February 25, 2025 • 61 mins
Hey, Fellow Travelers. This week we’re in session with Zoey, whose resentment of her financially successful brother threatens to tear their relationship apart. We explore the impact of their difficult childhood on their relationship as adults, and the meaning that money has taken on given their history.
If you have a dilemma you’d like to discuss with us—big or small—email us at LoriAndGuy@iHeartMedia.com.
Follow us both online:
LoriGottlieb.com and on Twitter @LoriGottlieb1 and Instagram @lorigottlieb_author
GuyWinch.com and on Twitter @GuyWinch and Instagram @Guy Winch
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED.
And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Each week we invite you into a session so you
can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
in their lives.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
a woman's resentment of her financially successful brother threatens to
tear apart their relationship.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
They have a lot of freedom, they have a lot
of time to spend, they have a lot of money.
They just they have all these things and we don't
have those things. Yeah, I wish I had those things too.
I don't necessarily begrudge these people for having the things.
What I don't like is the way that they're treating me.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
First, a quick note, therapist is for informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is
not a substitute for professional healthcare. 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 or psychological condition. By submitting a letter,
(01:23):
you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in partworn
and full, and we may edit it for length and clarity.
In the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed
for the privacy of our fellow travelers. Hi Guy, Hey Lourie.
So I'm really excited for this week's letter because I
hear it has something to do with siblings and money.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes, it does, and money is one of those topics.
It's money and sex that people have a very hard
time talking about, so I'm glad we have the opportunity here.
Here's the letter, Dear therapists. My only brother and I
have been closed at times in our lives lives. We
have kids the same age who absolutely love to play together.
Since having children, time has been in short supply, and
(02:07):
we don't connect very often. We spend holidays together and
hang out in other ways, maybe three or four times
a year. My brother became a software engineer about five
years ago and now makes loads of money. We on
the other hand, are poorer than we've ever been because
we have two children. I feel like we have less
and less in common as this difference between us progresses
(02:28):
and our relationship is struggling to stay together. Aside from
our kids being friends, my brother's family seems to act
like everything is perfect, and we want to be close
with other families that are struggling with the same issue
we are. I'd like to have a relationship with my brother,
but I need some guidance and how to navigate this
difference so we don't grow further apart. Sincerely, Zoe.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Money brings up so many feelings in people, and they
feel like they shouldn't talk about it because they feel
like it's taboo or they shouldn't have these feelings, And
yet it's all around us. We can't ignore it, and
when it happens to somebody close to you, like a
good friend or a sibling, it becomes kind of like
the elephant in the room.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That's absolutely right. Some people feel that well, when somebody
makes money that they didn't have before, it's going to
change them. But really often what it changes are the
feelings that person has. Jealousy comes up and becomes up
resentment can come up and those things are not dealt with,
it can really cause a rupture in the relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And with siblings because there's so much history in their relationship,
sometimes some of those old wounds start coming up in
the form of this question around the money. So let's
go talk to her and learn more about what's going
on between them.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You're listening to Deer Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy
Wynn and this is Dear Therapist.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So Hi Zoe, Hello Laurie, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Could you tell us a little bit about the relationship
with your brother before this financial change, the history of it.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Sure. My brother is twenty months older than I am,
and I am forty years old now. Around the end
of high school, we became very close in our relationship.
I would say that our level of intimacy at that
time was similar to one of my closest friends, you know,
(04:38):
through college. We lived together for a year or two,
maybe even three years. We owned a house together in
our twenties. We ran a business together in our thirties.
It was his business when he closed down his business.
He became a software engineer, and then that was five
(05:01):
years ago.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
When you say that you got close in high school,
what was your relationship like when you were younger children.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There was trauma in the home as children, and we
were divided in that trauma.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
What was going on in your family that created this
division between the two of you.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So when I was born, my brother was twenty months old.
My father had a lot of issues, and after I
was born, my mother decided she didn't want to live
with him any longer. She was afraid for her life.
My father came and took my brother from her home
(05:48):
and had him for I think close to a year,
and my mother, I can only imagine what her experience
was like during that year. So that was the initial trauma.
My brother came back, we lived in a completely different
part of the country for the rest of our lives,
(06:11):
essentially never seeing that man again, obviously in safety. My
mother had a very close relationship with my brother, and
my mother did not have a very close relationship with me.
And I was the outsider as a child.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
What did that look like their closeness in you being
an outsider?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It looked like my family didn't really care that much
about me.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
What was actually happening between your mom and your brother
that made you feel that way?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah, I mean my mom and my brother were best friends,
so they had an intimacy amongst themselves that that I
didn't have with her or with him. He did not
like me as a child. I was in his way.
When I got to be an older child. We came
(07:11):
to a year where we were going to go to
private school, and I wanted to go to one particular
private school, and I applied and I was so proud
of myself. I got accepted into this prestigious private school,
and my parents were happy about the idea. But then
they realized that my brother decided to go to a
(07:32):
different private school and that they were going to have
to drive him to that school. So they weren't going
to be able to drive me to the school that
I wanted to go to, so I had to go
to the school that he wanted.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
To go to.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
When did your mom remarry?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
My mother remarried around I was about eight years old.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And what was that like for you when this stepfather
came into the picture. How did that impact the dynamics
between your mom and your brother?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Your mom, and you you know, I think that it
was quite equalizing. This idea that, you know, the people
who were close to me and my home really didn't
like me sort of calmed down a little bit. My
mother has told me that once he came into the picture,
(08:26):
she thought everything was fine.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You use the worst that your family didn't like you.
Where did you get the impression that your family didn't
like you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My personality is very emotional, and my mother she did
not consider her emotions to be a part of her life, really,
and so I was raised with this idea that you know,
who I am and how I functioned in the world
(08:57):
is not okay. You need to turn that off.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Was that told you explicitly, like don't be so sensitive
or you're too emotional? Or was it implied somehow?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It was implied in that I was not responded to
in any way if I were showing emotion.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Could you give us an example of something that happened
that you had an emotional response to that got ignored.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This happened from the time that I was born. I mean,
you know, I'm talking about being three years old and
understanding that my emotional reaction to things is not gonna
matter so I hid my emotions from my family my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Did you have close friends during those childhood years?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I would say I had one or two close friends.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And what was that like for you? Because your impression
was my brother didn't like me, my mom didn't like me.
Step that comes in and so that even stinks out
a bit, But you felt by yourself like there was
no one there to support you, to understand you, to
be able to respond to your emotions or your needs.
(10:12):
What was it like when you finally started making some
close friends and had someone who seemed to really care
about you.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I would say that's about sixth grade. It was really
a life changer for me. You know, I feel like
I really became a person at that time. I was
able to share my experience and be lighthearted and yeah,
(10:39):
like really have the sort of experience of like, oh,
oh yeah, this is who I am. This isn't how
I act with my family. I don't act like who
I really am with them.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
What was different about how you acted around your friends
that you couldn't do in your family comfortably.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Express myself, openly, speak openly.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
And what were the kinds of things that you shared
with them?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Simple things like, Oh, I really like this book that
I am writing, or let's watch these particular television shows
because we like them.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Were you ever able to share some of your feelings
with them, like I have a crush on this person,
or I'm really sad when I'm home with my family
because I feel like an outsider.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I did not share feelings about my family with other people.
I did not do that until I was much older.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
What do you think might have happened if you had
shared it? You say you didn't have a need, and
yet you felt so isolated in your family, and I
imagine hiding this big part of your life felt isolating too.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, anytime I expressed something like that within my family,
I was given the message that that's not right. You're
absolutely wrong. You are not treated that way. That's not
how your life is. So I'm not sure why you're
having those emotions.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
So it sounds like they denied your reality, but your
friends didn't, And so I'm wondering what held you back
from talking about the reality of your home life with
your friends.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
You know, I never had the experience in my life
of expressing some kind of uncomfortable feeling and having that
communication help me or make me feel better.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You're describing your friends as people with whom you had
the freedom to talk about your experience and your feelings
as long as those were positive. And I'm not hearing
that you were able to share with them anything that
was actually more challenging or painful.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah. I don't have much of any experience doing that
kind of work until I was much older and in therapy.
How old, probably close to thirty five, right.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You progressed from not being able to feel you can
share anything about what you feel in your family to
at least being able to share the good stuff with friends.
But then you spent many, many years really feeling that
if something is painful, there is no one with whom
I can talk about it, There is no one with
(13:46):
whom I can share it.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I spent my life that way.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
What comes to mind is that when you were having
some difficulty coming up with examples of what made you
feel feel that way, that because you never got to
talk to anybody about it, that it's just one big
blur to you that there was never any processing going
(14:13):
on at the time of any of these incidents. The
one thing that sticks with you is the school situation.
