I think, oh, I should be better at this.

I should ask them more questions, because that's what Jill does when she's there.

She writes questions for the night and has people discuss memories and labels the antiques.

And oh my goodness, she is Mary Puppins.

Yeah, and it's like I can't compete with that.

I don't know how to do that.

Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself and the problem.

Deo Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in potter and full, and we may edit it for length and or clarity.

Hi, Laurie, how are you?

What do we have today?

Hey guy?

Well, today we have a letter about conflict between siblings.

Ooh, that's always interesting because that can go many ways.

Yes, so let me go ahead and read you the letter.

Dear therapists, I'm having an issue with my sister Jill over the care of our parents.

I'm feeling resentful that she flies in for week long visits, makes a big splash, then leaves me to the never ending slog.

When my sister comes to town, she busies herself cleaning their house, archiving family history, and in general being Mary Poppins, a regular ray of sunshine and rainbows.

While she's here, my parents are happy and bright, gone or my mother's weepiness and my father's grumpiness.

It's nice that she's here to share the load, but she will soon fly home phone every other day and return to her life far away, while I will continue to carry the load up close.

I've been grumbling for months about needing help, But now I'm resentful of the sunshine and rainbows.

While I would like to escape while she's here, hand over the rains and disappear.

My sister needs me to make the two five hour round trips to the airport, so I'm bookended by needing to be present.

Plus my life continues unabated.

My husband says, I'm like the starting pitcher who carries the game, while my sister's the closer who has a particular strength cleaning in rainbows.

The analogy helps, but it makes me wonder how many starting pitchers sit in the dugout seething while the closer gets the credit for winning the games silently steaming.

I played eight innings and set this guy up for VIC.

I'd love whatever advice you have for redirecting my resentment into something more useful.

Thanks for your time and attention, Hayley.

That'ds a lovely request for advice there at the end, because she's not saying I'd like your help and not feeling resentful.

She's saying I'd like to redirect it into something useful that sounds good to me, just as a way to frame things.

Resentment is interesting because it's really about a feeling of unfairness, this balance that you're putting out something and not getting enough back, or someone else is getting more than you.

There's real math in people's heads, whether they're aware of it or not.

When they're resentful, there's accounting going on in their heads.

Yeah, And I wonder whether this counting, or this feeling of unbalance is just specific to this situation, or whether that's something that has gone on between the sisters before when they were growing up.

The other interesting thing about the resentment here is is if she's resentful towards her sister, then it's because the response the parents are giving her sister versus her.

And in that case, why is you're not resentful towards the parents?

In other words, is the sister actually doing something to engender the resentment other than just being herself?

Right?

I think we need to explore the resentment more with her.

So let's go talk with her.

Yes, you're listening to Dear Therapist from my Heart Radio.

We'll be back after a quick break.

I'm Laurie Gottlieb.

And I'm Guy Wench and this is Dear Therapist.

Hi Hayley, Hello, thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for choosing my letter.

I am such a fan of both of you.

I feel like I won the lottery.

I'm very honored.

That's very nice.

Thank you.

We hope we can help you today.

So HEDI, you use the word slog, the slog with your parents, what are you doing for them?

And how much of a slug is it for you?

The slog is that they live an hour south of me by their own choice, and both of my sisters live several states away.

They're both in their mid eighties.

So when this quarantine hit and the pandemic, I became the person to deliver groceries for them, like my husband does the grocery shopping, and he's very good about that, but to keep them safe, he does not go and visit, and I just go.

So it's just the three of us, and it has been since March, and I go every week, sometimes twice a week, and I often spend the night, and I cook dinner and I take desserts and just try to be entertaining and keep their spirits up and keep them fed and entertained.

Was this an issue before COVID in terms of feeling like you were the only person responsible for being there for your parents.

Yes, I do feel that way.

I'm always concerned about how my mother is entertained and what they're doing, So it was an issue before this, but I would only see them about every other week, and that would be a get together or a party.

None of this shopping, none of this cooking that type of thing.

Were you feeling this kind of resentment when the situation was more normal and you didn't have the shopping and the cooking involved.

Not really, maybe a little bit when COVID started, and obviously when it did, no one knew how long able to go on.

But since then have there been any conversations with you and your two sisters about Hey, guys, look it's COVID, they're in the really high risk group.

I know you live far away, but can we make a plan in which we somehow share the responsibilities?

Is that conversation a three way conversation ever had?

No?

It?

Never did.

