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.

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

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Hey, fellow travelers, I'm Lori Gottlieb.

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

And I'm Guy Winch.

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

And this is Dear Therapists.

This week, we'll talk to a mother trying to forge a more open line of communication with her adult children after years of turmoil.

I don't want to be a wedge between him and his wife.

I want them to figure it out.

And so I think part of what's been holding me back is saying I don't want to be in charge of my children making personal decisions on such a huge scale because of a comment I might have made.

I want them to make the decisions based on how they feel about things and where you know where their heart is at about it.

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

Deotherapists 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.

Hey guy, Hi Laurie, So I have a confession to make.

I actually took a peek at this week's letter.

Oh very good.

Then we can get going all right, deo therapists.

My son has been married for five years.

I have heard from my daughter that he wants children, but his wife does not.

I would like grandchildren, but I feel it's not my place to ask them to have children for me.

However, I would like to talk to him about it, but I am afraid to do so.

Also, if he wants children and she doesn't, what should he do.

I know they are seeing a counselor, but I don't want to get involved.

My daughter seems to think that he cannot stand up to her.

Signed Maria.

You know what comes to mind when I see that letter is that as a parent.

But I think there's always that line of how much can I get involved?

Where I'm helping?

And where is that line?

That I cross over to where I'm being intrusive.

And a much of what she's saying seems secondhand from the daughter.

She hasn't had the conversation directly, so I think she's been really respectful in terms of not crossing the boundary, but it is leaving her a bit in the dark and then a bit frustrated about, well, how do I have this conversation without stepping on toes potentially.

Yeah, And I think the other question is when she thinks about her son having kids, is it because she wants grandkids or is it that he had talked about wanting to have kids one day and she had this idea of him with that kind of life.

And there's a loss there, the loss of my son would make a great father.

And maybe he's making this compromise for his wife, but he's going to lose out on this experience that I, as a parent, found so gratifying, and I'm sad that my son won't have that because it was a very rich part of my life.

And it's also very possible that she has friends in an age group who are grandparents now and they're telling her, oh, my goodness, you can't imagine how great.

This is so it's possible that she's also hearing rave reviews about grandparenting and eager to have the experience herself.

Well, we need to get some more information from her, so let's go talk to her.

Yes, you're listening to deotherapists from iHeartRadio.

We'll be back after a quick break.

I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy Winch and this is THEO Therapist.

Hi Maria, Hi, how are you good?

Thank you for coming on the show.

Welcome, welcome, thank you.

I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm happy to be here.

Good.

So we read your letter and we're wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about your relationship with your son.

Well, he's forty years old.

He got married about five or six years ago.

He seems pretty happy in his relationship.

I was afraid to ask him about children because I feel like it's none of my business.

But enough time has gone by that I thought maybe I should say, what are your feelings about having children?

And I was too nervous to do that, so I talked to my daughter about it, and she said that he would like them, but his wife would not, So I was a little bit stymied about that, And so it's not my decision on how people choose or not choose to have children, especially my own children, but I kind of wish they would.

We've been pretty close all our lives, but I just feel like it's so personal.

I've been afraid to sort of find out what's going on.

So you say you've been pretty close all your lives, but do you not broach really personal topics with one another?

Is it not something you talk to him about?

You know?

I think you're right, it is kind of hard to ask a super personal question like that.

I think as time goes by, I'm trying to be a little more open minded about that sort of thing so I can ask more personal questions.

He did mention a couple years ago that he and his wife were going through canseling.

He didn't want to say what it was about.

He just said, I want you to know we're fine, but I just wanted to let you know we're doing that.

Maria, How did that come up?

In what context?

Did he bring that up with you?

I think he wanted me to know for some reason, because I never asked him.

He just brought it up during a phone conversation, and I was a little surprised, but I thought, well, maybe it's a good thing.

People do need to talk about their issues and what's going on.

And I know my husband and I tried to do that a couple of times and we didn't really get very far with it, so I was happy to hear that he was doing that.