But there must have been so many of them to
make you feel somewhere deep inside that from a very
very young age, you felt excluded, like an outsider, alone
(14:39):
in pain, but with nobody to go to, your reality
being denied in so many different ways. And I'm thinking
of later when you were verbal and your mother would say, oh, no,
that's not really what's happening in this house, or you
don't really feel that way. When you're a baby, what
you do to communicate some kind of discomfort as you cry?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And we don't have.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Memories of this that are very articulate, but we have
sense memories of where we responded to when we cried,
How were we responded to, where we responded to in
a perfunctory way, like someone did come and change our
diaper and feed us, but they didn't really hold us
and delight in us. During your first year or so
of life, your mother was left alone with you. Your
(15:27):
brother had been kidnapped. I don't know if she knew
where he was. I assume she knew that. No she didn't,
you're shaking year head. No, so she had no idea
where your brother was. And she must have been frantic,
as any mother would be in that situation, and here
(15:48):
she was trying to manage the child she did have
at home, frantic over the loss of the child that
she didn't know where he was. And I imagine that
when she was reunited with him it was such a
relief to her. But also she must have held done
very tightly to him because he had been taken away,
(16:12):
and for all that time she was grieving a loss,
and then here he is, and she doesn't want to
lose him again. She had never lost you, And whether
she meant to or not, it sounds like somehow that
played out. And what happened in your early childhood when
your brother was back? Yeah, when I was describing that,
(16:33):
what was coming up for you? What were you feeling
as I was talking about that.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
The way you described it made it sound perhaps better
than the situation actually was. I don't think she wanted
to have that second baby in the house. And I
don't think she wanted to have a second child.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
What makes you think that she didn't want to have
a second child? Did somebody say something about that later
when you were older?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Oh, she has said many many times, but she didn't
want to have a second child.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
She said that when you were young to you.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
She did not say that when I was young. No,
she said that when I was older.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Because it's not just her that didn't want to have
a second child. Your biological dad.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He did not want to have a second child either.
He was very close to my brother. My brother was
born and the three of them had their thing, and yeah,
when I was born, I was not wanted. I doesn't
(17:48):
want to buy any of them. And you know, they
they just lived their lives like that was like, that
was fine.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
How did it come to light later on that that
was the situation where they did not want to have
a second child.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Anytime a conversation came up about having two children and
my mother would put her foot down and say, you
should not have two children.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How did that feel to you?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh? God, awful, absolutely awful.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Would you tell her as an adult mom? That is
so painful when you say that my experience growing up
was that you didn't want to have two children. It's
so painful when you're saying that to me. Now.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Oh, I would never. I would never say something like
that to her.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I would say. Over the last maybe five to ten years,
I have had a few instances where I was able
to have a fright conversation with her about a situation
like that. But before that, I would not say something
like that to my mother because there's just there's a
(19:05):
dynamic in the relationship that would not allow for me
to be that vulnerable with her.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Are these fears because of your childhood when she was
unable to respond to your feelings and your needs? Or
is this that you felt afraid to get in touch
with how painful it is to say something like that
to your mom and then risk her again ignoring you,
(19:35):
or again dismissing your feelings or again arguing with your reality.
What is it you think that held you back.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I wasn't necessarily clear enough in my own feelings to
be able to say, oh, Mom, you know when you
say that kind of a thing, it really makes me
hurt a lot. I didn't have the language skill to
be able to say that. And also I had the
(20:06):
fear that she would react to me in a way
that dismissed what I said, or that she like what
I said would make her upset, and then she would
lash out to me, or she would treat me poorly
(20:27):
because I caused her to have that kind of an
emotional response.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So you said you did have a few conversations with
her in which you were able to express things as
an adult.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
She told me one time that this particular year when
I was a child, she said, oh, that was the
best year. I just really loved that year.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I said to her, wow, that was.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
That was probably the worst year of my life.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Which year are we talking about.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I was in the fourth grade, and I said, wow,
that was a really that was a terrible year for me,
and she kind of laughed, like her initial response was, Paha,
you know, I can't believe that was your experience. And
then she realized that she had just said that, and
(21:23):
then she said, oh, I'm sorry that I didn't know
that that was the experience that you were having during
that year.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So finally a moment of acknowledgment after thirty however many
years at that point. What did that feel like to
you to hear her acknowledge something of your experience.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It was a good moment. It was fleeting, you know,
it was a small moment. It allowed me to feel like, wow,
she can't actually see other people's experience.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
It felt like, finally, there's a there there.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I could see her as a bit of a human being.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
You even had a business together. And yet I'm assuming
that you were never really able then to talk with
him about your experience growing up and about your experience
with him growing up, because you weren't having those kinds
of conversations at that time.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That's true. We came to an understanding at some point
around high school that we had both grown up in
a home that was very messed up.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Who started talking about it.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I wouldn't say it was a conversation. It was more
of a sort of passing acknowledgment of like, you know,
tipping our heads to each other with a small comment
of like, yeah, we've been in this together. Like if
I was having a hard time communicating with a boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Say, and you will tell him about it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Well, he would know that it was happening because he
was there. So no, I wouldn't necessarily have those kinds
of conversations with him. We would have some kind of joke,
you know, yeah, well we weren't really taught to be
human beings as children.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So was the idea that he felt that way too.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So his experience of his childhood is not good. I
can't speak to his to what his experience was I mean,
we have not had these conversations. I think my brother
is a wounded individual, not in the same way, but
in a very deep way, in the way that I
(23:59):
am a wounded individual in a very deep way.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And I think that when you acknowledged we were in
this together, you were acknowledging yeah, we were both wounded
here and in different ways, but you actually weren't in
it together at all, because he was the baby that
your parents wanted and you were the one they didn't.
He was the one that was fused with your mom.
(24:24):
He was the one whose choices were prioritized, and you
were the one that felt excluded and left out and
not part of the family. And he didn't like you either,
you said. And so you were actually very much not
in it together. And so I'm curious when you say, oh,
we were in it together, did you not feel that?
(24:46):
But actually we weren't.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
We were raised in the same home, we were raised
by the same people.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Just because you were raised in the same environment doesn't
mean that you you are experiencing the environment in the
same way. And so that's why siblings can have vastly
different experiences growing up in the very same household and
so it sounds like you have this idea that, well,
(25:14):
we both grew up in the same environment, so therefore
we have the same kinds of wounds. I think you
have very different experiences of growing up in the same household,
like many siblings do.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, I don't doubt that we had a vastly different
experience of the world. I know that's true.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
You said that you got close as you were teenagers
and young adults. You were close, but only to a
point because you couldn't really share with him what your
feelings were about your childhood, that he was part of
that ecosystem that rejected you or dismissed you. You weren't
(25:56):
able to share that with him at that time, and
so the closeness was there comparatively, probably felt quite strong.
But I'm thinking also of the way when you started
having friends, it felt like, oh, I finally have these friends,
except they weren't friends you could share emotional pain with.
Much like when you got close with your brother as
(26:16):
a teenager and a young adult. It was despite the
fact that you couldn't really share with him any emotionally
painful things. The closest that came to that is that
when he would see you have an issue with the boyfriend,
that'd be this kind of nod of recognition of yeah,
wel we came from that house, and so of course
we're going to have issues. And I'm wondering whether with
(26:40):
your brother was he able to share with you his
hurts from childhood in an overt, clear way rather than
just that wink of recognition between two siblings have been
through it.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
No, he never shared those things with me. He spaid
ten years in therapy his twenties, you know, mid twenties
to mid thirties and therapy, so he, at a much
younger age than me, found what I can assume to
be a situation where he could have those conversations with someone,
(27:17):
but they weren't with me.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
But he revealed to you at the time that he
was going to therapy, And did you think I might
want to do that?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I did not at that time.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, I think that I had a very hard shell.
It didn't allow me to see that communicating these things
could be helpful.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What was the impetus for you in your mid thirties
for deciding to go to therapy.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I had come out of a relationship with a man,
and that relationship ended, and it was very painful, and
I came to the realization that if I was going
to have a relationship with any man in the future
and I wanted it to work, that I was going
(28:12):
to need to change.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
What were you noticing that was going on in this
relationship that made it difficult for you to be in it?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That I had very big and very painful feelings that
I had no way to communicate with this person.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
About, meaning you didn't communicate them, or when you did,
it came out in a way that made it hard
for him to be there for you.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I didn't communicate them with him. I wasn't able to.
I literally could not speak in those situations.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And so when did that start to change? When were
you able to start talking about your feelings in a
vulnerable way and to whom well?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I started seeing a therapist probably within a month after
that relationship ended, and that that person taught me that
if someone is open to and available for that kind
of communication, that it is possible to sit and look
(29:27):
at someone in the face and talk to them about
your biguest, most painful feeling. I mean, I met my
partner probably while I was still going through this therapy
I was thirty four years old, and I was like, oh, yeah,
never had a relationship with someone that I trust, so
now I have one. I'm only laughing because it just
(29:50):
sounds ridiculous to me.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Given everything that you're describing, it would be practically shocking
if you were able to trust someone.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I think it's ridiculous. It seems to me. I always
intellectually understood what trust was, but I never had an
experience of it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I'm saying that, Zoe, because it sounds a little bit
like you've internalized some of what you were getting as
a child in which your feelings were being dismissed and invalidated,
that you're still doing that to yourself, and just pointing
that out, because when you grow up with so much
blanket and validation, it's difficult not to internalize some bit
(30:35):
and then it seeps out sometimes and you find yourself
saying something, admitting to a feeling that is so natural
given the circumstance, but looking at it and going like, oh,
but that's silly, and it's very much not silly. Do
you notice that you do that, that you might still
be invalidating your feelings.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Sometimes I do that, certainly from time to time, I
would say that I make a choice to perhaps not
connect to that pain in some moments.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
What guys talking about is partly being able to acknowledge
the pain, But the other part is what he was
saying about self compassion. When you're talking about your experiences
and you judge yourself like it took me this long
before I could do this. Well, of course, because of
(31:29):
what you experienced, and that's what happened in your family.