They took it upon themselves to initiate.

I guess a foam tree where one calls my mom one night and the other one the next.

But the three of us never did have that conversation.

Can you tell us a little bit about what your relationship is like with both of your sisters.

You mentioned Jill in the letter.

Can you tell us the birth order and what your relationship has been like growing up and what it's like as adults.

Okay, my oldest sister is Eve, and Jill is the middle, and I'm the youngest.

I think we all get along in different ways.

Eve is sort of politically different than me and Jill.

We don't have hard conversations.

I guess we just get along.

I suppose they're pretty good relationships.

Does Eve participate in this rotation in any way?

Because you mentioned Jill flying in and doing the Mary Poppins thing.

What about Eve?

No, she stays at home.

It sounds like you get along, but you're not necessarily super close.

Were you claymates as kids, were your friends as kids?

Or were you just very different from one another.

I was very different from them, so they got along much better and they actually ended up in the same grade.

And I was two years younger in school and was always the black sheep.

To be honest with you, they would tell on me.

I would get in trouble and sort of the scapegoat for things that were going wrong in the family.

Can you give us an example of that.

I think an example would be that I think I see my father more clearly for who he is, and neither one of them sees any faults in him.

So I would be the one sort of saying the emperor has no clothes, and they would be the people saying, no, he's perfect.

And he might be a perfect man, but he wasn't a perfect father for me because I'm artistic and he was military.

So there was always that that conflict.

So I stood outside of the four of them quite a bit for that way of thinking and was punished for it.

So you were feeling left out in your family.

It sounds like from pretty early on when you say I was outside of the four of them, it wasn't just your two sisters then who was seeing eye to eye.

But it sounds you're saying the four of them were and I was the one that felt left out in a.

Way, right right?

It was always my fault when things didn't work.

My mother was always very angry with me for not getting along with my dad.

What did she want you to do to get along better with your dad?

That's a good question.

Just think he was a nice guy.

See him for his positive characteristics.

Well, yeah, if he's military, you just needed to march information as it were with your sisters.

That then you were not marching information with your family, perhaps not just your sisters.

Yeah, So what did that feel like growing up?

Because that's quite stark what you're describing.

It's not just oh, yes, I had two older sisters and they would sometimes going up on me.

It was this feeling like I'm really different from the entire family.

There's something that I'm seeing and that I'm feeling that's different.

What was that like for you growing up with that feeling?

It was probably very lonely, But in a way I didn't mind being alone because I didn't want to be with them.

It was better.

It was better to be alone.

You know, sometimes when people are in your situation, on the one hand, they feel like it's better to be alone because you're glad to have the freedom to feel how you feel, to think how you think, you sound like you were more artistic and creative to be able to acknowledge that side of yourself.

But sometimes there's also, at the same time another part that feels almost envious of them because they're not seeing what you're seeing.

They're not thinking more deeply, and so it just feels easier for them because they all just get along and it just seems so easy, and so sometimes it's like, I'm glad that I see the world in this way, but wouldn't it be easier if I didn't?

Definitely, that was definitely there.

The letter you wrote to us is about resentment, and it's about resentment for the current very specific situation, but it sounds like they might have been cause for you to feel resentment long ago as well, for being marginalized, or for feeding the part for your sister's giving you a hard time.

Do you recall feeding resentment as a child or as an adolescent.

I mostly resented my mother forcing me to get along with my dad when he wasn't nice to me.

They didn't see that, but he wasn't and he was good about doing it when nobody else was around.

So I resented that nobody took my side.

Can you give us an example of the kind of thing he would do when no one was around to you?

It was never physical.

He would just speak very sternly to me, yell at me when I wasn't getting the point.

Up into my twenties, we would be alone in the house and he would just come and say, tell me, you know, very in your face, in my face, kind of like a drill sergeant.

And he would not do that to your sisters.

No, no, no, no, he didn't have a reason to do it to them.

They got along with him, and you know when he said jump, they said how hi?

And when he said jump, I said why.

He's not good at giving reasons.

He just wants you to do it.

It's interesting that your letter talks a lot about your sister, and right now you're talking about your resentment towards your mother, and I wonder if there was also a resentment towards your sisters for blaming you for things.

They got me in trouble.

Like one time when I was a teenager, I snuck out of the house and it was New Year's Eve, I think, and I was coming back in and they noticed and they locked the door, and instead of what I thought a good so would do, which would be to help me get inside, they woke up my dad and they got me in trouble.