Can I ask him a real why do you think he mentioned it to you?

Because the way you're saying he mentioned it was kind of FYI, we're going to counseling.

Everything's fine, don't worry, but just thought you should know, Which is a kind of strange way to bring that up because it brings up so many questions for you.

Why do you think he told you about it?

Maybe he was trying to establish some sort of conversation with me, but he really didn't want to get into the particulars about it, So maybe it was just a way for him being more open about who he is.

You're saying that he didn't want to get into the particulars of it.

Did he beyond what you just told us, Did he indicate that in some way or did you ask any question that was rebuffed?

Or do you think he might be making an assumption that he didn't.

Oh, well, he just said, I just wanted to let you know about it, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

But I want you to know everything's fine.

Okay, So you took that as and don't ask me any further questions.

Right, I did.

His wife is a very strong personality.

I like her a lot.

I think she has a lot of spunk, but she's very opinionated and she's very sure about who she is and her ideas and comments.

And I'm just wondering if she's controlling him through this decision.

I heard they did want to have children before they got married, or it was a possibility, but she's changed her mind since then.

Where did you hear that information that they did want to have children?

Is this all being funneled through your daughter?

Yes, it was originally being funneled through my daughter.

I subsequently, since I wrote to you, I did speak with him and I finally cut up the courage to say, well, you know what, what have you decided about having children?

I mean I mentioned it a couple of times and he said, well, Susan doesn't want to have any.

And I really had to deal with that in my head, and I thought that maybe that would be okay.

And I really love her, and so I worry about him speaking up for himself in the relationship so that he can get what he wants out of relationship, because I've been going through some counseling myself, and I think we pick up on our parents' patterns about how we relate and our birth family to then our children in that family, they pick up on our ways of communicating with each other.

And I think that he is maybe picking up on me.

I was sort of repressed and I wasn't maybe pushing too hard in my relationship with my husband.

So I just worry that he might be doing the same thing.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your relationship with your husband.

You said that you went to counseling.

Are you still married and were you ever able to find more of your voice in that relationship?

Not really.

There's another component to this.

My husband passed away not quite a year ago, and that's one of the reasons why I'm going through this counseling, and in dealing with going through the counseling and understanding my relationship with him, I'm beginning to understand how I was willing to have him be sort of like the final arbitrator on quite a few things.

And so I'm wondering if my son has picked up on my pattern and is doing this in the same way with his wife.

What were some of the things where you felt like he was the arbitrator of certain decisions in your marriage.

How much money we would spend on things he thought maybe I should not eat too much at the dinner table, or we should sell the house.

I wasn't ready to sell the house, but you know, it worked out.

I grew up in a different state, and then we moved, and he wanted to make that move, which I didn't want to do.

I think we argued a lot, and we never got anywhere with our arguing because even though I would try to whose communication skills and give eye messages, it didn't really work very well with him because he would sort of play the silent game, and he wasn't good at apologizing and things like that.

So I think our children pick up on those patterns of communication.

Maria, I'm so sorry for your loss.

He passed away recently.

I'm so sorry for that.

But it sounds like that during the time that you were together still and really even since he's passed and you've been in therapy and kind of looking at things, and that you're on this path of trying to find your voice.

Yes, And I'm wondering whether that's a path you feel you're on with your son as well, and if you are where on that path you might be positioned at this moment because it sounded like with your son you're still quite hesitant to voice your opinion or even to ask questions when he's conveying personal information like you hear it.

You don't ask follow ups because you're trying to be respectful, but in that way, you haven't expressed your voice.

Do you have a thought about that?

I agree with you, it's a hard thing to talk about these feelings.

Are you aware of the parallel?

No, you just brought it up, and I can see that now as you're bringing it up.

And usually when we're afraid to speak up, there's a reason we have in our mind, like if I speak up, this will happen.

And I don't know what that reason was.

With your husband, you know, if I tell him how I feel about this, it'll end in a big argument or he'll get his way anyway or whatever you thought.

What is the fear when you think about bringing something up with your son.