You'd say I'm feeling this and they would say, well, no,
you're not, that's not your experience, or that shouldn't be
your experience. You kind of do that to yourself absolutely.
And it sounds like when you went to therapy, it
was the first time that you were able to sit
with someone and not have them dismiss or discount what
(31:53):
your experience was. And I think it's not a coincidence
that you met this person right as you started going
to therapy, and here was this person who was able
to be with you in a way that I think
you longed for for a very long time. And so
tell us a little bit about that relationship.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, it's been seven years since we met. My relationship
with him started out this sort of beautiful way in
a way that I had never seen a relationship happen,
and that was very meaningful for me. I wasn't able
(32:36):
to see the therapist continuously, and so at some point
I had to say, this has been an incredibly powerful
time for me, but I can't see you any longer
those for financial reasons, so I stopped seeing her. So,
you know, situations would arise in my relationship with Mark
(32:58):
that may be unhappy, and I would do whatever form
of communicating I could that I thought would sort of
pave the way for open and honest dialogue. Oftentimes, my
communication tactics didn't work and we ended up not communicating
(33:19):
clearly about things that made me unhappy in the relationship.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Is the reason that you and Mark haven't gone to
therapy a financial reason?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
The first thing that came to mind when you were
saying that your brother went to therapy for about ten
years starting in his twenties, was this issue of finances.
I wondered if there was some envy that you had
of his ability to go and work through some of
this stuff from childhood in a way that maybe you
(33:55):
didn't have access to.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yeah, I was worried about money in having children.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I want to get to your brother who said he
became an engineer, I think you said, and started making money.
And that's what you identified is creating a bit of
a witch between you. Tell us how that happened.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
When Derek met Carol, the primary reason that he was
so attracted to her is that she's extremely well adjusted.
She's very happy, she knows how to communicate her wants
and her needs. She gets what she wants from her life.
She's very satisfied, and that was the primary reason that
(34:40):
Derek wanted to marry her. So my brother and I
and his wife, we have had times where we spend
time together and we're great friends. What I have found
over the last few years is that I don't have
(35:02):
any ability to talk with them about things that are
going on in my life that aren't positive. So it's
like I am in that same dynamic again where I
have these fair weather friends who I really like, I
really love them, but I can't be honest with them
about my real experience in the world.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Necessarily, what makes you think that you can't talk to
them about what's really going on in your life.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Well, with Carol, she doesn't react empathetically. When I was
in my last pregnancy, I was very sick and I
was very socially isolated, and every now and then she
would text me and she would say, oh, how are
you And I would say, oh my god, I am
(35:54):
doing terribly. This is awful. I can't believe how bad
it is right now. And she would reply to my
texts bummer.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Not like, hey, can I bring you something? Do you
need help? Can I keep you company?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Nothing like that. She never once brought me anything or
came to my house or offered to help with my child.
I had a four year old child. She never once
offered to watch my kid for five minutes.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
What about your brother when you were pregnant and if
you had said to him, hey, I'm really struggling, was
he more empathetic.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I don't remember. I don't remember really even communicating with
him during my pregnancy.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
And yet you were so close. Weren't you running a
business together.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
We stopped running our business together right before he had
his first child, so there were many years where we
weren't necessarily seeing each other very often, we weren't talking.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Have you had an experience of sharing something painful with
your brother, in which he responded poorly or without empathy.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yes. Absolutely. I gave birth to my son in April
of last year, and when he turned a year old,
I said to my brother a number of times, you know,
it's been really challenging for me. We've had twelve months
of three hundred and sixty five days, twenty four hours
(37:30):
a day of caring for this infant, and we haven't
had a single moment during that time for someone else
to watch him. And twice in a row my brother responded, Oh,
you're gonna value this time. This is a really special
time for you, guys. It's really going to be meaningful someday.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Much like you got growing up.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yeah, so that's how I feel my brother treats me nowadays.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was there a time where you were able to share
painful moments or struggles where he would respond with more
empathy and compassion.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Definitely when we were working together. If I had something
happen with a friend that made me upset, I was
able to talk with him about that and he was
able to say, I understand why you're upset at this moment.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
What was that like for you to hear that, To
finally hear someone in your family say yeah, I understand
that you're feeling that way. It makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Fall pleasures, you know, yeah, I could take that moment
as this is a genuine experience in life.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
In your letter, you indicated you thought that what has
caused some of the emotional drifting between you is the
financial disparity or the change in his financial circumstance. Tell
us why you think that is what was under allowing
some of this change.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
What I see as what happened was when I had
my first child. Once that child went to childcare, we
were literally spending all of the money that we made
every month on living, child care and our lives. Literally
every dollar that we brought in went out to pay
for things. And so I think there was a time
(39:25):
period where if we were hanging out, you know, I
would say something like, yeah, we can't afford that kind
of a thing. And maybe some time went on like
that before I realized that Derek and Carroll, or Carol specifically,
was really annoyed. She was really annoyed that I would
(39:47):
talk about money like that in that way.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
In other words, they would say, hey, we went on
this vacation, or we bought such and.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Such, We would say, Oh, have you guys tried this
new restaurant. It's really you know, everybody's talking about and
it's really great. We went and it was really awesome,
and I would say, yeah, you know, we're not eating
at restaurants right now. We don't have the money. When
I realized that she was displeased with those kinds of comments,
(40:20):
it made me want to hang out with her less.
And it also made me hyper aware of the fact that, Okay,
I'm going to make an effort to not say those
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What about how your brother would react.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I don't know that he was annoyed by it, but
what I noticed around that same time was that they
were often communicating about how they were spending so much money.
So the conversation would be, oh, yeah, we just went
to Hawaii for five weeks. It made me feel like,
(40:56):
are we not allowed to be honest with each other
in this relationship? I feel like if I communicate openly
about the things that I'm struggling with in life, that
those conversations are shot down, And you know, it's come
to the point where these people are acting like annoyed
with me.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
That sounds so familiar that when you would bring up
something that made other people uncomfortable as a child, they
would get annoyed with you. Yeah, And the other commonality
is that theme of exclusion that they are able to
live in this way. While you said twenty four to seven,
(41:39):
you're thinking about money and what you don't have and
your brother does have it, And I think that that
somehow brings up that very old feeling of he's in
and I'm out.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah. They have a lot of child's care, They have
a lot of family close by who takes care of
their children for them. They have a lot of freedom,
they have a lot of time to spend, they have
a lot of money. They just they have all these
things and we don't have those things.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
So are we talking about envy because I imagine when you
were young you felt very envious of your brother's position
in the family and what he was getting, even if
it had its problems.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
It certainly is envy. I mean envy in a way
that's like, yeah, I wish I had those things too.
I don't necessarily begrudge these people for having the things.
What I don't like is the way that they're treating me.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And that's the third part that's familiar is that when
you feel that, what you do is you have a
hard time addressing it and talking about it directly and
saying to your brother, can we please talk about the
tensions that happened between us when we talk about finances,
(43:02):
and you in caase what you have in my guess
what I don't. That's the other pattern that continues that
your response to that is to kind of close up
and withdraw.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Perhaps, Yeah, it's definitely what I'm doing is withdrawing from
the situation.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
What would you like to see happen if you were
able to talk to him? Meaning, what would you like
to see go differently? Maybe it's more about wanting your
brother to recognize that maybe this is hard for you.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yeah, I think certainly them recognizing that my life has
become much more difficult over the years while their lives
has become much easier. So I would like to see them, yeah,
be able to accept.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
That, accept that or acknowledge it.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Yeah, to acknowledge the fact that my life is much
more difficult now than it was before would be nice,
and to give some room in the relationship for the
fact that everything is not perfect in my life, and perhaps.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
To have some sensitivity to that that maybe you're not
the best audience for how fabulous Hawaii was, or you
must try the snee restaurant. Everyone's raving about it when
you're like, we're not trying with duns right now. To
have more sensitivity.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
To have some sensitivity would be great. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
And the other part of it that I think is
important is less about them and more about you, which
is you're not the child who's at the mercy of
what people in the family are deciding in terms of
who's in and who's out, and who gets something and
who doesn't get something, and who gets to go to
the school they want, and who doesn't get to go
to the school that they want. And I wonder if
(45:08):
you've internalized some of that messaging that you don't get
to have and so you don't try to have. In
other words, you kind of accept, well, my relationship isn't
where I want it to be, but oh well, and
we're really struggling with money, but oh well, as opposed
to really opening up your imagination to what might I
(45:34):
be able to do now that nobody's holding me back
to have the kind of relationship that I want to have.