So that was not nice.

It's almost like they got pleasure from seeing you get in trouble.

What it does is it solidifies the family dynamic.

It solidifies your position as the outsider.

There.

You're literally the outsider.

You were locked out of the house.

It's very true.

The thing that's interesting about resentment is that it's truly about the feeling of a lack of fairness, that you're not getting something that you deserve, or someone's getting more than you, and when they don't deserve getting more than you.

And when you're describing your childhood with your parents and your sisters, it sounds like there's a thread of the lack of fairness that's going on because they all seem to get along.

And it's not just that they got along, but they seem to see I to eye and kind of agree with each other and have the same philosophy and the same approach and understanding of what one should do.

And so it was almost easy for them to get along.

They didn't really have to bend themselves into a pretzel.

And you not only didn't fit in, but you also didn't want to bend yourself into a pretzel, so you stood out even more.

And that's why I was asking about whether you've had this feeling of unfairness for a really long time In your family.

Well, it's funny because I never thought that that was an issue of mine until I got married and I was dating my husband and he said, wow, so everything's got to be fair.

And I realized then, how often I say that's not fair?

Why did she get to do that?

That's not fair?

So it probably has been there.

I don't remember feeling it as a kid, but he definitely brought it to my attention.

When you were younger and you felt that things weren't fair, who did you go to to talk about that?

It sounds like you probably didn't go to your father.

Did you go to your mother?

I might have, but she was very invested in having him be right, So I don't think she ever agreed with me and said, you're right, that's not fair.

It was just more of a well that's what he said.

Was there ever a time when there was something that your mother did that you felt was not fair?

So it wasn't about your father, Well, it.

Was related to him.

Like I got a ticket once and they mailed it to the house and she opened it up and read it and said what did you get this ticket for?

And I said, why did you read my mail?

And she said, well, the envelope wasn't sealed, so I said, well, don't tell dad, and she said, oh, I have to tell your father.

I tell your father everything.

And I thought, that's that's not fair, like A, you read my letter and B you're telling him.

And see I was an adult.

I think I was in my twenties, and it just it wasn't fair when you.

Said to her, you know, please don't tell him, and she said, I have to tell him.

What did you do at that point?

What do those conversations look like?

Do you just backed down or do you actually.

Oh, I probably got pretty mad, but she was equally firm.

And this was marriage, and this is what married people do.

They don't have secrets from each other, and she couldn't keep this secret from him, so she had to tell him.

You know, I think I realized why you're feeling so resentful about the current situation because you have no allies that you can go to.

In other words, you can't express it to your mom, or to your dad, or to your sisters because that will just be you drawing a line between you and them again, because they all seem fine with the arrangement.

You're the one that doesn't.

Again, you're the one that doesn't fit in, and so that's something that's going on that the resentment and the frustration is not just about the unfairness of the current situation and the heavy load that's on your shoulders.

Do you would think, given the relationship and how close your sisters were to your parents and how much they think like them even today, they would be the ones carrying that load.

But because of the geography, it falls on you.

And yet if you complained about it or said something, then they might close ranks again and be like, Nope, that's you being different.

I think that's very true.

That's a very good point because I have felt very alone in this and when I would ask my husband back in March, I would say, oh, please come with me, just please come and have dinner with us.

It's just so hard with just the three of us, it's just so hard to have the conversation twice a week.

And he would say, well, I can't I grocery shop.

I'm keeping them healthy, I'm keeping them safe, And so I couldn't even talk to him about it.

Even though he couldn't come with you.

Do you feel like he's an ally in the sense of understanding how you feel about the situation and the added layer of perceived unfairness.

It seems like often when you were growing up, people pointed out the things you did wrong, and they didn't protect you.

They didn't have your back when things went wrong, like New Year's Eve or like getting a ticket, and so you're left with being the person who's in the trenches, who's doing the daily slog.

And I wonder if your husband understands that aspect of it.

Do you feel like you have some emotional support from him, or does he also feel like, well, that just how it is and you just have to deal with it.

He's probably getting a better idea of it.

I think he has trouble relating to my situation because he didn't grow up with his dad, So whenever I complain about my dad, he thinks, well, at least you had one.

But I was talking to him more about it the other night, because he did come to dinner with me finally, and I got the chance to tell him more about how it had been for me when I was young, with my dad yelling at me, and I think he heard it for the first time and didn't kind of defend it and say that I was lucky to have a dad in the house.