That's a good question.

In the worst case scenario, what might happen.

Well, in the worst case scenario, he might say it's none of your business.

I mean that's I can do it with that.

Or he might say, well, it's not going to happen, or I don't want to tell you.

So I know, it seems like I'm afraid of nothing.

Well, actually, it sounds like you're afraid that by talking to him about these things, he will think that you're trying to cause a wedge between him and his wife, and he will respond to that and be upset with you about that.

Yes, I totally agree.

I don't want to be a wedge between him and his wife.

I want them to figure it out.

And so I think part of what's been holding me back is saying, if I bring this up and I tell him you have rights in this marriage, what does that say about whether they'll stay together or not?

And I don't want to be the person that sets that off.

My dad used to comment on on one of my brother's girlfriends, and I think that my brother married somebody because of my dad's opinion.

And I don't want to be in charge of my children making personal decisions on such a huge scale because of a comment I might have made.

I want them to make the decisions based on how they feel about things and where you know where their heart is at about it.

Do you have the same fear about talking to your daughter about personal things like this?

I don't know if she's married, and how old is she?

She's thirty eight, okay?

And is she in a relationship?

Is she married?

And have you talked to her when you've had opinions about these kinds of things with her?

She's not married.

She's been in an on and off relationship that I don't think is the best relationship for her because I think that he might not treat her as nicely as I would like him to treat her.

We've talked about it, but I think she just knows that's what I say, and then she does what she wants.

She has been in and out of this relationship with this same person, and I don't want to denegrate him because they break up and then they get back together again.

And if I were to say all these negative comments about him, she would remember that, and maybe that's a bad thing for me to be putting in her head because then she remembers mom as being someone who didn't approve of her and her boyfriend.

So I think that there's a difference between saying to your daughter, I don't like this guy, or saying to your son, I think your wife is controlling you and really having a conversation that's about the relationship that you have with each of your children, which is I love you, and I'm wondering if this is making you happy.

I'm wondering how you feel about this When she breaks up with the boyfriend again, you know, what is this like for you?

It seems like you're suffering a lot, which is different from I don't like him.

It's how is this making you feel?

And I think the same thing with your son.

There's a difference between your sister says that you want to have kids and your wife doesn't, and I'm concerned about that versus well, how do you feel about not being a father.

I like to think that I'm good at communicating and asking questions and talking to my children, but I think when it comes to these serious issues, I have a difficult time bringing up these problems or issues in a way that's loving and non judgmental.

The way you speak about the relationship with your son, it sounds as if there's have been incidents in the past where you have voiced an opinion and he has bristled at it or found it intrusive in some way.

Is that the case.

Yes, I've tried to have some conversations just recently and I get comments like, oh, you're repeating yourself.

I've already heard this before.

What was the conversation about?

What it was about?

Family communication?

We used to have these family meetings and I would try to establish some sort of ground rules and how we were going to talk about things if we had arguments and that sort of thing, and I kind of got these messages of why are we doing this?

Just recently, when we were trying to talk about something, I did get some negative feedback and you know, you need to work on you, not on us.

And I said, well, I'm not trying to work on you so much as I'm trying to understand how we communicate with each other so that I can talk to you about things.

Did that comment come from your daughter or your son?

That came from my daughter?

Because we were having a three way family meeting.

It sounds like your son and daughter confide in each other.

Yeah, because it was through your daughter that you heard this information that your son wanted children and his wife didn't end it.

In her mind.

He has a hard time standing up to her, and so they have some communication going on.

Yes, they do.

They communicate quite a bit, which I'm happy for, and they support each other quite a.

Bit before this.

When you wanted to bring something up to them when they were younger, were they receptive to that?

I think so.

Maybe I was a little bit, you know, crying up with chores and things like that.

I'd say, if you think you have a hard time, you know, I'll take you to Tiawana and then you'll see what a hard time is like.

So maybe when there were issues, instead of listening and giving them empathetic feedback, it was more like I grew up this way and so I don't know why you're complaining.