What might need to happen there, or what might we
as a couple do to change our financial situation so
that we can have some of the things that maybe
(45:55):
we want, so that you're not always pressed up against
the glass saying, Oh, I'm stuck in here and my
brother has all these things that I want.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
I appreciate you saying that it's definitely some of those
things are things that I am addressing, and some of
those things are things that I had thought to address.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
We have this saying follow your envy. It tells you
what you want. And sometimes we don't like to acknowledge
our envy because we feel like it makes us small
or petty, but actually it helps us to get in
touch with our desires. It helps us to say I
want that. So when you were young and you wanted
what your brother had in some way, even though it
(46:38):
was dysfunctional in a different way, there was some elements
of it that you wanted.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, my brother seemed to have a healthy relationship with
my mother.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
What he had was her love in a way that
was different from her love for you.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
And now he.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
Has somebody that he's married to who seems to have
had so much trauma growing up, And I think that
on the one hand, you feel like that makes it
hard for her to connect with you or you to
connect with her. But on the other hand, I think
there might be some envy there that she's had it easier,
and that might make you put up some walls where
(47:18):
maybe there could be more of a relationship there it
feels better. And then you have your brother having more
help with the kids and more financial freedom, and maybe
there's a way that you could have a better relationship
and more financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, and so we think that there are ways perhaps
that you can shape off still some more of the
old habits and perspectives which were very paralyzing. And if
you're very helpless and realize that you can take certain
(47:55):
actions and speak up about certain things now in ways
that you truly agree in your childhood and even an
YOURNDI adults.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
So, Zoe, we have some advice for you, and it's
in a few parts. The first part is that we
would like you to have a conversation with your brother
in which you say to him, I feel this tension
between us now as adults, this distance that's growing between us,
(48:31):
and I think part of it has to do with
the fact that your life looks different from my life financially,
and I think that that's bringing up some old feelings
in me around exclusion and other experiences that I had
growing up. And I would love to be able to
(48:53):
talk with you because I think that it will help
me to feel closer to you, and it will will
help with some of this tension and distance that's going
on between us now, and then to really be able
to talk with him about what it was like when
(49:14):
you found out from your mom that they didn't want
a second child, and what it was like to see
that closeness that he had with your mom and at
the same time feeling like, but I also want a
relationship with my brother, and even as an adult, really
wanting a relationship with him, and how a lot of.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
That is coming up again because you're seeing this difference
and it sort of magnified something that you feel like
would maybe not feel so big if you could talk
about some of these things that you've never talked about,
because he's really the only other person that was there.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
The second part of that conversation with there, it is
to say and I do want to address to find
outential difference between us because right now. I think it's
a point of tension that you guys talk about what
you do and we talk about what we can't do
(50:13):
as a response. But I think there's room for both.
I think there's room for us to be excited for
you about the things that you can do, about your
trip to Hawaii and the great new restaurant you tried,
and there's room at the same time for you guys
to be compassionate toward us and sympathetic that we're not
in that place where we can do those things. The
(50:35):
two can exist together, and I think we've kind of
been dancing around it and feeling tense about how do
you talk about your lives without upsetting us and how
do we talk about hours without upsetting you? But there's
room for both, and perhaps we can agree that we
can be supportive and excited for you, and that you
guys can be sympathetic to us, that those things can
(50:58):
happen at the same time.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Maybe if there was a little bit more acknowledgement, because
when we were growing up, there was not a lot
of acknowledgment around my pain, that if there's a little
bit more acknowledgment that we are in different situations it
would free me up to truly be excited and happy
for you.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
And the last part is we would like you and
your husband to find a low fee clinic, which is
much easier to do these days because it doesn't have
to be something that's geographically possible because of Zoom. But
there are in many teaching institutions, universities, all kinds of
(51:41):
low fee clinics, and you would like you to find
one that does couple's therapy, and if your husband would agree,
because we think you do need a facilitator to help
you talk and for you to feel safe, because we
think that's quite important that you can talk together, not
just about the relationship, but what changes can you make
in your lives to gain a little bit more financial
(52:04):
breathing room than you have at the moment.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
Yeah, there was this sense as a child, because it
was true that you were trapped by those circumstances. You
might feel more comfortable in the old story, but we
want to help you to feel more comfortable moving into
this newer.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Place wonderful and so we look forward to hearing how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
So this was one of those sessions where it seemed
like the issue was about money and it is, but
there was so much from the past to unpack as well,
and we gave her a lot to do in terms
of opening up those conversations, and that might be a
little hard for her to do.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
And we always find that money is such an uncomfortable
topic for people to address, and so I think, both
for her and maybe for her brother, that might be
difficult to actually talk about. But I do hope that
they at least talk about the relationship, or at least
start to communicate in some deeper way, because I think
that would be very useful for her.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
And one of the things that happens when you start
looking at opening up a conversation with somebody close to
you is you might start looking at the other relationships
around you, like we did with her husband, And I
really hope that she follows through and is able to
open up a conversation with her husband so that she
(53:38):
can focus on that relationship as well. The issue with
her brother doesn't supersede this really important work that it
seems like she has to do in her marriage.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
So it'll be interesting to see if once she has
one of those conversations, whether that gives her confidence to
be able to have the other you're listening to deo
therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after a quick break.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
So we heard that from Zoe, and we asked her
to have two difficult conversations, the first with her brother
and the second with her husband. So let's hear how
they went.
Speaker 6 (54:27):
So I didn't make the call right away because I
was so anxious.
Speaker 5 (54:32):
I did allow some time to pass, which allowed me
to really process my own experience.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Which was good.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
So when I talk to him, we had, you know,
our standard chat at first, which has really made up
all of the time that we have spent together. I
would say over the last probably two years, has been
just standard chat small talk, which I feel like small
talk just makes me feel small all But anyway, our
(55:03):
conversation was able to go to a very open and
honest and vulnerable place, which was really wonderful. We talked
for about two hours and I was able to speak
with my brother about my own experience of childhood, and
(55:29):
he definitely had a few moments where he was like, yeah,
you were ridiculously emotional, which could not make me feel good.
But I was able to be clear with him and
let him know, yeah, I'm an emotional person like to me,
(55:50):
my superpower is having very strong emotions about things. So
we were able to talk about or experienceeriences in childhood,
and he tried to make it clear to me that
he was equally unhappy about our childhood as I was.
(56:16):
After I had the conversation, I felt a huge load
off of my shoulders. I mean, I realized that my
brother I was just doing the best that he can
and honestly, to hear him talk about how difficult.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Life is for him.
Speaker 7 (56:39):
You know, he still very deeply carries the scars of
his childhood and they really affect his day to day life.
It made me happy that he was able to be
honest with me. I feel like, for so long he
puts on this smiling, happy face every time I see him,
(57:03):
and I just.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
Feel like it's I feel like it's bony.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
I feel like it's fake.
Speaker 5 (57:08):
And so to have him be real with me and
tell him what his real experience of life is, that
felt really good.
Speaker 3 (57:16):
With my partner.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
You know, it's really the first time that we sat
down and had lunch together, probably was the day after
we've had this conversation in the past where I say,
you know, I really think that we need to have
professional help, and we've both agreed that it's a good
idea and that we should do it, but we haven't
done it. So there's a lot of fear involved with
(57:39):
just sort facing this issue. But I had a conversation
with him and went, well, you know, he he's open
to the idea.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I perhaps even saw a flicker of excitement over the prospect.
There's a little bit of a sort of a sunny possibility,
like we could have a better life. So yeah, I
am happy that we.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Are doing this thing right now.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
So it feels good to be like we're both on
the same pie.
Speaker 5 (58:19):
There is a possibility of something good happening.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
It's different in our lives.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
So when Zoe says that small talk makes her feel small,
it's because she is yearning to feel that connection. And
connection does not happen with small talk. It happens with
meaningful conversation, with actually talking about the relationship between you.
And I'm glad she's uncomfortable with small talk, and I'm
(58:50):
glad that she feels like she doesn't want that anymore
with her brother, because she really does need to connect
with him, And it sounds like they took a good
first step in that direction.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, and I'm glad that she stood her ground and
was able to say to her brother, feelings are my superpower.
The fact that I can feel things is a strength
of mind, and to reframe that and to use that
as a starting point for these conversations. They didn't get
to the money part of the conversation, and I think
(59:23):
that's okay, because right now, what was important was they
started to acknowledge the reality of their childhoods. I think
will give them some common ground from which to have
these other conversations that bring them up to the present.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
And it was so encouraging to hear that when she
spoke to her husband about going to therapy, she saw
that spark of excitement in him, because it's so important
that he be on board with the work she has
to do. When somebody's been through a lot of trauma,
there's a lot of healing they need to do, and
it's wonderful that she can work on that with somebody
(59:59):
safe like her husband, who knows her, who loves her.
That will make that work easier for her to do.
And at the same time, she found her voice with
her brother as well. And I think that finding your
voice and then starting to use your voice is always
the first step when you're trying to heal.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Next week, our fellow traveler is haunted by the ghost
of his last relationship as he tries to move on
with a new partner.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
It's really hard for me to.