Yeah, because it almost repeats the pattern that was going on in your house when you go to your husband for support and he says, well, you know, you don't have it that bad.

Yeah, it was not helpful because I wouldn't wish it on anybody, But it wasn't very understanding on his part.

But I think we're getting asked that.

Do your parents express appreciation for the incredible efforts that you're putting forth to really provide for them to keep them safe.

They do.

They do.

My mother is very appreciative, and she thanks me and sends me emails and sends me notes, and my dad says thank you, and they are appreciative.

And it's really great that they're appreciative.

That helps a lot.

But I think that there's something else that you still want from them, which is an acknowledgement of your goodness.

And I see you nodding there, right.

You weren't really seen and appreciated for who you are when you were growing up, and so what they're appreciating right now is what you're doing for them, which again is good.

But I think that there's still a yearning for you to have them appreciate who you are as a person, your creativity, how artistic you are, your ways of being an independent person and being able to think for yourself.

Even devotion and loyalty, right.

Her generosity, her devotion, her loyalty, all of that, but to appreciate who you are as a person, your essence.

And so when your sister comes in and you said, like Mary Poppins, and what they see is not just everything she's doing that week, but I think that you have a sense they see something else in her that they haven't really looked hard enough to see in you.

They really like her essence because it mirrors their own.

I think you're fighting here not just for recognition of what you're doing for them now, but recognition of your personhood.

Haley, I see you nodding a lot, and I guess I'm wondering when you're there, when you're talking to them, are you telling them about your life?

Are they asking questions about what's going on with you?

Are they getting to know you the adult you, and what your life is about and what you are about?

Other opportunities for that when you spend.

Time there there are I feel like I talk too much about myself, though, you know, it's not that interesting.

Day to day.

I'm a writer.

I sit in this room and sometimes I think, oh, I should be better at this.

I should ask them more questions, because that's what Jill does when she's there.

She writes questions for the night and has people discuss memories and labels the antiques and oh.

My goodness, she is Mary Puppins.

Yeah, I can't compete with that.

I don't know how to do that.

They ask you at all about what you're writing.

Do they show an interest in your writing?

My mom does more than my dad, to the point that I kind of try not to talk to her about it because she's always begging me to read it, and she gets really weepy because I don't let her read my work anymore.

It's a little bit of a touchy subject.

And I think they didn't like the work I did when I was in graduate school because there were some pretty raw poems about my life and they didn't really care for that.

So the whole thing, whenever I start talking about poems, they look like deers in the headlights, like, oh God, please don't talk about your poems.

They're painful.

That is something I could talk about I can talk forever about writing, but that's not their favorite subject.

But it sounds like you're the truth speaker in the family, right, Like you're the one that speaks the truth and everyone else just kind of full nine and doesn't dress things right, and the other one that speaks about what's actually going on.

Right, You're exactly right, and that's been my role my whole life.

And I had a counselor once and she said to me, but you need to realize nobody likes the person who tells the truth.

That's not a way to be popular.

So I was like, well, okay, I'm not popular.

Well yet another person who wasn't seeing it you away, no, and this one was your counselor.

That's unfortunately, there's something very liberating about being the truth teller, and it's hard to see when you're on the outside and you felt like an outsider for so long.

But what you're not seeing are their struggles, because if the truth is so threatening to them, if the truth feels so painful to them, there's a struggle going on there.

It just looks very different from the way yours is expressed.

You mean, it's a struggle for them to keep the truth hidden.

So you think they know it, You think they don't need me to say it, like they already know.

It's not about keeping the truth hidden, it's about not even asking questions to uncover it h a lot of the time, right, So it's not that they're sitting there thinking, ooh, I agree with her totally, but I don't want to admit it.

They're not doing that exploration.

They're not asking those questions that they would have to answer with truths.

And that's because anytime they might go there just kind of tiptoe over there in their minds, they immediately retreat.

And you are saying, wait a minute, I'm not just tiptoeing over there.

I'm running full force over there.

Yeah, I'm going to stop my way over there and stop my way back and tell you what I found out when I was over there.

And you said it in your letter.

Jill comes in with rainbows and sunshine and sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and who knows what, and that so much more, repeating to them, Yes, let's have the sunshine and the rainbows, not this truth thing that you, Hailey keep peddling.

Albeit now that I'm saying that the fact that your mom is curious to see the writing when she knows that you're the truth teller, when she's had the experience of reading your poems and going like that means there's a part of her that does want to know, even if it's to be able to mount a very strong defense against what you're saying.