Maybe I wasn't as sympathetic as I could have been when they were growing up.

Maria.

Have things changed in the dynamic between you and your son and daughter since your husband died?

How did they take his passing and did that change anything for the three of you.

I think so.

I think that they thought their dad was very authoritarian and rigid in many ways.

And I think the three of us are trying to work on issues, whereas I think if my husband were still alive, we might not be discussing these issues so much.

What are some of the other issues that you are trying to work on as a family.

Well, both of my children have gone through difficult times with drinking, and my daughter lost her job because of it and she went into outpatient for a while.

And so I wonder about was I clueless when they were in high school?

Why didn't I talk to them more about it?

Because both my father and my father in law were alcoholics, And my daughter said to me, well, why didn't you ever bring that up?

And I guess I didn't realize how much power alcohol had in their lives.

They're both sober and going to AA right now, and they have sponsors.

So I guess I'm also trying to understand how was I not there.

I was there when they were growing up.

In fact, I I felt like I was very responsible in staying home and not going away so the kids couldn't have parties.

I guess I didn't understand where the drinking came from.

And I think through the therapy that I'm doing, I'm understanding that a little bit more.

But of course I feel guilty that maybe I wasn't as sympathetic when they were growing up or fully present or I mean, we were always together in terms of eating dinner together, taking vacations together, celebrating the holidays together, but obviously there were things that they felt they needed alcohol to escape from.

Do you know when the drinking problems began and how long they've been in recovery.

Yes, my son's been sober for at least a year and my daughter since February of this year.

She had a relapse since then and I went to be with her.

But they're both working really hard on it, and I know that they're much happier being sober.

How long have they been struggling with alcoholism?

Well, I didn't realize it, but according to my daughter that it started in high school for her.

I think it was more college for my son, sort of like you go away to school and you party, party, party, although he said he drank in high school, but I never really saw that if.

They started in high school, and in college.

It's a lot of years of drinking, and they both coincidentally became sober around the same time, which is roughly around the same time that your husband died.

With those things related, it.

Could be I think they both had DUI's.

It's sort of like the consequences of life were coming at them pretty strong.

I didn't know the extent of their drinking problems until more recently, so obviously they were high from me.

I mean, they both did come out and tell me about their DUIs and I didn't judge them or anything.

I just tried to listen to them.

But for my daughters, you kept drinking.

It could be about their dad dying.

Maybe they're taking stock of their life.

I think it was actually in the process before that happened.

But sometimes it takes a shock to maybe throw you out of your comfort zone.

You know, when you say they told you about the DUIs and you didn't judge them and you just listened.

I feel like there's some.

Confusion for you around what it means to be able to be present for somebody without being intrusive.

Your kids have told you that they got these duys.

Your son said, just by the way I want to let you know that I'm going to couples counseling with my wife.

And you said that your response to these things has been to just hear what they had to say.

But I wonder if underneath this giving you of information is actually a request for help, and that they actually do want to hear what you think, or maybe they want some kind of help that they're not able to voice.

And I wonder if all of you in some way have trouble really being direct with each other about what you're trying to communicate.

And even with your son's wife, if they've been married for about five years and he got sober about a year ago, he's been struggling with this addiction throughout the marriage, and it could be that one of the reasons she's hesitant to have children is that she doesn't feel like he's in a place to be a father right now.

But nobody's talking about this.

I think that's very sound.

I think what you're saying is accurate.

I would be worried too if I was married to him and I saw that he was having this major issue.

How are they feeling about you?

Often when adult children lose a parent, they very much worry about the other parent.

Have they expressed any concern for you?

What's their feelings about how you're doing?

Well?

Yeah, they are worried about me, and I think they do worry about how I am grieving and how I'm dealing with being alone.

They were the ones who encouraged me to start.

Seeing someone, they being both well.

I think initially my son was really wanting me to do it, and I was staying with my daughter at the time, and I was going to wait until I got back home, and then I thought maybe I should start this counseling right now, so I did, and I think they were really happy to hear that.