Speaker 8 (01:00:30):
Open up to him because every time in the past
that I've opened up about my feelings, it's either ben
met with rejection or met with OCD. So it's really
hard for me to trust that I can have a
safe person to open up to.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Bigo Smooth, email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
are Doric Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
We can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED.
And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Each week we invite you into a session so you
can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
in their lives.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
a woman's resentment of her financially successful brother threatens to
tear apart their relationship.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
They have a lot of freedom, they have a lot
of time to spend, they have a lot of money.
They just they have all these things and we don't
have those things. Yeah, I wish I had those things too.
I don't necessarily begrudge these people for having the things.
What I don't like is the way that they're treating me.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
First, a quick note, therapist is for informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is
not a substitute for professional healthcare. 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 or psychological condition. By submitting a letter,
(01:23):
you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in partworn
and full, and we may edit it for length and clarity.
In the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed
for the privacy of our fellow travelers. Hi Guy, Hey Lourie.
So I'm really excited for this week's letter because I
hear it has something to do with siblings and money.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes, it does, and money is one of those topics.
It's money and sex that people have a very hard
time talking about, so I'm glad we have the opportunity here.
Here's the letter, Dear therapists. My only brother and I
have been closed at times in our lives lives. We
have kids the same age who absolutely love to play together.
Since having children, time has been in short supply, and
(02:07):
we don't connect very often. We spend holidays together and
hang out in other ways, maybe three or four times
a year. My brother became a software engineer about five
years ago and now makes loads of money. We on
the other hand, are poorer than we've ever been because
we have two children. I feel like we have less
and less in common as this difference between us progresses
(02:28):
and our relationship is struggling to stay together. Aside from
our kids being friends, my brother's family seems to act
like everything is perfect, and we want to be close
with other families that are struggling with the same issue
we are. I'd like to have a relationship with my brother,
but I need some guidance and how to navigate this
difference so we don't grow further apart. Sincerely, Zoe.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Money brings up so many feelings in people, and they
feel like they shouldn't talk about it because they feel
like it's taboo or they shouldn't have these feelings, And
yet it's all around us. We can't ignore it, and
when it happens to somebody close to you, like a
good friend or a sibling, it becomes kind of like
the elephant in the room.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That's absolutely right. Some people feel that well, when somebody
makes money that they didn't have before, it's going to
change them. But really often what it changes are the
feelings that person has. Jealousy comes up and becomes up
resentment can come up and those things are not dealt with,
it can really cause a rupture in the relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And with siblings because there's so much history in their relationship,
sometimes some of those old wounds start coming up in
the form of this question around the money. So let's
go talk to her and learn more about what's going
on between them.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You're listening to Deer Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy
Wynn and this is Dear Therapist.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So Hi Zoe, Hello Laurie, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Could you tell us a little bit about the relationship
with your brother before this financial change, the history of it.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Sure. My brother is twenty months older than I am,
and I am forty years old now. Around the end
of high school, we became very close in our relationship.
I would say that our level of intimacy at that
time was similar to one of my closest friends, you know,
(04:38):
through college. We lived together for a year or two,
maybe even three years. We owned a house together in
our twenties. We ran a business together in our thirties.
It was his business when he closed down his business.
He became a software engineer, and then that was five
(05:01):
years ago.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
When you say that you got close in high school,
what was your relationship like when you were younger children.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There was trauma in the home as children, and we
were divided in that trauma.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
What was going on in your family that created this
division between the two of you.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So when I was born, my brother was twenty months old.
My father had a lot of issues, and after I
was born, my mother decided she didn't want to live
with him any longer. She was afraid for her life.
My father came and took my brother from her home
(05:48):
and had him for I think close to a year,
and my mother, I can only imagine what her experience
was like during that year. So that was the initial trauma.
My brother came back, we lived in a completely different
part of the country for the rest of our lives,
(06:11):
essentially never seeing that man again, obviously in safety. My
mother had a very close relationship with my brother, and
my mother did not have a very close relationship with me.
And I was the outsider as a child.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
What did that look like their closeness in you being
an outsider?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It looked like my family didn't really care that much
about me.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
What was actually happening between your mom and your brother
that made you feel that way?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah, I mean my mom and my brother were best friends,
so they had an intimacy amongst themselves that that I
didn't have with her or with him. He did not
like me as a child. I was in his way.
When I got to be an older child. We came
(07:11):
to a year where we were going to go to
private school, and I wanted to go to one particular
private school, and I applied and I was so proud
of myself. I got accepted into this prestigious private school,
and my parents were happy about the idea. But then
they realized that my brother decided to go to a
(07:32):
different private school and that they were going to have
to drive him to that school. So they weren't going
to be able to drive me to the school that
I wanted to go to, so I had to go
to the school that he wanted.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
To go to.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
When did your mom remarry?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
My mother remarried around I was about eight years old.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And what was that like for you when this stepfather
came into the picture. How did that impact the dynamics
between your mom and your brother?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Your mom, and you you know, I think that it
was quite equalizing. This idea that, you know, the people
who were close to me and my home really didn't
like me sort of calmed down a little bit. My
mother has told me that once he came into the picture,
(08:26):
she thought everything was fine.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You use the worst that your family didn't like you.
Where did you get the impression that your family didn't
like you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My personality is very emotional, and my mother she did
not consider her emotions to be a part of her life, really,
and so I was raised with this idea that you know,
who I am and how I functioned in the world
(08:57):
is not okay. You need to turn that off.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Was that told you explicitly, like don't be so sensitive
or you're too emotional? Or was it implied somehow?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It was implied in that I was not responded to
in any way if I were showing emotion.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Could you give us an example of something that happened
that you had an emotional response to that got ignored.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This happened from the time that I was born. I mean,
you know, I'm talking about being three years old and
understanding that my emotional reaction to things is not gonna
matter so I hid my emotions from my family my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Did you have close friends during those childhood years?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I would say I had one or two close friends.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And what was that like for you? Because your impression
was my brother didn't like me, my mom didn't like me.
Step that comes in and so that even stinks out
a bit, But you felt by yourself like there was
no one there to support you, to understand you, to
be able to respond to your emotions or your needs.
(10:12):
What was it like when you finally started making some
close friends and had someone who seemed to really care
about you.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I would say that's about sixth grade. It was really
a life changer for me. You know, I feel like
I really became a person at that time. I was
able to share my experience and be lighthearted and yeah,
(10:39):
like really have the sort of experience of like, oh,
oh yeah, this is who I am. This isn't how
I act with my family. I don't act like who
I really am with them.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
What was different about how you acted around your friends
that you couldn't do in your family comfortably.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Express myself, openly, speak openly.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
And what were the kinds of things that you shared
with them?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Simple things like, Oh, I really like this book that
I am writing, or let's watch these particular television shows
because we like them.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Were you ever able to share some of your feelings
with them, like I have a crush on this person,
or I'm really sad when I'm home with my family
because I feel like an outsider.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I did not share feelings about my family with other people.
I did not do that until I was much older.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
What do you think might have happened if you had
shared it? You say you didn't have a need, and
yet you felt so isolated in your family, and I
imagine hiding this big part of your life felt isolating too.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, anytime I expressed something like that within my family,
I was given the message that that's not right. You're
absolutely wrong. You are not treated that way. That's not
how your life is. So I'm not sure why you're
having those emotions.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
So it sounds like they denied your reality, but your
friends didn't, And so I'm wondering what held you back
from talking about the reality of your home life with
your friends.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
You know, I never had the experience in my life
of expressing some kind of uncomfortable feeling and having that
communication help me or make me feel better.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You're describing your friends as people with whom you had
the freedom to talk about your experience and your feelings
as long as those were positive. And I'm not hearing
that you were able to share with them anything that
was actually more challenging or painful.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah. I don't have much of any experience doing that
kind of work until I was much older and in therapy.
How old, probably close to thirty five, right.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You progressed from not being able to feel you can
share anything about what you feel in your family to
at least being able to share the good stuff with friends.
But then you spent many, many years really feeling that
if something is painful, there is no one with whom
I can talk about it, There is no one with
(13:46):
whom I can share it.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I spent my life that way.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
What comes to mind is that when you were having
some difficulty coming up with examples of what made you
feel feel that way, that because you never got to
talk to anybody about it, that it's just one big
blur to you that there was never any processing going
(14:13):
on at the time of any of these incidents. The
one thing that sticks with you is the school situation.
But there must have been so many of them to
make you feel somewhere deep inside that from a very
very young age, you felt excluded, like an outsider, alone
(14:39):
in pain, but with nobody to go to, your reality
being denied in so many different ways. And I'm thinking
of later when you were verbal and your mother would say, oh, no,
that's not really what's happening in this house, or you
don't really feel that way. When you're a baby, what
you do to communicate some kind of discomfort as you cry?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And we don't have.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Memories of this that are very articulate, but we have
sense memories of where we responded to when we cried,
How were we responded to, where we responded to in
a perfunctory way, like someone did come and change our
diaper and feed us, but they didn't really hold us
and delight in us. During your first year or so
of life, your mother was left alone with you. Your
(15:27):
brother had been kidnapped. I don't know if she knew
where he was. I assume she knew that. No she didn't,
you're shaking year head. No, so she had no idea
where your brother was. And she must have been frantic,
as any mother would be in that situation, and here
(15:48):
she was trying to manage the child she did have
at home, frantic over the loss of the child that
she didn't know where he was. And I imagine that
when she was reunited with him it was such a
relief to her. But also she must have held done
very tightly to him because he had been taken away,
(16:12):
and for all that time she was grieving a loss,
and then here he is, and she doesn't want to
lose him again. She had never lost you, And whether
she meant to or not, it sounds like somehow that
played out. And what happened in your early childhood when
your brother was back? Yeah, when I was describing that,
(16:33):
what was coming up for you? What were you feeling
as I was talking about that.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
The way you described it made it sound perhaps better
than the situation actually was. I don't think she wanted
to have that second baby in the house. And I
don't think she wanted to have a second child.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
What makes you think that she didn't want to have
a second child? Did somebody say something about that later
when you were older?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Oh, she has said many many times, but she didn't
want to have a second child.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
She said that when you were young to you.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
She did not say that when I was young. No,
she said that when I was older.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Because it's not just her that didn't want to have
a second child. Your biological dad.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He did not want to have a second child either.
He was very close to my brother. My brother was
born and the three of them had their thing, and yeah,
when I was born, I was not wanted. I doesn't
(17:48):
want to buy any of them. And you know, they
they just lived their lives like that was like, that
was fine.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
How did it come to light later on that that
was the situation where they did not want to have
a second child.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Anytime a conversation came up about having two children and
my mother would put her foot down and say, you
should not have two children.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How did that feel to you?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh? God, awful, absolutely awful.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Would you tell her as an adult mom? That is
so painful when you say that my experience growing up
was that you didn't want to have two children. It's
so painful when you're saying that to me. Now.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Oh, I would never. I would never say something like
that to her.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I would say. Over the last maybe five to ten years,
I have had a few instances where I was able
to have a fright conversation with her about a situation
like that. But before that, I would not say something
like that to my mother because there's just there's a
(19:05):
dynamic in the relationship that would not allow for me
to be that vulnerable with her.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Are these fears because of your childhood when she was
unable to respond to your feelings and your needs? Or
is this that you felt afraid to get in touch
with how painful it is to say something like that
to your mom and then risk her again ignoring you,
(19:35):
or again dismissing your feelings or again arguing with your reality.
What is it you think that held you back.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I wasn't necessarily clear enough in my own feelings to
be able to say, oh, Mom, you know when you
say that kind of a thing, it really makes me
hurt a lot. I didn't have the language skill to
be able to say that. And also I had the
(20:06):
fear that she would react to me in a way
that dismissed what I said, or that she like what
I said would make her upset, and then she would
lash out to me, or she would treat me poorly
(20:27):
because I caused her to have that kind of an
emotional response.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So you said you did have a few conversations with
her in which you were able to express things as
an adult.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
She told me one time that this particular year when
I was a child, she said, oh, that was the
best year. I just really loved that year.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I said to her, wow, that was.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
That was probably the worst year of my life.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Which year are we talking about.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I was in the fourth grade, and I said, wow,
that was a really that was a terrible year for me,
and she kind of laughed, like her initial response was, Paha,
you know, I can't believe that was your experience. And
then she realized that she had just said that, and
(21:23):
then she said, oh, I'm sorry that I didn't know
that that was the experience that you were having during
that year.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So finally a moment of acknowledgment after thirty however many
years at that point. What did that feel like to
you to hear her acknowledge something of your experience.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It was a good moment. It was fleeting, you know,
it was a small moment. It allowed me to feel like, wow,
she can't actually see other people's experience.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
It felt like, finally, there's a there there.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I could see her as a bit of a human being.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
You even had a business together. And yet I'm assuming
that you were never really able then to talk with
him about your experience growing up and about your experience
with him growing up, because you weren't having those kinds
of conversations at that time.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That's true. We came to an understanding at some point
around high school that we had both grown up in
a home that was very messed up.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Who started talking about it.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I wouldn't say it was a conversation. It was more
of a sort of passing acknowledgment of like, you know,
tipping our heads to each other with a small comment
of like, yeah, we've been in this together. Like if
I was having a hard time communicating with a boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Say, and you will tell him about it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Well, he would know that it was happening because he
was there. So no, I wouldn't necessarily have those kinds
of conversations with him. We would have some kind of joke,
you know, yeah, well we weren't really taught to be
human beings as children.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So was the idea that he felt that way too.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So his experience of his childhood is not good. I
can't speak to his to what his experience was I mean,
we have not had these conversations. I think my brother
is a wounded individual, not in the same way, but
in a very deep way, in the way that I
(23:59):
am a wounded individual in a very deep way.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And I think that when you acknowledged we were in
this together, you were acknowledging yeah, we were both wounded
here and in different ways, but you actually weren't in
it together at all, because he was the baby that
your parents wanted and you were the one they didn't.
He was the one that was fused with your mom.
(24:24):
He was the one whose choices were prioritized, and you
were the one that felt excluded and left out and
not part of the family. And he didn't like you either,
you said. And so you were actually very much not
in it together. And so I'm curious when you say, oh,
we were in it together, did you not feel that?
(24:46):
But actually we weren't.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
We were raised in the same home, we were raised
by the same people.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Just because you were raised in the same environment doesn't
mean that you you are experiencing the environment in the
same way. And so that's why siblings can have vastly
different experiences growing up in the very same household and
so it sounds like you have this idea that, well,
(25:14):
we both grew up in the same environment, so therefore
we have the same kinds of wounds. I think you
have very different experiences of growing up in the same household,
like many siblings do.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, I don't doubt that we had a vastly different
experience of the world. I know that's true.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
You said that you got close as you were teenagers
and young adults. You were close, but only to a
point because you couldn't really share with him what your
feelings were about your childhood, that he was part of
that ecosystem that rejected you or dismissed you. You weren't
(25:56):
able to share that with him at that time, and
so the closeness was there comparatively, probably felt quite strong.
But I'm thinking also of the way when you started
having friends, it felt like, oh, I finally have these friends,
except they weren't friends you could share emotional pain with.
Much like when you got close with your brother as
(26:16):
a teenager and a young adult. It was despite the
fact that you couldn't really share with him any emotionally
painful things. The closest that came to that is that
when he would see you have an issue with the boyfriend,
that'd be this kind of nod of recognition of yeah,
wel we came from that house, and so of course
we're going to have issues. And I'm wondering whether with
(26:40):
your brother was he able to share with you his
hurts from childhood in an overt, clear way rather than
just that wink of recognition between two siblings have been
through it.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
No, he never shared those things with me. He spaid
ten years in therapy his twenties, you know, mid twenties
to mid thirties and therapy, so he, at a much
younger age than me, found what I can assume to
be a situation where he could have those conversations with someone,
(27:17):
but they weren't with me.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
But he revealed to you at the time that he
was going to therapy, And did you think I might
want to do that?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I did not at that time.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, I think that I had a very hard shell.
It didn't allow me to see that communicating these things
could be helpful.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
What was the impetus for you in your mid thirties
for deciding to go to therapy.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I had come out of a relationship with a man,
and that relationship ended, and it was very painful, and
I came to the realization that if I was going
to have a relationship with any man in the future
and I wanted it to work, that I was going
(28:12):
to need to change.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
What were you noticing that was going on in this
relationship that made it difficult for you to be in it?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That I had very big and very painful feelings that
I had no way to communicate with this person.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
About, meaning you didn't communicate them, or when you did,
it came out in a way that made it hard
for him to be there for you.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I didn't communicate them with him. I wasn't able to.
I literally could not speak in those situations.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And so when did that start to change? When were
you able to start talking about your feelings in a
vulnerable way and to whom well?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I started seeing a therapist probably within a month after
that relationship ended, and that that person taught me that
if someone is open to and available for that kind
of communication, that it is possible to sit and look
(29:27):
at someone in the face and talk to them about
your biguest, most painful feeling. I mean, I met my
partner probably while I was still going through this therapy
I was thirty four years old, and I was like, oh, yeah,
never had a relationship with someone that I trust, so
now I have one. I'm only laughing because it just
(29:50):
sounds ridiculous to me.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Given everything that you're describing, it would be practically shocking
if you were able to trust someone.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I think it's ridiculous. It seems to me. I always
intellectually understood what trust was, but I never had an
experience of it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I'm saying that, Zoe, because it sounds a little bit
like you've internalized some of what you were getting as
a child in which your feelings were being dismissed and invalidated,
that you're still doing that to yourself, and just pointing
that out, because when you grow up with so much
blanket and validation, it's difficult not to internalize some bit
(30:35):
and then it seeps out sometimes and you find yourself
saying something, admitting to a feeling that is so natural
given the circumstance, but looking at it and going like, oh,
but that's silly, and it's very much not silly. Do
you notice that you do that, that you might still
be invalidating your feelings.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Sometimes I do that, certainly from time to time, I
would say that I make a choice to perhaps not
connect to that pain in some moments.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
What guys talking about is partly being able to acknowledge
the pain, But the other part is what he was
saying about self compassion. When you're talking about your experiences
and you judge yourself like it took me this long
before I could do this. Well, of course, because of
(31:29):
what you experienced, and that's what happened in your family.
You'd say I'm feeling this and they would say, well, no,
you're not, that's not your experience, or that shouldn't be
your experience. You kind of do that to yourself absolutely.
And it sounds like when you went to therapy, it
was the first time that you were able to sit
with someone and not have them dismiss or discount what
(31:53):
your experience was. And I think it's not a coincidence
that you met this person right as you started going
to therapy, and here was this person who was able
to be with you in a way that I think
you longed for for a very long time. And so
tell us a little bit about that relationship.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, it's been seven years since we met. My relationship
with him started out this sort of beautiful way in
a way that I had never seen a relationship happen,
and that was very meaningful for me. I wasn't able
(32:36):
to see the therapist continuously, and so at some point
I had to say, this has been an incredibly powerful
time for me, but I can't see you any longer
those for financial reasons, so I stopped seeing her. So,
you know, situations would arise in my relationship with Mark
(32:58):
that may be unhappy, and I would do whatever form
of communicating I could that I thought would sort of
pave the way for open and honest dialogue. Oftentimes, my
communication tactics didn't work and we ended up not communicating
(33:19):
clearly about things that made me unhappy in the relationship.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Is the reason that you and Mark haven't gone to
therapy a financial reason?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
The first thing that came to mind when you were
saying that your brother went to therapy for about ten
years starting in his twenties, was this issue of finances.
I wondered if there was some envy that you had
of his ability to go and work through some of
this stuff from childhood in a way that maybe you
(33:55):
didn't have access to.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yeah, I was worried about money in having children.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I want to get to your brother who said he
became an engineer, I think you said, and started making money.
And that's what you identified is creating a bit of
a witch between you. Tell us how that happened.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
When Derek met Carol, the primary reason that he was
so attracted to her is that she's extremely well adjusted.
She's very happy, she knows how to communicate her wants
and her needs. She gets what she wants from her life.
She's very satisfied, and that was the primary reason that
(34:40):
Derek wanted to marry her. So my brother and I
and his wife, we have had times where we spend
time together and we're great friends. What I have found
over the last few years is that I don't have
(35:02):
any ability to talk with them about things that are
going on in my life that aren't positive. So it's
like I am in that same dynamic again where I
have these fair weather friends who I really like, I
really love them, but I can't be honest with them
about my real experience in the world.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Necessarily, what makes you think that you can't talk to
them about what's really going on in your life.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Well, with Carol, she doesn't react empathetically. When I was
in my last pregnancy, I was very sick and I
was very socially isolated, and every now and then she
would text me and she would say, oh, how are
you And I would say, oh my god, I am
(35:54):
doing terribly. This is awful. I can't believe how bad
it is right now. And she would reply to my
texts bummer.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Not like, hey, can I bring you something? Do you
need help? Can I keep you company?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Nothing like that. She never once brought me anything or
came to my house or offered to help with my child.
I had a four year old child. She never once
offered to watch my kid for five minutes.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
What about your brother when you were pregnant and if
you had said to him, hey, I'm really struggling, was
he more empathetic.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I don't remember. I don't remember really even communicating with
him during my pregnancy.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
And yet you were so close. Weren't you running a
business together.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
We stopped running our business together right before he had
his first child, so there were many years where we
weren't necessarily seeing each other very often, we weren't talking.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Have you had an experience of sharing something painful with
your brother, in which he responded poorly or without empathy.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yes. Absolutely. I gave birth to my son in April
of last year, and when he turned a year old,
I said to my brother a number of times, you know,
it's been really challenging for me. We've had twelve months
of three hundred and sixty five days, twenty four hours
(37:30):
a day of caring for this infant, and we haven't
had a single moment during that time for someone else
to watch him. And twice in a row my brother responded, Oh,
you're gonna value this time. This is a really special
time for you, guys. It's really going to be meaningful someday.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Much like you got growing up.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yeah, so that's how I feel my brother treats me nowadays.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was there a time where you were able to share
painful moments or struggles where he would respond with more
empathy and compassion.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Definitely when we were working together. If I had something
happen with a friend that made me upset, I was
able to talk with him about that and he was
able to say, I understand why you're upset at this moment.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
What was that like for you to hear that, To
finally hear someone in your family say yeah, I understand
that you're feeling that way. It makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Fall pleasures, you know, yeah, I could take that moment
as this is a genuine experience in life.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
In your letter, you indicated you thought that what has
caused some of the emotional drifting between you is the
financial disparity or the change in his financial circumstance. Tell
us why you think that is what was under allowing
some of this change.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
What I see as what happened was when I had
my first child. Once that child went to childcare, we
were literally spending all of the money that we made
every month on living, child care and our lives. Literally
every dollar that we brought in went out to pay
for things. And so I think there was a time
(39:25):
period where if we were hanging out, you know, I
would say something like, yeah, we can't afford that kind
of a thing. And maybe some time went on like
that before I realized that Derek and Carroll, or Carol specifically,
was really annoyed. She was really annoyed that I would
(39:47):
talk about money like that in that way.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
In other words, they would say, hey, we went on
this vacation, or we bought such and.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Such, We would say, Oh, have you guys tried this
new restaurant. It's really you know, everybody's talking about and
it's really great. We went and it was really awesome,
and I would say, yeah, you know, we're not eating
at restaurants right now. We don't have the money. When
I realized that she was displeased with those kinds of comments,
(40:20):
it made me want to hang out with her less.
And it also made me hyper aware of the fact that, Okay,
I'm going to make an effort to not say those
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
What about how your brother would react.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I don't know that he was annoyed by it, but
what I noticed around that same time was that they
were often communicating about how they were spending so much money.
So the conversation would be, oh, yeah, we just went
to Hawaii for five weeks. It made me feel like,
(40:56):
are we not allowed to be honest with each other
in this relationship? I feel like if I communicate openly
about the things that I'm struggling with in life, that
those conversations are shot down, And you know, it's come
to the point where these people are acting like annoyed
with me.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
That sounds so familiar that when you would bring up
something that made other people uncomfortable as a child, they
would get annoyed with you. Yeah, And the other commonality
is that theme of exclusion that they are able to
live in this way. While you said twenty four to seven,
(41:39):
you're thinking about money and what you don't have and
your brother does have it, And I think that that
somehow brings up that very old feeling of he's in
and I'm out.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah. They have a lot of child's care, They have
a lot of family close by who takes care of
their children for them. They have a lot of freedom,
they have a lot of time to spend, they have
a lot of money. They just they have all these
things and we don't have those things.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
So are we talking about envy because I imagine when you
were young you felt very envious of your brother's position
in the family and what he was getting, even if
it had its problems.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
It certainly is envy. I mean envy in a way
that's like, yeah, I wish I had those things too.
I don't necessarily begrudge these people for having the things.
What I don't like is the way that they're treating me.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And that's the third part that's familiar is that when
you feel that, what you do is you have a
hard time addressing it and talking about it directly and
saying to your brother, can we please talk about the
tensions that happened between us when we talk about finances,
(43:02):
and you in caase what you have in my guess
what I don't. That's the other pattern that continues that
your response to that is to kind of close up
and withdraw.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Perhaps, Yeah, it's definitely what I'm doing is withdrawing from
the situation.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
What would you like to see happen if you were
able to talk to him? Meaning, what would you like
to see go differently? Maybe it's more about wanting your
brother to recognize that maybe this is hard for you.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yeah, I think certainly them recognizing that my life has
become much more difficult over the years while their lives
has become much easier. So I would like to see them, yeah,
be able to accept.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
That, accept that or acknowledge it.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Yeah, to acknowledge the fact that my life is much
more difficult now than it was before would be nice,
and to give some room in the relationship for the
fact that everything is not perfect in my life, and perhaps.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
To have some sensitivity to that that maybe you're not
the best audience for how fabulous Hawaii was, or you
must try the snee restaurant. Everyone's raving about it when
you're like, we're not trying with duns right now. To
have more sensitivity.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
To have some sensitivity would be great. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
And the other part of it that I think is
important is less about them and more about you, which
is you're not the child who's at the mercy of
what people in the family are deciding in terms of
who's in and who's out, and who gets something and
who doesn't get something, and who gets to go to
the school they want, and who doesn't get to go
to the school that they want. And I wonder if
(45:08):
you've internalized some of that messaging that you don't get
to have and so you don't try to have. In
other words, you kind of accept, well, my relationship isn't
where I want it to be, but oh well, and
we're really struggling with money, but oh well, as opposed
to really opening up your imagination to what might I
(45:34):
be able to do now that nobody's holding me back
to have the kind of relationship that I want to have.
What might need to happen there, or what might we
as a couple do to change our financial situation so
that we can have some of the things that maybe
(45:55):
we want, so that you're not always pressed up against
the glass saying, Oh, I'm stuck in here and my
brother has all these things that I want.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
I appreciate you saying that it's definitely some of those
things are things that I am addressing, and some of
those things are things that I had thought to address.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
We have this saying follow your envy. It tells you
what you want. And sometimes we don't like to acknowledge
our envy because we feel like it makes us small
or petty, but actually it helps us to get in
touch with our desires. It helps us to say I
want that. So when you were young and you wanted
what your brother had in some way, even though it
(46:38):
was dysfunctional in a different way, there was some elements
of it that you wanted.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, my brother seemed to have a healthy relationship with
my mother.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
What he had was her love in a way that
was different from her love for you.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
And now he.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
Has somebody that he's married to who seems to have
had so much trauma growing up, And I think that
on the one hand, you feel like that makes it
hard for her to connect with you or you to
connect with her. But on the other hand, I think
there might be some envy there that she's had it easier,
and that might make you put up some walls where
(47:18):
maybe there could be more of a relationship there it
feels better. And then you have your brother having more
help with the kids and more financial freedom, and maybe
there's a way that you could have a better relationship
and more financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, and so we think that there are ways perhaps
that you can shape off still some more of the
old habits and perspectives which were very paralyzing. And if
you're very helpless and realize that you can take certain
(47:55):
actions and speak up about certain things now in ways
that you truly agree in your childhood and even an
YOURNDI adults.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
So, Zoe, we have some advice for you, and it's
in a few parts. The first part is that we
would like you to have a conversation with your brother
in which you say to him, I feel this tension
between us now as adults, this distance that's growing between us,
(48:31):
and I think part of it has to do with
the fact that your life looks different from my life financially,
and I think that that's bringing up some old feelings
in me around exclusion and other experiences that I had
growing up. And I would love to be able to
(48:53):
talk with you because I think that it will help
me to feel closer to you, and it will will
help with some of this tension and distance that's going
on between us now, and then to really be able
to talk with him about what it was like when
(49:14):
you found out from your mom that they didn't want
a second child, and what it was like to see
that closeness that he had with your mom and at
the same time feeling like, but I also want a
relationship with my brother, and even as an adult, really
wanting a relationship with him, and how a lot of.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
That is coming up again because you're seeing this difference
and it sort of magnified something that you feel like
would maybe not feel so big if you could talk
about some of these things that you've never talked about,
because he's really the only other person that was there.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
The second part of that conversation with there, it is
to say and I do want to address to find
outential difference between us because right now. I think it's
a point of tension that you guys talk about what
you do and we talk about what we can't do
(50:13):
as a response. But I think there's room for both.
I think there's room for us to be excited for
you about the things that you can do, about your
trip to Hawaii and the great new restaurant you tried,
and there's room at the same time for you guys
to be compassionate toward us and sympathetic that we're not
in that place where we can do those things. The
(50:35):
two can exist together, and I think we've kind of
been dancing around it and feeling tense about how do
you talk about your lives without upsetting us and how
do we talk about hours without upsetting you? But there's
room for both, and perhaps we can agree that we
can be supportive and excited for you, and that you
guys can be sympathetic to us, that those things can
(50:58):
happen at the same time.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Maybe if there was a little bit more acknowledgement, because
when we were growing up, there was not a lot
of acknowledgment around my pain, that if there's a little
bit more acknowledgment that we are in different situations it
would free me up to truly be excited and happy
for you.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
And the last part is we would like you and
your husband to find a low fee clinic, which is
much easier to do these days because it doesn't have
to be something that's geographically possible because of Zoom. But
there are in many teaching institutions, universities, all kinds of
(51:41):
low fee clinics, and you would like you to find
one that does couple's therapy, and if your husband would agree,
because we think you do need a facilitator to help
you talk and for you to feel safe, because we
think that's quite important that you can talk together, not
just about the relationship, but what changes can you make
in your lives to gain a little bit more financial
(52:04):
breathing room than you have at the moment.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
Yeah, there was this sense as a child, because it
was true that you were trapped by those circumstances. You
might feel more comfortable in the old story, but we
want to help you to feel more comfortable moving into
this newer.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Place wonderful and so we look forward to hearing how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
So this was one of those sessions where it seemed
like the issue was about money and it is, but
there was so much from the past to unpack as well,
and we gave her a lot to do in terms
of opening up those conversations, and that might be a
little hard for her to do.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
And we always find that money is such an uncomfortable
topic for people to address, and so I think, both
for her and maybe for her brother, that might be
difficult to actually talk about. But I do hope that
they at least talk about the relationship, or at least
start to communicate in some deeper way, because I think
that would be very useful for her.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
And one of the things that happens when you start
looking at opening up a conversation with somebody close to
you is you might start looking at the other relationships
around you, like we did with her husband, And I
really hope that she follows through and is able to
open up a conversation with her husband so that she
(53:38):
can focus on that relationship as well. The issue with
her brother doesn't supersede this really important work that it
seems like she has to do in her marriage.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
So it'll be interesting to see if once she has
one of those conversations, whether that gives her confidence to
be able to have the other you're listening to deo
therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after a quick break.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
So we heard that from Zoe, and we asked her
to have two difficult conversations, the first with her brother
and the second with her husband. So let's hear how
they went.
Speaker 6 (54:27):
So I didn't make the call right away because I
was so anxious.
Speaker 5 (54:32):
I did allow some time to pass, which allowed me
to really process my own experience.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Which was good.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
So when I talk to him, we had, you know,
our standard chat at first, which has really made up
all of the time that we have spent together. I
would say over the last probably two years, has been
just standard chat small talk, which I feel like small
talk just makes me feel small all But anyway, our
(55:03):
conversation was able to go to a very open and
honest and vulnerable place, which was really wonderful. We talked
for about two hours and I was able to speak
with my brother about my own experience of childhood, and
(55:29):
he definitely had a few moments where he was like, yeah,
you were ridiculously emotional, which could not make me feel good.
But I was able to be clear with him and
let him know, yeah, I'm an emotional person like to me,
(55:50):
my superpower is having very strong emotions about things. So
we were able to talk about or experienceeriences in childhood,
and he tried to make it clear to me that
he was equally unhappy about our childhood as I was.
(56:16):
After I had the conversation, I felt a huge load
off of my shoulders. I mean, I realized that my
brother I was just doing the best that he can
and honestly, to hear him talk about how difficult.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Life is for him.
Speaker 7 (56:39):
You know, he still very deeply carries the scars of
his childhood and they really affect his day to day life.
It made me happy that he was able to be
honest with me. I feel like, for so long he
puts on this smiling, happy face every time I see him,
(57:03):
and I just.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
Feel like it's I feel like it's bony.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
I feel like it's fake.
Speaker 5 (57:08):
And so to have him be real with me and
tell him what his real experience of life is, that
felt really good.
Speaker 3 (57:16):
With my partner.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
You know, it's really the first time that we sat
down and had lunch together, probably was the day after
we've had this conversation in the past where I say,
you know, I really think that we need to have
professional help, and we've both agreed that it's a good
idea and that we should do it, but we haven't
done it. So there's a lot of fear involved with
(57:39):
just sort facing this issue. But I had a conversation
with him and went, well, you know, he he's open
to the idea.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I perhaps even saw a flicker of excitement over the prospect.
There's a little bit of a sort of a sunny possibility,
like we could have a better life. So yeah, I
am happy that we.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Are doing this thing right now.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
So it feels good to be like we're both on
the same pie.
Speaker 5 (58:19):
There is a possibility of something good happening.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
It's different in our lives.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
So when Zoe says that small talk makes her feel small,
it's because she is yearning to feel that connection. And
connection does not happen with small talk. It happens with
meaningful conversation, with actually talking about the relationship between you.
And I'm glad she's uncomfortable with small talk, and I'm
(58:50):
glad that she feels like she doesn't want that anymore
with her brother, because she really does need to connect
with him, And it sounds like they took a good
first step in that direction.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, and I'm glad that she stood her ground and
was able to say to her brother, feelings are my superpower.
The fact that I can feel things is a strength
of mind, and to reframe that and to use that
as a starting point for these conversations. They didn't get
to the money part of the conversation, and I think
(59:23):
that's okay, because right now, what was important was they
started to acknowledge the reality of their childhoods. I think
will give them some common ground from which to have
these other conversations that bring them up to the present.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
And it was so encouraging to hear that when she
spoke to her husband about going to therapy, she saw
that spark of excitement in him, because it's so important
that he be on board with the work she has
to do. When somebody's been through a lot of trauma,
there's a lot of healing they need to do, and
it's wonderful that she can work on that with somebody
(59:59):
safe like her husband, who knows her, who loves her.
That will make that work easier for her to do.
And at the same time, she found her voice with
her brother as well. And I think that finding your
voice and then starting to use your voice is always
the first step when you're trying to heal.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Next week, our fellow traveler is haunted by the ghost
of his last relationship as he tries to move on
with a new partner.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
It's really hard for me to.
Speaker 8 (01:00:30):
Open up to him because every time in the past
that I've opened up about my feelings, it's either ben
met with rejection or met with OCD. So it's really
hard for me to trust that I can have a
safe person to open up to.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Bigo Smooth, email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
are Doric Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
We can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.