But there's a part of them that's curious.

She might be the only one.

Yeah, you're probably right, but there have been enough conversations about I can't believe you see me that way.

It's like I can't be your psychiatrist too, you know, I can't help you come to peace with how I feel.

It sounds like she feels blamed as opposed to being curious about your experience.

Yeah, I would agree.

And that makes it hard for her to hear it.

And I wonder if your sisters feel the same way.

What is their relationship to the things that you've written.

They haven't read anything in a long time.

It's like being a teenager in the house.

I go in my room and that's kind of where I am and my writing stays, which isn't a good place to be as a writer because I'm torn about getting it out into the world.

I think this whole thing holds me back in that way, because.

Then we'll have to explain, defend, and have their directed towards you.

Yep, yep.

That you said they hadn't seen your writing in a long time, meaning they used to read your writing.

Yeah.

I used to publish little chap books when I was in graduate school.

The poems I had written each semester I would print out and make covers for and I would sell them at these readings I did and give them to my family.

So what did your sister say about the poems?

Usually never much.

My one sister, Eve was really into it, and she always says, I can't wait till you publish a book.

I can't wait to read it.

And I think Jill just didn't know what to say.

What was it like for Eve to be interested in your writing?

It was good, It was nice.

She kept all my chap books.

It was an interesting place for us to meet on that level.

Did you talk at all about the content of the poems.

It sounds like they were about your family And you said, she's the one you politically disagree with the most.

Is she the person that you disagree the most with?

About what the reality is in your family.

Did you find anything in there and say, oh, yeah, I felt that way too, or I can see how you saw that.

No, never any of that.

We never talked about the issues.

What we do align on is how tiresome Jill is sometimes, how even I both get tired of this sort of Mary Poppins aspect, and we can roll our eyes about that together.

She complains to me about Jill's kids, and Jill complains to me about Eve's kids, and so that's kind of where we meet on this level.

Had nothing to do with my writing Where is Eve?

In terms of taking care of your parents?

Jill comes in and does the Mary Poppins thing, and you there on the daily grind, Where's Eve?

Eve stays at home, her family isn't quarantining very much.

She can't come visit, or she won't.

My mom doesn't enjoy her as much as she enjoys Jill, because they're politically different too.

And Eve has a bit of a hot temper.

She's a little a little more difficult to be around, a little angry.

She's a little bit of an angry person.

So I don't think Mom misses her not coming.

I'm sure, she misses her, that's a terrible thing to say, but she stays where she is.

So the resentment you feel.

There are these four people in your family, to whom do you feel most resentful, to whom least.

I'm look at the resentment pie and let's see who gets what portions.

That's a really good question.

I think I give fifty percent to my parents, because.

You separate your parents, Okay.

I would give my dad.

I'm just gonna give it all equally.

Everybody gets twenty five percent of the pie.

Is that a math phobia or is that how you really feel?

It's because I'm not good at maths, but it's also.

Then just rank them.

Can rank it from most to least.

Where the resentment is the most and where the resentment is the least.

I think I resent my dad the most, but he is honestly tied with my mom because they had this opportunity to live closer to where I live, on more of a family compound.

And when they were making this choice, I said to them, and this was ten years ago, I said, I really think you should move on that family compound.

It'll just be better for you.

It'll be closer to people that you know, and they refused, and so they moved to this other house and now they live an hour away.

And I sit here thinking, I'm the one who knew you should have moved to this place, and now I'm the one that's got to drive two hours every time to this place you moved to that I didn't think you should move to in the first place.

So that's a lot of my resentment about all of this.

And when I told my husband that the first time, he said, you know what, I worry about you resenting something that you can't change.

So I just kind of shut up about that and thought, okay, well, I'll resent that quietly.

Then it sounds like it's so hard for you to talk about your resentment because every time you talk about it, you get shut down.

Even with your husband, he's not trying to shut you down, but he's not making space for it either.

I agree.

I want to go back because we didn't finish on that ranking scale.

Hm, it was hard for you to say, I'm resentful that they didn't consider me in the move, and now I'm bearing the burden of that.

Yeah.

Yeah, And so you put them first in the ranking.

Where do Eve and Jill fall who falls next in terms of your resentment.

Eve, because she doesn't really seem to be doing anything, Like she sent me some bottles of wine at the very beginning, like here, you're doing a great job, which I really appreciated.