You know what's interesting, Maria, is that therapy for most people is intensely personal.

And your son shares with you that he's in couples counseling.

He encourages you to go to therapy.

He's concerned about how you're doing, and so, on the one hand, there's this avenue of communication which sounds quite open.

On the one hand, all of those are coming from him to you and not necessarily from you to him.

In other words, you want to have a deeper discussion, but you really hold back it certainly sounds like he's opening some doors for you to come through in terms of bringing up certain topics like therapy, like feelings.

M hm, I agree.

I guess it's just hard to talk about these things.

But are you owning that it's hard for you.

You make it sound like it's hard for him, and I'm wondering who it's hurtful.

Well, I think it's hard for me too.

It's funny I can say it to a friend, right.

I want to hear what it is.

What is it that if you were able to say how you feel, I wonder if you're even able to say it to yourself in full, not just the thing about, oh, it'd be nice to have grandchildren, but all the feelings about how you're worried that your son's marriage replicates your own a little bit, where he's in the role that you were in where you felt sort of railroaded a lot and sort of controlled, and we don't know if that's true.

This is just something that your daughter has expressed, But this is your worry because you went through so many years like that and you are worried that your son might be experiencing something similar.

And then there's a part of you that just wants to have grandchildren because it's fun.

And then there's the part two of maybe you imagined your son as a father one day, and maybe you really enjoyed the experience of being a parent, And it's hard to imagine the loss for your son if he does want kids, of not having that richness, not having that experience of having kids, if it is indeed something that he wants, but that he would be giving up for whatever reasons in the marriage.

And so could you tell us how you feel about this?

Well?

I do worry that if he wants a child and he can't have a child, then how does that feel when you grow up and you're old someday and you don't have anybody to comfort you.

I mean, I have my children to comfort me.

I find it unimaginable to understand not having children, I really do.

What did you love about having children?

Oh my gosh, they were just so adorable, you know, them, feeling their warm skin, being close to them, hugging them.

In fact, this was a conversation I just had recently with my daughter in law.

She asked me, did people say I love you a lot growing up?

And I said not really?

And it was a decision I made that when I had children, I was going to let them know I loved them a lot.

Why did she bring that up?

That's an interesting question to ask you.

I know, this came totally out of the blue.

This happened two days ago.

She sent me a voice memo and said, my friend and I were talking about do you say I love you a lot?

In your family?

How do you talk to your children about this?

So I got in touch with her and I said, we didn't say it much growing up.

Growing up was more like do your chores get good grades so you can go to college.

Clearly, what she's asking about is something between her and your son and his ability to express I love you.

Oh.

I would imagine, you know, in some way, and if he's having trouble doing that, she's calling you and she's saying, hey, did you guys do that when he was growing up?

Okay, yeah, I would think he'd be able to say it to her because I just loved, you know, singing to them, reading to them, taking them to the playground.

In fact, I was even thinking about homeschooling them because I really wanted everything just to be wonderful for them.

And sometimes you send them off to school and everything goes Hayward, I.

Can hear how much you loved raising your kids, and yet there wasn't a lot of I love you.

You expressed your love in other ways, the hugging, the kissing, snuggling, the being present for them, all of that.

But it's interesting that as this whole conversation is about having a voice and being able to directly communicate with people and even something as simple and yet complicated as love, it was hard to say those three words I love you, and now you do.

And I think that there's something that's happening in the dynamic of the family that is going to give you space to do something different in the situation with your son.

So, Maria, we do have some advice for you, and what would like you to do is would like you to talk with your son and with your daughter at the same time, because we think there needs to be another family meeting, and would like you to start by mentioning to both of them that your daughter in law called you to ask if you used to say I love you when the kids were growing up, and that got you thinking about how much you love them when they were kids, and how much you enjoyed them and how much you wanted to protect them so much so that you thought of homeschooling them.

Yet you didn't say I love you much verbally at that time, and that you didn't voice that to them as much as you felt it.