But that was like April.

So now I think she calls my mom.

I think she feels like she's doing her part that way, but it's it's not a lot.

So Jill is the person that you're least resentful of in your family.

But your whole letter was about Jill.

I know.

That's very true.

And I think it was because she was here and I could see it firsthand, like how bright my mom was and how bubbly and how excited they were, and I thought, wow, I come here and.

It's like, hey, you know, you don't get the same reception.

Yeah, I'm the food that they eat every day.

They're just tired of this dish and then they got something new and exciting.

But I did see it the other day with my husband when he came and he was talking to my dad, and my dad just lit up and he's telling my husband all these stories about his career.

And I try to ask my dad questions like that because I'm curious, and I just get a I don't know, I don't remember.

I just got furious because my dad was sitting on the floor beaming up at my husband, and my husband was asking him questions, and I was like, where's this guy when I'm around, I ask him questions.

I want to know that stuff about his career.

And I don't get that.

You do so much for them.

You go there, you cook, you shop, you buy, you prepare, you tell them stories, you stay over.

You do so much, and it seems like you get so little back from them in terms of their enthusiasm.

Right.

You know, your sister Mary Poppins come into town and they're all mighty, but when it's you, they're weepy.

And your husband comes and now they're all chatty, but when it's here, they're not.

I guess I'm wondering, HEDI if part of the ist you do so much is that you have the hope that if you keep doing more, maybe they'll finally start to treat you the way they've treated your sisters and see you with the same eyes with which they see Jill.

I totally agree with that.

I totally agree with that, and as a matter of fact this week, after this dinner with my husband the other night, I thought, how do you stop caring?

You know?

How do you stop caring if your parent likes you?

You know, how do you get to that point?

How do you make.

Peace with that?

Right?

But that seems so painful?

Right, So how do you stop?

Well maybe that's where the problem has been, is that your solution to this has been, well, I don't care, you said earlier.

I was glad that I was the outsider because I was the person who saw the truth mm hmm.

And I was talking about the both and of that that, yes, and there's something very painful about being the person on the outside, even if there are benefits to it, and there were benefits that helped you, you would not have survived if you had just told the line.

It would have taken away every shred of your identity m hm to pretend to be a person that you weren't.

So the good news is you saved yourself by saying I'm going to be the person that I am.

But the consequence of that was that it became very lonely, and you started to wonder about how you were loved in your family.

And it's something that you still wonder.

And so I think the problem is that your solution is how do I learn how to not feel?

How do I learn how to not care?

Which is so at odds with the essence of who you are.

You're a feeling person, you're a caring person, you're a writer.

You observe, you emote, you see the truth, you don't pretend.

So maybe we can come up with a solution for you that doesn't involve trying not to care.

That would be great, because I'm not good at that.

The not caring, yes, And we're.

Not trying to get you to not care, because that would be asking you to not be human.

So HENI, we have some advice for you, and it's related to your essential question about resentment.

Great, And here's how resentment works.

It is an equation of what you give versus what you get, and there's a deficit, and that's what engender's resentment.

And with your parents, what your resentment is about is that you have been putting in truly extraordinary efforts.

Right you go down there, you shop for them, you cook for them, you spend the night, you try and talk about yourself and tell them stories.

And you said, I try and entertain them.

And you know, if you were to say, like the gladiators, are you not entertained, they're not, unfortunately, and then what's really making you resentful is that then Joe sweeps into town and entertains the shit out of them so easily.

Even when your husband comes down, your dad gets all animated.

And so in order to balance that equation, because what you're doing is not working, right, the investing more and more to try and get that response from them is not working.

So therefore the only way to lower the resentment is to address the other half of the equation, and that is to do less.

But they're elderly.

The cooking is important, the shopping is important.

The one piece we think you can withdraw your efforts from, and as you said in your letter, redirect them to something more useful, is the entertainment piece, because that's the least successful piece.

You can recruit both sisters to do zooming things with them and have them watch to the grandkids and whatever it is to take over some of the entertainment piece, but we want you to redirect that piece.

Great.

The thing about entertaining them is that you get hurt every time because you aren't just trying to make sure that they're entertained, but you're trying to have them see your essence, and that's not happening.

And so every time you put your efforts there, you're setting yourself.

Up for disappointment and resentment.

We think that you should redirect your energies toward your husband and your adult relationship.

In terms of being appreciated for who you are in your family, there was not a lot of appreciation shown for who you are.

There was a lot of don't be like that, get in line march with the rest of us.

It wasn't a lot of, Oh, you're so interesting.

Oh that's an interesting perspective.

Oh, let me look at your writing.

Right, There wasn't a lot of that.

There wasn't a lot of, Oh, I'm so glad you're telling the truth, right, I'm so glad you're brave.

Yeah, none of that.

You weren't appreciated for your courage, for your bravery, for your perceptiveness, no, for your creativity.

That was not appreciated.

And so what we'd like you to do is to redirect that into your adult relationship.

And for the next week, we would like you and your husband to each write down once a day, one thing that you truly appreciate about the other person's essence, Okay, and then we would like you to share that with the other person.

Maybe it's at bedtime, maybe it's at dinner, and we'd like you to spend just five minutes sharing what that thing is for that day and then telling them about it.

That's so funny because last night he just said people would kill for your creative mind, and I said, really excellent.

So yeah, that's his first one.

And at the end of the seven days, we would like you to report back to us and let us know first of all, how it felt to know that you're taking good care of your parents but also not trying to bend over backwards to get something from them that makes you feel bad every time.

And then secondly to let us know how it felt to give and get that with your husband.

Okay, So can I ask you a question?

Yes, how do I stop trying to be entertaining with my parents?

What does that look like?

You spend less time there?

I don't know.

If you have to spend the night there.

You can do groceries and shopping and cooking for the week and make one trip and drop things off and hello, and get them a hug, do some cooking, leave things in their freezer.

Freezers are great, and get that done for them, and then you can zoom in one day during the week instead of making a two hour drive.

Hey, just checking in.

How are you guys doing, how's everything going right right?

And it's also possible, Hayley, that if they get bored, they might say, you know, maybe we should move to that place nearer you, where we can be among other people, our age, et cetera, because we're getting a little bored here with one another, and they might start to notice your absence and they might start to say to each other, wow, we really miss Haley.

We didn't appreciate how much we enjoy her company.

And they might even seek it out.

And I think that will feel a lot better to you to have them seek you out because they enjoy your company and they miss it they notice the absence than for you to say, see me, hear me, look at me, appreciate me.

That would feel different, and then in the meantime you'd be getting that and focusing your energies on that in the relationship that you have as an adult with your husband.

That makes sense.

And you were saying with your husband that recently you started talking a little bit more about your childhood and your relationship with your parents, and he said, wow, I didn't know that about you, and that he had a new appreciation of the dynamics and patterns in your family, and this might give you an opportunity to be seen more by him, and to see him more and to get even closer with him, which is where your energies really should be directed at this point in your life.

That's good, I agree.

How do you feel about doing that?

I think it makes perfect sense.

I don't need to keep trying to remake this relationship with my parents and to deepen the one with my husband.

Seems a much more enjoyable, be much more hopeful, useful, And there's more of a chance that he'll see me in a way that I want all of me.

He sees me better than they do to begin with.

So it's like starting with a giant step forward.

So we look forward to hearing back from you great.

Thank you both so much.

I really appreciate it.

All right, thanks so much.

So.

The letter that she sent us was all about her sister, but it turned out that when she ranked people on the hierarchy of resentment.

Her sister was lowest down on that list.

And so I'm curious to see what happens now that she's looking at this a little bit differently, how she's going to feel when she starts addressing some of the underlying issues that she hadn't realized were there.

And family dynamics are like that where you think the strong emotion you have towards one person is really directed towards them, but when you explore it, it turns out it's actually directed towards someone else.

And I'm hoping that with this exercise, and obviously it's going to take more than one week to feel the difference in terms of the relationship with her parents, but that she'll be on a part now so she can really change the balance of that dynamic so that she's not the one that keeps trying to get something from them that they're not offering.

Yeah, so let's see what happens when she redirects those energies toward her relationship with her husband and then also stops directing so much energy toward something that really causes her a lot of pain.

And what I like about the exercise we gave her is that it sounds like a simple exercise to have something you appreciate about a person every day, But since it's about who they are and not what they do, it's actually a little tricky.

By day five or six, you're like, hmm, what can I say there?

So it actually is going to fus.

Yes, it's not so much about you know, I appreciate it that you brought me tea, but it's like I appreciate that you're a truth teller.

Right, those are very different.

It really does make you investigate a little bit and dig a little bit deeper.

So I think that'll be really nice for her to put effort into a relationship that actually gives back.