You didn't use your voice enough when they were younger.

You didn't use it to stand up for yourself with your husband, and perhaps even to stand up for them with their father, who you described as authoritarian.

You didn't use it to tell them about the history of alcoholism in the family.

And you're saying that to them now because you've been going to therapy and you've been working on finding your voice and using your voice, and that's something that you want to be able to do more.

Now, right, And so.

We were thinking about in this family meeting, having you say to your daughter, you know, I haven't used my voice with the two of you, and I wonder how.

You feel about the relationship.

That you're in, and I wonder how you feel about the struggle that you're having with alcohol, and to say to your son, I wonder about how your sobriety is going, and I wonder about how you feel about fatherhood and whether that's something that you've always wanted but you feel like you're not in a position to do because you're going through recovery right now, or if it's something that doesn't matter as much to you as maybe I'm imagining it does, and you can say to them that I wonder if you've been as afraid to talk to me as I have been to talk to you.

And I want us as a family to be able to talk about hard things.

And I wonder how the both of you feel about this idea that maybe we can all use our voices more and be more direct with each other and open up those lines of communication in a way that we haven't really established in our family.

And you'll see how they respond to this.

But most important, Maria, is we want to know how you feel having had that conversation with them.

We want to know what was it like to use your voice with them in a direct way, and to say all of these things to them that you've been thinking but haven't directly expressed to them, and to request that these lines of communication opened so that what happened in the past around people not being able to use their voices doesn't get repeated.

Now, grandchild or no grandchild, and now to be able to say I want to create a culture of openness, of using our voices, of not being shut down, whether that's feeling like they can't talk to you or feeling like they don't know how to talk to their partners and use their voices with their partners.

And we want to know how that felt for you to finally open that door as a start in this conversation.

How does that sound to you, Maria?

It sounds wonderful.

I'm imagining myself opening a door as we're speaking.

Okay, that's great.

It might be a little scary.

But the other thing you know that we had in mind here is that your daughter in law called you to ask about something that was related to her husband, and your daughter tells you what her brother and your son is actually thinking because he doesn't tell you directly.

There's this so many kinds of communications that are not direct, and especially when there's alcoholism involved, honesty and directness is really really important.

And so this is important for them as much as it is for you, as much it is for the entire family and all the communication between all of you.

I'd be happy to do that.

Great.

We look forward to hearing how it goes.

I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss this issue with me.

We know you have a voice because we heard it, and so that's the voice that we want you to take into this conversation with that.

Okay, you're ready.

I'm ready.

I have to admit I am not sure how it's going to go in terms of how this is going to be received by Maria's son and daughter, But I do know that what's important here is for her to find her own voice, and by merit of having this conversation, she will be doing that.

And even if they don't respond in the moment, I think what she's doing is she is shifting something in this dynamic in the family where everything was happening indirectly.

She never mentioned in her letter the Elephant in the Room that the whole time that he's been married, he's been struggling with this addiction, and maybe that has some impact on his readiness to be a father.

This whole dilemma, to me, was really less.

A dilemma about grandchildren and more a dilemma about finding one's voice.

And she's been starting to find hers, and I think she's modeling for her kids by having this conversation how they can find theirs.

I think for her kids, because they're struggling with alcoholism, one thing that's really important for the misdirectness, and so her being so direct, even if it takes them a while to appreciate it will be very useful for them.

I agree.

So a fingers crossed for her.

You're listening to dear therapist from iHeartRadio.

We'll be back after a quick break.

So guy, we got the voicemail from Maria.

Oh good, that session went in a different direction than I was expecting.

So let's hear it.

Maria, I spoke with my children since I spoke with the two of you, and I also had a session with my therapist in between.

She suggested that I write things down in an email that I wanted to go over with my children, because then, she said, you're able to formulate your thoughts, you can look at them, you can reflect on them and see if there's something you want to change or add, And so that's what I did.

Also, sometimes when I talk to my children, the two of them together, I almost feel a little flat footed.

It's hard to talk and think at the same time.

And I wanted them also to have these thoughts in the email before we talked, in case they had any questions and that sort of thing.

And basically what I told them was I've loved them ever since before they were born.

Weren't and how I made a conscious decision to make sure that they knew they were loved because I didn't feel that much love in my birth family.

There weren't a lot of I love yous and hugging.

It was more about chores and getting your homework done.

It was an authoritarian family, and I think some of those same patterns got repeated as they were growing up because my husband was authoritarian and maybe I didn't have enough of my own voice.

And I also expressed that in the email and told them I was hoping that they would feel they had a voice in their relationships.

I didn't want them to repeat some of the same mistakes I made.

They loved the letter.

They said they were very touched by it.

We talked about it briefly in our conversation, and one of the things that came up was my son said he didn't really want to rehash the whole past and hold on to judgments and blame, and I said, I totally agree with you, and so it was a very constructive conversation.

And doing the email and writing it down ahead of time allowed me to be very focused on exactly what I wanted to communicate with them, and it went really well.

So I'm feeling very happy.

And I had a lot of trepidation before the conversation, and I addressed that in the letter.

I said, I want to be a part of your lives.

I want you to use me as a sounding block.

I want you to come to me with questions if you have them.

I want you to make your own decisions, but I'm going to be here for you if that's what you like.

So I think it was a very good conversation and it went really well.

What I love about Maria's voicemail was that her letter was really about this worry about having grandchildren or not having grandchildren and whether her son was able to voice that in his marriage, and what it became about was a whole family dynamic between her and her two children and saying all of these things that had been unspoken about the authoritarian household, her past, their father, and her hope that they will have a voice both in their relationships and with her.

I moved two minds about it, to be honest with you, because it sounds like it went well.

It sounds like she conveyed the messages she needed to convey.

The fact though that it was most of it done via the email and they only had a brief conversation about it, And even in that brief conversation, the son and said I don't want to rehash the past too much leaves me wondering still whether the next time she needs to have a direct communication with him about something that's going on, she'll feel comfortable enough to do it, whether her son or her daughter, which we didn't hear much about, will accept it.

In other words, when we ask people to have a conversation, it's because we need them to make the precedent of this being something we talk about, and an email is not exactly the same.

I feel like it's a great start.

I feel like sometimes just opening up that line of communication, especially when it's so hard for you and you have no practice doing this face to face, is a start.

I hope that, like you said, it doesn't become the only way that they communicate.

But I do feel like she said things that they needed to hear both of them have their issues with addiction, and I feel like one of the big things with addiction is people not talking about what needs to to be spoken about.

And I also, in my mind flagged what you flagged about the son saying I don't really want to talk about the past.

And I think that that will maybe come with time.

He's going to have to deal with his past if he's going to deal with his addiction.

But I think as a.

First step, I'm really really proud of her, and I think it had a really positive effect on the three of them.

One last thought is that I would always defer to a therapist who knows Maria obviously much better than we do.

And when she's saying to her, Okay, that was the advice, but maybe do it in writing first.

She might know her well enough to know that that is likely to go better than if she were to do it just verbally on a call.

To that end, I think she did a magnificent job.

If she's listening.

What I would suggest to her is, the next time there's something on your mind that you want to talk to your son or your daughter about, please don't hesitate.

Use the momentum you've created with the email and conversation to practice and to establish step two of And here is me bringing stuff up like I said I would.

Yeah.

I think momentum is the keyword here because they think she got the ball rolling and now she's got to keep it rolling.

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 Lori and Guy 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 Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.

Our executive producers, Christopher Hasiotis, were produced and edited by Mike Johns.

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

Next week, a high school student feels the pressure of academic achievement, college applications, and extracurricular activities while also trying to maintain a sense of self.

Like the top five things that make me happy at the end of the day, I do think a big part of it would be social too.

I do find happiness in doing well in school, but I also do appreciate the connection.

It's just I feel like there's two sides of me that are kind of battling for the time to find those interactions that make me happy.

Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.