You're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio, so we heard from Haley, who to remind you is Mary Poppin's sister.

Hey, Laurie and guy, it's Hailey.

Thank you for your insightful questions and your helpful advice.

The homework assignment to do less and to direct my attention more to my husband was actually a delight.

Last weekend, I didn't go to visit my parents when I could have, like I usually do, but when I thought of making the trip.

I sen the resentment that guy defined the imbalance in the equation.

So I went with groceries only on Monday instead when I would have gone both days before.

You told me to do less, and that felt very good.

It actually felt very RESTful.

While I was at my parents, I allowed myself to be a bit less needy in terms of their approval, and miraculously enough, as I believe you predicted, they came toward me more.

They gave me many more compliments and many more words of appreciation, and that, of course felt very good too.

The other part of the homework, to give and receive more praise for our good qualities with my husband was equally transformative.

After our talk, I went outside and explained to him what we were supposed to be doing, and I told him how much I appreciated his drive to finish this very hard project he's got going on in the yard, and he in turn express appreciation for my thoughtful nature, and just in those few words, in that one instance, it was like a long closed door between the two of us opened, and through the week I was thinking about that and doing the homework opened my eyes to seeing my husband again as the man who sees me clearly and who loves me very deeply, and that felt like the greatest gift ever and one that keeps on giving.

And while I thought a lot in metaphors all week, I came to see my best qualities as a type of currency like euros.

And I came to see my father, especially as a man from another country, one where they spend rupees or paesos, so he doesn't see the value of my currency.

And that led me to take their lack of interest in me, their lack of appreciation for my value much less personally.

From there, I saw that when I begin to feel this need to quote entertain, that I should take it as a sign that I'm trying too hard to win someone's approval, and that it will likely be a failed effort no matter how hard I try, because they see no value in what I have to offer.

For instance, I'm currently at a writer's residency where we share dinner distantly every evening, and there's a woman here who's slightly disdainful of me, or it feels that way, And I remembered my metaphor of a currency that someone doesn't value, and I lay there and I visualize the rest of the table, and I saw the seven other people there and how how I got along with them, and I was able to let this one person go, and that felt incredibly liberating.

Thanks for turning it around for me.

Well, I thought that was beautiful.

And what I loved especially was the fact that she had felt, like many people do, that she was still trapped in the childhood dynamic and she wasn't able to see her husband clearly, and so partly this opened up a whole new avenue for her and her husband.

But the other part that was so beautiful was she's a writer and she thinks in metaphor, and that metaphor was so apt and helped her not only to understand her relationship better with her parents, but also to understand herself when she goes into that childhood place in other situations.

We can tell as therapists how well somebody internalizes our message based on whether they're able to AI up light and the situation in which we discussed it, but more importantly, if they can generalize it to other situations, because if they can, then they not only got it for that situation, they got something that was behind it.

And here she is generalizing it and coming to all these insights, and some of them we didn't touch upon, the just completely her connections that she made.

So to me, that is a mark of someone who's not just a great writer, but she listens so well, you know.

And she mentioned that she feels like her parents don't value her currency.

And what we saw happen though, was that when she became less invested in making them see something, it gave them the space to acclimate to this new land, to this new culture, to this new place that maybe isn't their place of comfort.

It's a land where it's about truth, it's about creativity, it's about seeing things.

And all of a sudden they started getting used to it.

They expressed more interest in her.

They started to say, Hey, what are these coins that we're not so familiar with?

So I thought that was beautiful.

Hey, fellow travelers, if you've used any of our advice from the podcast in your own life, send us a quick voice memo to Louriandguy at iHeartMedia dot com and tell us about it.

We may include it in a future show.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate and review it.

You can follow us both online.

I'm at Lorigottlieb dot com and you can follow me on Twitter at Lorigottlieb one or on Instagram at Lorigottlieb Underscore Author.

And I'm at Guywinch dot com.

I'm on Twitter and on Instagram at Guywinch.

If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, big or small, email us at Lorianguy at iHeartMedia dot com.

Our executive producers for Haciotis.

We're produced and edited by Mike Johns.

Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our podcast Fairy Godmother Katie Couric.

Next week, a transman deals with family pushback as he begins transitioning right before his sister's wedding.

My mother will go march for gay rights and all of.

These things, but as soon as her son comes out to her that he is part of the transgender community, that's where issues start arising, and then it's like, Okay, well, maybe you're not as accepting as you think that you are.

Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio