Encore: S04 Ep10 - Stephanie’s Mother’s Judgment

This week, we’re in session with Stephanie and her mother, Rona, who hasn’t forgiven her daughter for something that happened twenty-five years ago. We help them acknowledge the hurt they caused each other and find a new path forward. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Laurie 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 (00:10):
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 Dea Therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Each week we invite you into a real session where
we help people confront the problems in their lives and
then give them actionable advice and have them report back
to let us know what happened when they did what
we suggested.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
So sit back and welcome to today's session.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
This week, a mother and daughter who've been emotionally distant
for the past twenty five years try to heal the
wounds of the past.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
From the moment she said she didn't want us to
be involved in the adoption process, I found that Sephanie
was rejecting me, and as things have gone on for
the past years, I felt like she doesn't approve of me,
and so I've just distanced myself.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
First A quick Noteotherapists is for informational purposes only. It
does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is not
a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia
use it in part or in 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 guests.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Hey Laurie, Hey guy, So what are we going to
be talking about today?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Today we have a letter about a mother daughter relationship.
They're both going to be here. The letter came from
the daughter, and here it is deotherapists. I became pregnant
and placed my baby for adoption when I was nineteen
years old. I was in the second year of college
and didn't feel I was able to raise a child

(01:49):
well at that time of my life. The adoption was open,
and while I don't have a particularly close relationship with her,
we've been working to deepen our adult relationship and I
feel that's going well. My mother, Rona, loves my daughter
and has a good relationship with her. However, she has
never been able to forgive me for getting pregnant out
of wedlock. At one point, about ten years ago, she

(02:11):
told me it was the worst thing I could have
done to her. This was despite my other successes in life,
a fulfilling career as a teacher, close friends, a paid
off house, and a generally good life. I visit her
and my father a few times a year, and while
from my perspective, she trials to hold it together when
I visit, most visits results in her yelling at me,

(02:33):
whether it's about the fact that I got pregnant twenty
five years ago or other small things which I suspect
are precipitated by her lingering anger. I think we would
both like to have a closer relationship but this isn't
possible for me while there's this tension between us. Please
help Stephanie. But of note, Laurie is our producer just
notified us that a week ago the father passed away.

(02:56):
Now they're still coming on the show. The mother and
daughter of expressed interest in doing that, but we wanted
to point out that this big thing just happened and
we'll need to take that into consideration.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
First of all, my condolence is to the family, and
I think it's interesting that they're both still eager and
interested in coming on today because we offered to put
this off and they both wanted to still come on
and talk about this, So I imagine that this has been
so much in the foreground for both of them and
something that they've really wanted to deal with for a
long time.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Exactly, and yet they haven't been able to repair this
rupture in twenty five years. So I'm curious about why
that hasn't happened. We have a lot of questions, and
probably the best thing to do is let's go talk
to them.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll
be back after a short break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
And I'm Guy Wench, and this is Dear Therapists. Hello,
Rona and Stephanie.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Hi, Rona and Stephanie, Welcome.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
You would like to start with our condolences and we're
all very honored that you're able to join us today
despite what happened, and we'd like to hear a little
bit about where you both are right now given the
events of last week.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
My husband has been sick for years. It's an autoimmune
that is progressive and it seems to have flared maybe
two weeks before he died. He was in the hospital
for a week before he died. Stephanie was able to
get home before he died, so it was not unexpected,

(04:44):
but it's still difficult.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
And for you, Stephanie, what has this been like.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
I didn't realize how much worse it was getting They
called me early last week and I was able to
get on a plane and was there. He wasn't really
talking or anything. By the time I at the hospital,
I was able to say goodbye and be there for
the last few hours. You know, those first few days
are really hard, and then I have so many amazing
friends and family sending out their club and thoughts, and
I think I'm a little bit numb and not really

(05:13):
completely processing it sometimes. You know, for a few days
I just kind of cried a lot. And now it's
like I've had so many family around and it's actually
been kind of nice spend time with them. And I
think it's going to get harder again when I go home.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Have you and your mom been able to support each
other through this?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yes, I have felt her support and Rona.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Stephanie said that a lot of friends and family have
been coming out, which is great. Do you have a
support system in place for when Stephanie leaves?

Speaker 3 (05:38):
I do For the moment, I'm actually looking forward to
some alone time. But I have a great network of friends,
and we have a lot of family in the area.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
And Stephanie, you're going back home, do you have a
support system there?

Speaker 4 (05:53):
I do. My partner drove out to meet me and
we were driving back together. And then I have lots
and lots of friends who've asked what they can do,
and I made a list actually the people who've alveard.
And I have a friend who's already like, hey, I'll
be creating back Friday night, let's hang out. And I
feel very fortunate to have that too.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's good. So tell us a little bit about what
your relationship has been like from early on before the
pregnancy happened.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
I mean, I feel like we had a reasonable relationship.
I wasn't always the easiest team, but I feel like
we had a fairly good relationship. We bake cookies together,
and she was very welcome to my friends.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
We got along.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And wonder what was your perception of the early years
with Stephanie.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I always felt like her father was the better parent.
I was kind of the heavy in the relationship.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
The disciplinarian as it were.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, but yeah, we got along, you know, somebody turned
a switch when she turned thirteen, and I couldn't wait
till she went to college. She turned seventeen, and I
was kind of hoping she'd stick around for a little while.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
What was the change? Thirteen?

Speaker 3 (07:01):
She was more secretive. She had bad taste in boys,
and that was always a difficult thing.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Can you tell us about the boys and what the
bad taste was about? In your opinion?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
She went after the how should I say? Naughty boys?
Boys who were more wild? And I've heard from others
that this is not unusual, especially for teenagers like Stephanie,
who feel like they can reform these young men.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Would you get into conflicts around her choice of boys?
What would happen between the two of you.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
We really didn't argue about it. Her dad and I
both felt like if we forbid this, it would not
do any good. At one time, she said to somebody,
my parents liked all of my boyfriends, and there were
some that made us shrug.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
There's a difference, though, between forbidding that she sees someone
and having a conversation about, Hey, can we talk about
some of the boys you're hanging out with? Did you
ever have those conversations.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
At least with one I could recall a conversation and
she would say to me, but he's so sweet.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Stephanie. From your perspective, you said you weren't the easiest teenager.
What did you mean by that?

Speaker 4 (08:23):
I guess it didn't even mean so much that I
was harder than others. Most teenagers are not easy to
deal with for their parents. I did what I was
supposed to, and I got good grades, and I was
active in band, and I have lots of friends, and
a lot of the guys I dated came from homes
that maybe weren't nearly a support of his mind, but
they were good people. From my perspective. My parents were

(08:44):
pretty judgmental about who I dated, and the people I
think they wanted me a date weren't as good end
quotes as they thought they were. A lot of the
people that seemed more straight laced were going on and
partying and drinking a lot and things like that, which
I didn't do at all. I didn't drink alcohol at
all in high school, or drugs or anything like that.

(09:06):
And the guys I dated, you know, someone that smoked cigarettes,
but they would never have let me smoke or drink
or those things because they knew that was bad for them.
I have one boyfriend whose dad locked in a closet
and forced him to spoke a pack of cigarettes to
try to make him stop, and then he was addicted.
He said, So, from my perspective, these weren't bad kids.
They weren't doing anything bad to me. They were never abusive,

(09:28):
they were never unkind.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
So did you feel, then, because you knew that your
parents disapproved of these boys, that you had to hide
the fact that you were seeing them or was this
all out in the open?

Speaker 4 (09:40):
I mean, the only thing I hid was things I
did that went beyond kissing. I'm sure I wasn't completely
truthful everywhere I went, but generally I didn't hide that
I was dating them.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
So then what happened when he went to college, Because
that's when you said, do you go pregnant? Tell us
about what happened around that.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
I went to college and I slept with someone for
the first time, And whenever I think back, it's like, oh,
how could I have been so irrational? But I was
afraid my mom would find out I was on birth control,
and so I wasn't on birth control of any kind,
not even condoms, which was just dumb. In retrospect, that's
so illogical. But I don't know how she would have
even found out necessarily, not trying to blame it on her.
That was my thought process. And then I got.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Pregnant, and tell us what happened once you did.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
I had just actually broken up with the he had
been my boyfriend for several months and I was dating
somebody new, and I took the pregnancy test at that
point of or it's not an option, and so I
was going to place the child for adoption. And it
was an easy choice. Really. People say they must been
a difficult choice, but it wasn't. It was like, well,
this is obviously the thing to do. And my new
partner was very, very supportant, and he stayed with me

(10:40):
through the whole pregnancy, and I chose her parents.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
And the baby's father, yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Her biological father wanted nothing to do with anything. We
still were in classes together, but we weren't really speaking
to each other much. He gave the paperwork to the
adoption agency with like the medical history and stuff, and
that was the extent of it.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
So he wasn't really support you through the pregnancy.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
Not at all. I had a new partner who was
amazingly supportive. I think of Danielle as having a biological father,
a birth father, and adoptive father.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
So the new boyfriend supported you throughout the pregnancy, and
you stayed in college and you took your classes. Yes,
and you had the baby. What year of college were
you at that point?

Speaker 4 (11:21):
It was my second year. I had her this summer
after my sophomore year.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
How did you tell your parents? Tell us about that conversation.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
I was terrified to tell my parents. My parents came
to visit me for a weekend while I was in college,
and we were sitting around eating and I was talking
about my stomach kind of not feeling well, and it
felt better when I ate, And then Mom asked me
if I was pregnant, and I said.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yes, Ronnick, How did that come to your mind, the
first thing, that she might be pregnant, as opposed to
just she's got food poisoning or isn't feeling well.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
I suppose that was always something I was afraid of.
I probably did not discuss sex as much with her
as I should have, but I thought she would be
responsible enough to use contraception.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
So tell us what was it like for you? For
your husband to hear the news. How you felt about it?

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Actually, as I remember it, I kind of jokingly made
that remark when we were out eating, and she, as
I recall, she didn't indicate positively. Then she called and
talked to her dad in the hotel room. That's how
I remember it. Then she came over. You know, at
that point, her dad and I were not opposed to abortion,

(12:32):
but she was, and that was fine. That was not
something that we were going to push on her at all.
So she came over. I took her to the grocery
store to pick out some foods that helped me because
I had had a lot of morning sickness when I
was pregnant. That's probably how it just entered my mind.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
So you kind of snapped into supportive mode of taking
a shop and getting her the right foods to help
with the morning sickness.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yes, and what was going on for you and your
husband as you were digesting this news.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
The first thing we did was make an appointment with
the adoption agency and we went and discussed things with them,
my husband and I did. At that point, we made
an appointment for the three of us, and this probably
is when things started deteriorating for me because we told
Stephanie that we had made that appointment, and she said

(13:27):
she didn't want us to do that. She wanted to
do it herself.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Stephanie, can you tell us what happened for you?

Speaker 4 (13:34):
I feel like that was when my mom was most supportive.
That was always supportive, But mom, I do remember her
taking me grocery shopping, and I remember she sowed maternity
clothesman because that's something she could do. I don't remember
anything about the adoption agency when I hear that they
went first, like I should be the one to go
there and make that appointment. In retrospect, I really don't
remember anything other than going there by myself, so I

(13:57):
don't know all the details perfectly.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Can I ask how you felt about being pregnant.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
I didn't want to be, but it was clear what
the path was, and then it was like, I'm doing this.
Someone else is going to have a wonderful child, and
I've got decent genetics, so that's good too.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
I guess what I'm asking is, did you worry at
all about what your other classmates would think and your peers,
because you know, most people were at a different stage.
They were just going through college, And did you worry
about how you might feel when somebody else is going
to raise the baby. How did all those things sit

(14:37):
with you while you were going through the pregnancy.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
I didn't worry about what other people would think. I
was in a fairly liberal school in a small department,
so everyone was really supportive. My professors, my peers, they
were wonderful. My partner was wonderful. I don't think I'm
as maternal instinctually as a lot of people, so I
didn't feel super sad about it. My partner and I

(15:00):
had planned on getting married and having children at some point.
We hadn't talked about the specifics, and we end up
breaking up later. But yeah, I just I didn't feel
that sad.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Your mom said the beginning of the deterioration happened when
they went to the adoption agency and they got rebuffed
and told you wanted to go. But what was your
experience about when the problems began, or when it became
clear that this is not just a supportive thing for
your mom, but she's having issues with it.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
What I remember is when she told me I wasn't
allowed to tell anybody in the family that I was pregnant,
and she was like, you're not going to come home
while you're pregnant because nobody should know.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
And how did you feel about that, that this is
to be now hidden or a secret or something shameful?

Speaker 4 (15:43):
I certainly didn't feel good. Again, my partner's family was
very supportive, and so that I just kind of let
myself be surrounded by that family and my friends. And
it's not like I talked to my cousins on a
regular basis or anything. I was the kind of kid,
for the most part, who did with their parents told
them to, and I kind of was just doing that.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Again, I guess, did you understand why your mom wanted
you to keep this secret?

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (16:08):
I mean I know she was very ashamed the fact
that I got pregnant, or that's what I assume I
shouldn't say. I know how she feels.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Do you want to ask her right now how she
felt at that time, since for twenty five years you've
never asked her that. Yeah, go ahead and ask her.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
How did you feel?

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Mom? That was something that was unacceptable in my family
as I was growing up. Not that it never happened,
but it was something that my parents would have been
extremely upset about.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
The sex out of wedlock or the getting pregnant. I mean,
obviously one requires the other.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well, for them, probably the sex out of wedlock. For me,
it was the irresponsibility of not using contraception. For me,
that was the unacceptable part. And at that point, both
of my parents had died, so it was thing they
would have been ashamed of.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
And Sephanie, continue asking your mom about how she felt
and what she envisioned, because there's a lot there. She's
saying that her parents would have been really upset by that,
but they weren't alive at that point. So maybe find
out from your mom who she was most concerned about.
If would get out, what that would do.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
I get the sense, mom, that you were ashamed that
I got pregnant. That was what it was about. Who
are the people you were ashamed of?

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Find out your grandmother, my siblings, and perhaps as much
as anything, it would be a reflection on me.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
What would it say about you that I.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Hadn't been responsible in discussing these things with her.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
That you didn't raise her right? Yes?

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, in this particular point, yes, I mean she is
a wonderful person and she has so many good qualities,
and we are proud of her.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
It feels like this is the only thing that matters
when it comes to how you feel about me.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I think I've gotten over that. To tell you the truth,
I'll tell you what bothers me, because I've thought about
this a lot. What bothers me is that you have
never said to me that you made a mistake. I
can forgive a mistake, but I get the feeling that

(18:30):
you don't think you made a mistake.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think I've been very clear that I made that mistake,
and then I did the best I could in that situation.
Maybe I didn't say that directly to you.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Your grandmother and I were out to visit you, and
she looked at the picture of Danielle and she hadn't
known who.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
She was, and she said she wished she would.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Have yes, and she did get to meet her. But
I said, in your defense, you made a mistake, and
you turned and said no.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
I heard that as saying that Danielle was a mistake
instead of that I made a mistake, because I have
been very upfront with anyone I talked to, saying that
I made a mistake and I did the best I could,
and I think you know this is that she has
wonderful parents and is a wonderful human. I think I
heard that differently when you said it, because I've always
admitted that was idiotic. I mean to that unprotected sex

(19:24):
and expect not to get pregnant.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
And just stupid.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Clearly that's a mistake, but I don't want to say
that Danielle is a mistake.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
That's not what I was saying.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
I'm just saying that. I think I heard that differently
because it was a mistake to get pregnant, but to
call a human a mistake, it is not okay, Rona.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
What does that do for you to hear Stephanie say
I made a mistake by not using contraception. How does
that help you with your shame?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
I think I've gotten over the shame. It makes me
feel good to hear her say that. A along from
the moment she said she didn't want want us to
be involved in the adoption process, I felt that Stephanie
was rejecting me, and as things have gone on for

(20:09):
the past years, I felt like she doesn't approve of me,
and so I've just distanced myself.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
What's so interesting is that that's such a mutual feeling
you both have that each doesn't approve of the other.
You feel Rona that Sephanie doesn't approve of you because
you felt pushed away when you were trying to help,
and Stephanie you felt very judged by your mom. And

(20:37):
so you each have had your feelings hurt by the
other and felt pushed away and felt like the other
doesn't approve of how you handled the situation, which it
sounds like you were mostly on the same page about.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
I think the biggest difference is that she wouldn't let
me tell any of the family.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Were you able to express that to her at the time,
about what that meant for you able to have that conversation.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
I didn't know how to have that conversation then. I
wasn't that emotionally intelligent back then.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Don't tell her now how what that was like, having
that edict come down that you may not tell anyone.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
I was so incredibly hurtful to be hidden, being sent
off away, like I didn't count as a person anymore
because I was pregnant and so grateful I had my
partner's family to take me in. I spent holidays with them,
and then for Danielle to be a secret. It ate

(21:32):
at me more and more. How can this human be
a secret? She has this family and that's not okay?
And finally I thought about putting the pictures away because
Mom was coming out and she was bringing Grandma. I'm like, no,
I refuse. There's this point of like, I am not
doing this anymore. This is not okay, and I am
going to make sure that she's no longer a secret.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
How old was Danielle when she was no longer a secret?

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Six or seven?

Speaker 3 (21:56):
I think it was more like four.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
But for several years she was a secret. Yes, Stephanie,
can you tell your mom now what it was like
to have Danielle be a secret and how it made
you feel towards your mom?

Speaker 4 (22:14):
It just felt so wrong, and I was probably ashamed
of myself that I had allowed that to happen. I mean, yeah,
I made one mistake, but that's one mistake that has
some lots of people make, and I did the best
I could from there on, and that doesn't seem to
account for anything.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
That's how it felt in whose eyes?

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Moms? Just moms.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
Everyone else I've ever interacted with has been so supportive,
and I've been told so many times by so many
of my friends how much they admire what I did.
Mom is the only one in my life who's ever
been negative about it. I feel angry on Danielle's.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Behalf, what about on yours?

Speaker 4 (22:54):
And I guess I'm mind too. You guess I haven't
thought about it like that, but I'm definitely been angry
about it. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
I thought it was interesting that you said that you
can't understand her being ashamed of a human, and you
were referring to Danielle, but I think you're also saying
I can't understand her being ashamed of me.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Can you talk more about that to her? Can you
let her know what that's like, because it seems like
underneath all of this, you and your mom really love
each other, and this created so much pain and rejection
on both sides. Can you tell her how rejected you felt,

(23:37):
what it felt like to feel like she was ashamed
of you, even though you'd been such a good kid
your whole life.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Mom so incredibly hurtful. I feel like the only thing
that matters in my entire life is this one decision
I made when I was eighteen.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
It feels like.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
Nothing else matters, and that's so incredibly hurtful. I feel
like you're ashamed of me. I feel what makes mistakes
and I feel like you can't forgive me for this
one mistake.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
Roh.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
No, what is it like to hear that from her?
And I want you to think about it, not in
terms of defending yourself, but more just imagining her experience,
because her experience might be different from yours, but just
knowing that that is her experience. What is it like
for you to know that your daughter feels that way.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
I'm sorry that she talked to her. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry I gave you that impression. It took me years
to come to terms with my feelings about it. And
apparently I have not let you.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Know when you're saying, apparently I have not let you know.
Had you thought you had let her know?

Speaker 3 (24:58):
No, we have had very few chances to talk, just
the two of us. It seems like we would get
started on something and something would interrupt.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Who did you feel was the one creating distance between
the two of you? Did you experience it as Stephanie
pushing you away or as you pushing her? Like who
was taking distance from home? In your eyes?

Speaker 3 (25:24):
I felt she was pushing me away. Therefore I pushed back.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Why did you not try to initiate the conversation with
Stephanie to say, hey, let's figure this out.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
You know, as time went on, more and more in
my family were aware of her, met her. Maybe I
felt there was progress.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Are you saying that the fears that you had about
what would happen if your family knew that she had
had Danielle didn't come to pass? Meaning people embrace Danielle,
people brace Stephanie, that your fears didn't come true.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
I A would say they were less judgmental. Yeah, it
was freeing for me.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
And did you let Stephanie know that you were feeling
differently about it because people were finding out and the
sky wasn't fooling?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
No? Not in so many words, I guess I assumed
that she would think that was so right.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Often, when we see issues, especially between parents and their
adult children, they have so many similarities even though they
feel like they're very, very different. And the similarity here
is that you Rona wanted Stephanie to say, hey, listen,

(26:47):
I made a mistake by not using contraception. Not Danielle's
a mistake, but I made a mistake by not being
responsible when I was having sex, and you, Stephanie, I
wanted your mother to acknowledge her mistake too, which is
I made a mistake by trying to hide something that

(27:09):
was not shameful. I made a mistake by making you
feel ashamed of having this baby, which is not shameful.
And neither of you is saying that the other person
has said directly, I made this particular mistake, because you
both acknowledge that you made those mistakes. You, Stephanie said,

(27:33):
I don't feel like Danielle is a mistake. But I
made a mistake by not using contraception. I wasn't responsible.
And Rona, you're saying I made a mistake by being
ashamed of something that turned out not to be something
to be ashamed of. And I wonder if maybe you
guys could do that now, maybe Rona, you could start.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
I'm sorry, Stephanie that it took me so long to
realize that I should not have been ashamed of you.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Can you tell her you made a mistake.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
I made a mistake in not telling you sooner.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
But the mistake also was I made a mistake in
hiding you. It was bad judgment on my part, Can
you tell her that because that seems to be the
way you feel now.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
I don't know that I was capable of dealing it
with it. I wish I could have been more supportive.
I wish I did not feel that way, but I've
been working at coming to terms with it. I say
to myself, I wish Stephanie had never gotten pregnant. I

(28:54):
love my granddaughter. I'm so glad she's in the world.
And that's my conflict.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Why at this point do you wish that she had
never gotten pregnant? How has that affected your life Stephanie's life,
Because it seems like Stephanie's doing pretty well in life.
She seems quite happy.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
She is a wonderful person. She's very successful. She's excellent
at her work. I've watched her. I have great admiration
for that. I tell people how proud I am of her.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
But she also seems to feel whole as a person. Yes,
So why do you wish that she hadn't gotten pregnant
given how it turned out?

Speaker 3 (29:40):
That's my conundrum.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Well, let me suggest something to you, Rona. The part
that you're not talking about at all, but it was
extremely present for you at the time was that when
you're saying to Stephanie, I don't want people to know
that you're pregnant, and you're trying to keep that from family,
who you assumed at the time, based on your upbringing,

(30:04):
that people would be extremely judgmental, that people would look
at Stephanie very very differently, that they would look at
you very very differently, that they would judge you as
her parent because she got pregnant. That was the fear
that you had. And the part that you don't talk

(30:24):
about is that when there's a secret, even if the
secret is being kept for a little bit of time,
you still walk around with shame. You still walk around
with a worry of if they found out, they would
treat me differently, they would look at me differently. So
the fact that you tried to keep the secret didn't
mean that you weren't impacted by it, that you weren't

(30:46):
feeling shameful yourself. As you said about that, I'm the
mother here, so it must have been a mess on
my part. That's what people are going to think. I
think that's the difficulty that made it hard for you
to reckon Sile and makes it still hard for you
to reconcile those two things you're not adding in the
piece about the personal consequence to you in your feelings

(31:08):
for many years.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
I think you're right. I did feel it was shame
for me. It was a shortfall on my part.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
You told me in the card just a couple of
days ago. You raise your children the best you can,
then you send them off so they can do what
they want, and you can't be responsible that anymore. And
I feel like you're taking reverse responsibility for something the
choice I made. But that's not your fault.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
It's definitely what you're missing here is that your mum
had said she had those fears that people would find
out and be very judgmental. And the part that I
was highlighting is she walked around with those fears for
a very very long time. That was a consequence for her.
It wasn't your responsibility, but there was a consequence for

(31:51):
her again in her head, in her feelings, that played
out for many years. And that's an and not your responsibility,
not your fault, but it's important for you to acknowledge
that that was a consequence for her regardless even though
it wasn't your fault. Do you see that?

Speaker 4 (32:10):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Can you acknowledge that to her?

Speaker 4 (32:13):
I can see how that was very difficult for you.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
More thank you.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
This is the first time, Stephanie, that you're saying that.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, it's hard for me to separate her feelings and
the consequences for her from the like value judgment of
Danielle's life. I've never said that because until you said that,
I guess I didn't really separate her feelings of shame
from a logical truth, perhaps right, because I don't think
she should have felt shame. I don't want her to

(32:41):
feel shame about Danielle. Then I'd never thought of it
in terms of just the absolute her feelings.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
And this is where it makes it hard for the
two of you to connect, because it's hard to separate
out one thing from the other, so for you to
really understand her experience. At that time, she's not saying
that Danielle is shameful. She's saying I felt that I

(33:12):
had been a bad mother, or that other people would
think that I had been a bad mother because you
got pregnant and didn't use contraception. And that has nothing
to do with Danielle. That has to do with Wow,
I really tried my best. It was really important to me.

(33:35):
I think your mom took great pride in being mother,
and every parent makes mistakes, but I think what's really
hard is for parents to say, I might have made
a mistake. And this doesn't mean that the fact that
you got pregnant was something your mom did wrong, but
in her mind, that's where she went with it. That

(33:58):
I should have talked to her more about this. We
didn't really talk about sex. Maybe I should have had
more conversations with her. Maybe I should have been more
hands on about the people she was dating. Who doesn't
instruct her daughter well about contraception. So that was what
your mom's experience was, and at that age it's very

(34:18):
hard to see, especially given everything you had on your
plate at the time. But I wonder if now twenty
five years later, you can imagine what that must have
felt like for your mom walking around in her community,
in her era and her generation and the way she

(34:40):
was brought up, that that had a personal impact on her. Again,
as guy was saying, not your responsibility, not your fault,
but just that she did have this experience and maybe
she needs that acknowledge too. Oh, I have compassion for
what my mom was going through at the time. I
made choices that were very hurtful to me, but I

(35:03):
understand that they came from this place of inner turmoil
that must have been very very painful for her.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Yeah, it's so conflated with my own feelings of being
all that hurt. But that makes sense that I need
to figure out a way to have more of a sense.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Of that they're both there. It doesn't mean that you
didn't feel and don't feel hurt by what happened, right, Yeah,
it means and in addition to the hurt, I have
some compassion for what she was going through. That was
a very very difficult time in her life too.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Intellectually, that makes a lot of sense. I think to
really feel it, I need to do a little work
to get there. But I'm certain I can.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Look. You both need to do a little bit of
work to get there, because this is one of those
situations where both of you have very complicated, strong feelings
about one and about the situation. And some of those
feelings are warm and positive, and your mum admires you
and respects you and thinks the world of you. On

(36:10):
the one hand, there's this one thing that she feels
so differently about, or felt so differently about, and you
felt supported initially and then you felt so rejected and
so alienated. And even then you can see no, I
know she's trying. She has a good relationship with Danielle.
It's very very mixed. And when we're not used to

(36:31):
sitting with that contradiction of feeling very warmly on the
one hand, very hurt on the other for many years,
it really feels like I have to make a choice.
It's either or when it's both. And what happened with
the two of you is that you experience the more
challenging feelings as pushing each of you away from the

(36:53):
other person, and then you missed the wish to connect
or the wish that things had been different, And you
need to spot that going forward because both those things
are going to be there.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, I was curious about one thing. How do you
talk about Danielle together? Are you able to delight and
to bund around her or is that fraud as well?

Speaker 3 (37:20):
I think it's great. I mean she's a wonderful young woman.
Or proud of her. We've always had a good relationship
with her and her parents and her younger brother we
consider our grandson too.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Is that something you feel brings you a little bit
closer when you talk about Danielle? I think, so, what
about you, Stephanie.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
I feel like there's always that layer of this shouldn't
have happened. Perhaps I'm just so sensitized because we've had
so many arguments about it, but it doesn't feel just
one hundred percent positive. I guess I feel the judgment
from her so often on so many conversations.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
In your letter, you say that this still comes up
all the time, and I'm wondering, how does it.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
The last time that I remembered it was really bad
was a few years ago and I was going to
Norway and I was going to visit family anyway. She
just started yelling at me, and then she said, you're
not even sorry about Danielle. And that was just a
few years ago.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Rona, were you upset that she was going to Norway?

Speaker 3 (38:26):
I have no recollection of this conversation. I was thrilled
she was going to Norway. I was a little upset
when she was thinking about seeing her father's relatives at
Norway and not mine.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
I didn't get any response from your relatives. We were
out of the back porch, and you told me how
upset you were about Danielle and that I wasn't even
sorry about it. I talked to my best friend about
it right afterward.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
This is what we call kitchen sinc fighting. One issue
comes up where somebody is upset about something, and then
they bring up all the old arguments. But you're not
really talking about the one thing that's right in front
of you, which is you're not seeing my relatives. And
I think what that brought up for both of you

(39:12):
was the core of the Danielle argument, which is not
about Danielle, but it's about you, Stephanie. Are not seeing
my relatives. Now you might have had good reasons. You
said you tried to contact them, it doesn't matter. From
your mom's point of view, she felt hurt that you

(39:35):
were not seeing her relatives. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe
there was again that how does this look? Or you
don't respect me, or whatever came up for her around
the fact that you were seeing your dad's relatives and
not hers, And so it went to that core of
and how could you not use contraception? And for you, Stephanie,
it went to the same place, which was she's blaming

(40:01):
me for something that I should not be blamed for.
And that's the argument you guys have a lot. I'm
displeasing mom, I feel blamed. I don't feel I should
be blamed for this. And the reason that this keeps
coming up is because you haven't really resolved what happened

(40:24):
with Danielle, which was your mom said, I just want
you to acknowledge that you made a mistake not using contraception,
and you're saying to your mom, I just want you
to acknowledge that the way you handle this hurt me
deeply and that you made a mistake by handling it
that way.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Well, I want to ask you something in this Norway example.
I know you don't remember getting upset, but clearly your
feelings were hurt because you were like, she got in
touch with my husband's family but not with mine, regardless
of the why. Right now, I'm just curious about how
easy or difficult you find it to express it to

(41:01):
Stephanie when your feelings are hurt. Is that something you
struggle to do to acknowledge my feelings are hurt by
that and to say that rather than to go to anger.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
I consider myself a rational person. I was hurt that
she wasn't seeing my family, and she did end up
seeing my family and I was very happy about that.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
What I'm asking Rona is are you able to say
to Stephanie, Hey, I'm the hurt that you're going all
the way there. I have family there and you're not
going to see them. That's something you struggle to say.
You acknowledge it to yourself, but you don't express it
to Stephanie. Instead, you get angry. And I'm wondering if
part of why you don't express it is what you

(41:47):
said a moment ago, which is I'm a rational person,
and often people who think of themselves as rational people
don't like to feel too emotional, and they don't like
to own that their feelings are hurt a lot of
the time because sometimes that's not rational. And I'm curious
about whether that's something you would feel comfortable doing saying
to Stephanie, hey, you know what, this hurt my feelings,

(42:09):
To be honest with you, would you feel comfortable saying
something like that to Stephanie.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
I would have to think about it because I'm always
afraid of saying the wrong thing, so sometimes I just
don't say it.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
But you're saying, now, I don't say it because I'm
worried about the reaction. What I'm asking is about your
comfort level of saying it, just you owning that vulnerability,
which can feel difficult. I'm asking regardless, do you feel
comfortable owning that vulnerability with Stephanie and saying, you know,
the things that happen that hurt my feelings? What would
that be like to say something like that to her?

Speaker 3 (42:45):
And that would be scary?

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Can you talk about what's scary about it?

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Well, it's scary because I don't know how she's going
to react. It makes me vulnerable, not in control.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
And it puts you in touch with the very feeling
that you might otherwise be able to push off a bit.
And I think that's the scary part.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
The irony of being worried about the reaction that you're
going to get is that the way that you do
express your displeasure gets a bad reaction. It's guaranteed to
get a bad reaction because it comes across as blaming,
as disapproving of her. It projects your pain onto her

(43:26):
and that she has to hold all those feelings that
you don't want to express. But when you're more vulnerable
and tender, which doesn't mean you're not rational. You're actually
being even more rational because you're in touch directly with
what you're trying to communicate, which is you're going all

(43:49):
the way to Norway. I feel hurt that you're not
going to be seeing my relatives, and it's a statement
about you. It's not blaming her, it's not getting angry
with her. It's just telling her here's something to know
about me. I feel hurt that you're not seeing my relatives,
and then she can do with that what she wants.
Hopefully she'd won't hear that is blame, right, Stephanie. You

(44:13):
hear that as oh I'm hearing that more as a request,
and let me explain why I'm not or why am
I be able to or how we can work this out.
That would be a very new kind of interaction for
the two of you to have. And Stephanie's smiling right
now because I think that that would be something that

(44:36):
she would welcome.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Sure.

Speaker 6 (44:38):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
How do you think you would have responded if, in
that conversation your mum would have just said to you, oh,
you know, my feelings are kind of hurt. You're going
all the way there and at the moment, you don't
have any plans to see my family. What would you
have said?

Speaker 5 (44:53):
It would have felt a lot better.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
I think I would have said, I'm sorry, I want
to visit your family too, I really do. I just
have heard back from them yet, and I don't want.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
To impose yes. I would add one thing if you
start with mom, thanks for sharing that with me. I
know that's not easy for you. And then the rest
because it's really scary for her, and your mom has
a lot of fears that turn out to be okay,
like the fear of how the family would react to
Danielle and the fear about you not seeing her family.

(45:23):
So it's important if she's able to express that vulnerability,
for you to acknowledge that was a difficult thing for
her and then do that reassurance or the response.

Speaker 4 (45:32):
That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
And Grona, you said something that I think is important,
which is that it's very uncomfortable for you to feel
like you're not in control, which is like most of us,
we all want to feel like we're in control of
a situation. But one thing we can control is how
we approach other people. If you want to feel in

(45:55):
control and have true control. You can control how you communicate,
and that doesn't control the other person's response, but it
certainly influences the other person's response much more than if
you try to control with the way you communicate, because

(46:15):
you probably won't get the reaction that you want, and
then you're both going to feel very out of control.
Seems to be what happens. So I wonder if we
could hear one more example of how danielle and this
argument between you still comes up.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
I feel that things have progressed. She was here for
the funeral, she was here at Christmas time. I thought
we were making progress, but maybe we're just ignoring it.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
I agree that it's gotten better. It certainly has gotten better.
There was a time, you know, in Daniel's first ten years,
I would only come home for three days because it
felt like you were really trying your best to hold
it together. In three days was.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
As long as it lasted, and then what would happen.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
It felt like walking on eggshells, and it still does.
Sometimes it's not nearly as often. Like I had to
read her mind, and if I didn't read her mind correctly,
she'd get upset about something like I was home last
summer for my uncle's memorial and she was upset with
my dad's brother about something, and she just starts. It's
not technically yelling, but speaking to me in a harsh

(47:25):
voice about something. It's not very often that we actually
talk about Danielle. It's more that my senses these upset
feelings about her come out because Mom's trying to ignore
them and she's trying to be a good or everything.
It's definitely gotten so much better, absolutely, but not good enough.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
For us to be close, because when she has strong feelings,
she does struggle to express them in terms of the vulnerability,
not anger. When she has feelings of feeling hurt or
worried or anxious or fearful, those she has trouble expressing.
And I'm going to suggest Stephanie that just going forward
in general, when you see your mom get angry, I

(48:02):
would try and stop her and say, Mom, I suspect
that underneath that there's some hurt. Well, there's something a
little bit more tender and vulnerable going on. Couldn't you
take a minute try and get in touch because I
am very much interested in hearing that part, and I
will respond about it. But I would like to know
what's actually in your heart, not the cover for it,

(48:25):
which is just getting angry.

Speaker 5 (48:27):
Yeah, yeah, I like the idea.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
I'm curious, Rona, what would happen between you and your
husband when you would get angry about something? How did
the two of you talk about things?

Speaker 3 (48:43):
He just simply did not get angry. We rarely argued.
Do you remember us Sephany arguing?

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Never? I didn't know if you just didn't argue in
front of me or didn't argue.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
It was rare.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
I feel like if you did get angry, Dad would
just kind of go away for a little while and
let you calm down. He didn't deal with it, not
so much if you had an issue with him, but
if you were angry tangentially about me or something else,
that he just kind of let it go and then
you'd calm down.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
But what about when you were angry with him? Were
you able to tell him that you were hurt? Or
would you get angry in the way that you talk
to Stephanie when you're angry? And what would he do?
Because I imagine in however many decades you were married,
that at certain times you got angry.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
He would rarely respond with anger to my anger.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
But would he respond in a way that made you
feel heard or made you feel like he understood, or
would work with you on whatever the issue was.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
Not necessarily to be honest, I don't ever remember him
saying I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
So there's a lot in the family of people not
being able to say to the other person, I made
a mistake.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
I want to get back to something that you just
said a moment ago, and both of you said things
are better.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
At the funeral, she put her arm around me. I
do not remember the last time she voluntarily put her
arm around me.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
What did that feel like? At the funeral?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
It felt wonderful?

Speaker 2 (50:23):
And when is the last time you put your arm
around her?

Speaker 3 (50:27):
She shies away from hugs, so I hardly ever even
try to give her a hug. I like to hugger
before she leaves, but she really is not a hugger,
and I tried to respect that.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
So that was a nice gesture, Stephanie, because it was
very meaningful fear mom to do that. What would have
to change, Stephanie, between you and your mom for you
to feel comfortable asking for or giving a hug from her.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
I would have to feel like I'm not ever walking
on eggshells. I guess really what comes down to is
that you'd have to be to talk to me about
how you're feeling.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
For me, a hug is a way to express what
I can't put in words.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Roll, did you hear what Stephanie just said about what
would make her feel comfortable with hugs with you? What
needs to happen for her to feel comfortable?

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yes, She says that what would make her comfortable is
that she needs to see some vulnerability from you, a
little less of the rational and a little more connected
to your feelings in a most human way. That would
make her feel safer, because I think that your rational
comes across really stoic, maybe cold even, And so it's

(51:40):
scary to hug someone if you can't tell what they're feeling.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
And I can try to do that, but that makes
me very vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Correct. It also puts you in touch with your feelings.
It also allows you to express the feelings directly, rather
than have to cover with anger or frustration or pushing away.
So it has many benefits, not just hugs. And yes,
it's scary to do. It's taking emotional risks when you

(52:11):
do it, but to fix your relationship, you'll each have
to take emotional risks to get closer after so many years,
And I'm curious about whether you each feel ready to
take emotional risks, small ones with one another going forward
in order to get closer. Only do you feel ready,

(52:34):
willing able to maybe experiment with that a little bit?

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yes, but she's leaving as soon as we're done here.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
She's leaving and you'll never see her again.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
And I'm not good on the telephone. I can't connect
on the telephone.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Perhaps it has to happen with video calls, which are
a little better, or perhaps it has to happen more
in person. There might be more reason now and more
now to visit one another. Stephanie, do you feel ready
to take emotional Well? That was quick, Okay, good? But
you do understand how scary this is for yourma?

Speaker 4 (53:11):
Yeah, because I feel like it's the same kind of
fear I have about hugs or whatever.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
I think that's a great comparison that where she feels
comfortable with hugs, you feel comfortable with words. And especially
now that your dad is not here, I think it
gives the two of you an opportunity to start a
new chapter in your own relationship. Yeah, it might highlight

(53:36):
for the two of you that we all have a
limited time here, and so you could continue with the
patterns that have been going on for twenty five years,
or you could do something different now that might feel
so much warmer, richer. We're loving, We're connected, and I

(54:00):
think you both really really want even if it's scary,
and I think you've wanted for a long time, both
of you.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
This has helped me to hear things verbalized. I've just
not been able to verbalize them.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
I wonder if you could both tell each other what
mistakes you have made so the other person can hear it. Stephanie,
can you start and don't do butts and caveats? And
we know that Danielle is not a mistake. Nobody here
is saying that. Can you just name the mistake that

(54:41):
you made and ask your mom if she can forgive
you for that mistake.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
I made a mistake when I didn't use contraception. Can
you forgive me for that?

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yes, thank you, Brona. That sounded so honest and authentic
and immediate.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
There was no hesitation, there was no pause, Your voice
was strong. It sounded extremely genuine.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
Yeah, yeah, it is genuine.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
And Stephanie, I can see that you're tearing up and
this felt very meaningful to you. Yeah, you might not
fully trust it because it's new, but I want you
to take in what just happened, because I think you've
been waiting a long time for it, and it's probably
been there a long time. But as your mom said,
she's not really good at verbalizing, but she's probably felt

(55:36):
that forgiveness for a long time and it just had
never been spoken between the two of you. Thank you
and Rona. Can you ask Stephanie to forgive you for
the mistake that you made, which was making her feel
shunned like a secret, like she was shameful.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
I'm sorry I made you feel like you were shunned.
I made a mistake. If I were to do it again,
I would handle things differently. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Tell her how you would handle it if you could
do it again now, knowing what you know now.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
I would not have hesitated to share with others your pregnancy.
It was my feelings that were the problem. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
Thank you and Stephanie. That doesn't mean that you're not
hurt by it. Do you understand the difference.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Yeah, okay, I hear you when you say that it
was about your feelings and that you would have done
it differently, And I appreciate that, and I forgive you
for the way things were making those choices.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
I really would do it differently. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
This is one thing that came across in the letter
where you said we both want to have a closer relationship,
and people haven't say that, but wow, you really both
want to have a closer relationship and have wanted to
for a very long time. And I think it's so

(57:17):
important that you both understand that the same desire that
you have. I wish we were closer. I wish that
stuff hadn't happened in that way is a very mutual feeling.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
And the part that trips people up is they feel like, well,
now I have to not feel any of the hurt.
You can still feel all the hurt. Nobody's saying forget
all the hurt, forget all the pain. We're saying, now
you have an opportunity to see what happens when you
aren't living under the cloud of something that was a

(57:53):
huge rift in your relationship, and that you start to
repair it. Not that it all just goes away magically,
but that you start to repair it, and you start
to talk about it differently, and you start to really
look at who you are to each other now as
mother and daughter. Because you two both want something and

(58:14):
you're both equally terrified of it. We want to help
you get through the terror. A little bit.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Before you were born, I wanted you more than anything,
and you've been a wonderful, wonderful daughter. You were a
wonderful child. We always love you, and I am proud
of you.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
Thank you for saying that.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
It means a lot.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Did you wonder whether she loved you in that way
or was proud of you?

Speaker 4 (58:46):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (58:47):
You didn't know that for sure.

Speaker 5 (58:50):
I've always known Dad loved me and I was proud
of me, But I kind of felt like his love
was always unconditional and moms felt conditional, and I kind
of wondered.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
A couple of years ago, I was wondering, like I do,
I wonder if you want an auto.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Kate, Oh, more than anything.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
When I was little, I would say to my mother,
I love you and I like you, And I can
say that to you, I love you and I like you.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
I love you too.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Roan. That was you being vulnerable. You got emotion a
little bit when you were saying it. This is you
being vulnerable and opening up. And this is you Stephanie
making it safe for her and responding in a lovely way.
And I'm glad you did that role. And I'm glad
you took that risk right now.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
And do you see the reaction on Stephanie's face? You
see how much you touched that little girl that you
wanted so badly by telling her I love you and
I like you. Because there are two different things, Yeah,
they are.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Rona and Stephanie. We have some advice for you, and
it's in multiple parts. Here's the first part. We know
you're both grieving the loss of your dad, Stephanie and
your husband, Rona. We know Rona that you don't love
the phone, but you did a great job today on
the Zoom call. So we would like you both to

(01:00:26):
have one zoom call with one another this week, and
we'd like you, in that call to each share two
difficult moments that you've had around the grieving. It could
be moments where you were missing him very much, where
you were feeling very very sad, where you were feeling

(01:00:48):
worried about the future, whatever the vulnerable feeling is. Because
we're going for sharing something that's difficult, we want you
to each share two moments like that with the other person,
and when you do that, we would like the other
person to respond in a very simple way, no advice,

(01:01:08):
just I understand how you feel. I get it. I'm
so sorry that you're hurting, and we'd like you to
notice how that feels, to say that to the other person,
to receive it from the other person.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
The second thing that we would like you to do is,
we were so moved by Rona you telling Stephanie how
much you love her and like her, even though you
don't tend to verbalize those things, and Stephanie you said,

(01:01:43):
I always felt it was conditional, like if I did
the right things, then I was loved, and then if
I made a mistake, then maybe I wasn't. And so
we would like you to share with each other one
memory each. I'd like you to share with Stephanie a
moment from her childhood. You talked about how much you

(01:02:05):
wanted to have her and how lucky you felt to
have her. What is one moment that you can share
with her from her childhood where you just delighted in her,
not her accomplishments, not something that she did that was
external to her, but just a memory of being with
her where you felt so lucky to be her mom

(01:02:29):
and you just delighted in the moment with her. And Stephanie,
we would like you to share a moment with your
mom from your childhood when you felt so loved by her.
We know that you were closer with your dad and
sometimes your mom wasn't able to express her love as
much or in the same way, but there must have
been moments because we can tell from the closeness that

(01:02:52):
you have and you're smiling, so we can tell that
that's true. We'd like you to share a moment from
your childhood where you felt so loved by her. So
that's task number two, and we'd like you to do
that again on a zoom.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Here's the next task and it will also involve a
zoom call. We would like you to have a call
with Danielle, both of you together with Danielle, and we
would like you to tell her how meaningful it was
to have her at the funeral, how much you appreciated

(01:03:27):
her coming, how much you appreciated her support and how
happy you are to have her in your lives. These
are things you might have said to her already. We're
not sure she's ever heard that coming from both of
you at the same time, in the same moment, and
we think there would be a nice thing to do

(01:03:50):
to set the stage for three generations of women being together,
talking together, with expressing love to one another together.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
And the last thing that we would like you to do.
This may or may not come up this week, but
this is a long term assignment. If it doesn't, this
is a tool in your toolbox, and that's if you
see your mom, Stephanie, getting angry with you, we want
you to stop her and ask her, is this about
some kind of hurt or some kind of fear and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Rona.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
What we want you to do in that moment is
to really talk to yourself and soothe yourself. And the
one thing that I think happens for you is that
you feel like you're out of control if you get vulnerable.
So we want you to remind yourself in that moment,
I am not out of control if I express feelings.

(01:04:44):
That's going to be a big reframe for you because
you have this idea in your head that if I
get vulnerable, I'm not in control anymore. So when Stephanie
stops you, we want you to think about her question,
am I feeling hurt? Am I feeling scared? And then
can I be vulnerable and express that to her as

(01:05:05):
opposed to the anger, the blame, the judgment.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
And Stephanie remember that when you'd redirect your mom and
say Mom, usually when you're angry, it's because you're hurt
or because there's some fear there. Tell me about that.
If she's able to, then the first thing you say is, Mom,
thank you so much for sharing that with me. I
know that was very difficult for you, and I so
appreciate your trust.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Yes, you don't have to agree with the thing that
she's hurt or afraid about, but you have to create
a space where she can trust that she can share
that with you, and that will create some safety between
the two of you. Right, And one last thing, if
you start to feel safer with each other, Stephanie, you
might want to put your arm around your mom when

(01:05:48):
you see her. You might see what that does in
terms of bringing her closer to you too, in a
way that feels comfortable to both of you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Thank you for helping us verbalize things that I couldn't verbalize.
I couldn't quite wrap my mind around to get out
the right way.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:06:10):
Be very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
You're very welcome. We really look forward to hearing how
the week goes for you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
You know, when people come to us for therapy with
someone else, whether that's a couple or whether it's a
parent and a child, usually the problem has been going
on for quite a while, and we don't know how

(01:06:38):
much repair has to happen before they can figure out
where they are now, who they are to each other now,
and what might happen moving forward. And what I really
loved about this session was that even though this had
been such a long standing issue between the two of them,
that were willing to be vulnerable with each other, they
were willing to try new ways of communicating with each other.

(01:06:58):
They were able to open up about what these long
standing grievances had been and what was going on for
each of them. And I think that's a really positive sign.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
I agree, And I'm also going to say what we
would say with a long standing issue, Great, you have
a little more understanding of one another right now. It
will take a lot of work and mindfulness to keep
doing this to repair a relationship that's been strained for

(01:07:30):
twenty five years. I actually think it's very possible for
Rohna and Stephanie. But they're going to have to get
comfortable with emotional discomfort, and they're going to have to
be able to forgive each other for mistakes, because no
one changes all at once. But if they can do that,
and if they can work at it, I think there's
hope to really recover in a substantial way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
You're listening to, dear therapists. We'll be back after a
short break. So Guy, we heard back from Stephanie and Rona,
And first we're going to hear from Stephanie and then

(01:08:17):
we're going to hear from Rona. Let's hear what happened
this week.

Speaker 7 (01:08:20):
Hi, Lurie and Guy reporting on this week's assignments. The
first thing Mom and I did was have a zoom
call with Danielle where we expressed our love and admiration
for her, and she seemed very pleased to hear us
say that. I know that I'm not always very good
about expressing those things either, So thank you for that
assignment and the three of us decided we'd definitely like

(01:08:41):
to do some more of those in the future. The
second assignment, Mom and I did a zoom call where
we talked about two times that were difficult regarding Dad's
death for us. And while we weren't perfect about just
listening without giving advice or judgment or anything, I know
that something both of us can work on and plan too.
And then the other assignment was for each of us

(01:09:04):
to share a joyous moment from my childhood, and I
shared a time with Mom and I would make decorations
for the windows for holidays. I always remember that fondly.
The fourth part of the assignment where I was to
respond to Mom if she gets angry. That hasn't happened
yet because it generally happens in person and I had
already left. I do the really appreciate having a tool

(01:09:25):
and the permission to use that tool when I do
see Mom starting to get angry with me. So thank
you very much for that. I think that's going to
help things a lot with us, And overall, I've just
felt that our relationship has been lighter and more open
ever since that conversation. I think that you have opened
a door and shined a lad on a path for
us to move forward and grow closer over time, and

(01:09:49):
I'm deeply grateful for that. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:09:52):
This is Rona. First of all, I wanted to talk
about our difficult time misgrieving. The most difficult time I
had was when someone asked about him who had not
heard of his death, and I had to tell them
that he was gone. Another moment that hit me was

(01:10:17):
when I needed to find a tool to make a
repair and I couldn't ask him where it was. I
had to search. Stephanie and I both miss him, but
realized that we have done much of our grieving as
we watched his health decline. A moment when there was
pure joy when I looked at Stephanie shortly after she

(01:10:44):
was born. Even though I was exhausted as a new mother,
I felt amazing love seeing her sleeping in her carriage.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
As she grew. Her joy in riding her bicycle was contagious.
It was great to have Danielle and Stephanie together with
me on zoom. I just wanted to snap a picture
of us expressing our love for each other, just to
keep it in my heart. It made me realize how

(01:11:15):
few times the three of us were together. Two at
a time was not unusual, but the three of us
together was less frequent, and I thought it was one
of the nicest things that have happened to me. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
So I'm going to start with the thing that grabbed
me the most, and that is how they each both
Stephanie and Rona seemed so delighted with their call with
Danielle that they loved the fact that it was three
of them on the call. There was something about them
doing that together that really felt good to them. It
felt good parentty to Danielle, and that the fact that

(01:11:58):
they want to do more of that sounds great. That
sounds like a really nice thing for all three, right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
And I grabbed onto that too, because that's really what
the letter was about, which was how do we start
to heal this? And it sounded like it was such
a meaningful experience for all three of them, and I
love that they're going to be doing more of this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
In terms of the joyous moments from Stephanie's childhood that
they shared with one another were lovely, the birth and
riding the bike, the holiday decorations. They are each good
at describing what brought them the joy, and they're both
not great at describing the joy. The emotional component for

(01:12:40):
them is always implied in the action, but they have
a really hard time actually talking about their feelings of
joy and describing them fully.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Yeah, and we saw that in the Grieving part two,
where we asked them to share some difficult moments they
had around the grieving and have the other person support
without it. But when they were sharing this part, we
didn't hear the emotion. Rona said they did a lot
of their grieving when the father was sick. But I
think that that grieving was very internal for both of them,

(01:13:11):
and so it would be great if they could share
more of their emotional experience with each other. I think
that would really bring them closer, and.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
I would suggest to both of them that, Stephanie, the
next time you have this conversation, say with your mom
and she says, oh, there was this really difficult moment
where I needed a tool and I didn't know where
it was and I couldn't ask your father because he
wasn't around. I don't know how you responded when she
told you that, but a great response would be, Mom,
tell me more about what that was like for you.
Tell me more about what came up for you in

(01:13:42):
that moment. I'd love to hear what your experience was.
They both really struggle to express the emotions, so they
have to really invite the other person to do so.
This is something that takes practice and they both need
quite a bit of it, especially Rona. You need to
practice expressing these emotional feelings because that's how you can

(01:14:03):
get in touch with what those feelings are for you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
And I think what will make that easier for them
is what Stephanie said near the end, that there's just
a lighter and more open feeling between the two of
them since they had this session. I think that will
really help them to open up to each other and
feel more comfortable doing that. And I liked what Stephanie
said about even though they did not have an argument
this week, because that usually happens in person, that she

(01:14:28):
now has the tools and she feels like she has
permission to use the tools. It's kind of like we
help them establish a boundary between them, and now they
know that if this comes up in the future, that
Stephanie can hold that boundary and Ronan knows exactly what
that boundary is. So I think that that will be
helpful to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
My last thought here is that what I heard from
both of them was hesitancy and hope. There's still hesitant.
There's still a lot more to prove and a lot
more to show one another about the fact that they
are now in a new chain in their relationship, and
it does feel like they're on a new chapter, and
it does feel like there's a lot of hope, but

(01:15:06):
there's still a lot of hesitancy. So as long as
you keep working together, talking together, and really trying to
share the feelings and validate those feelings, I think you
will be able to continue to make a lot of
progress and really start a different relationship than the one
you've had of the past twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
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Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
email us at lauriandguy at iHeartMedia dot com. Our executive
producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited by Josh Fisher,
additional editing support by Zachary Fisher and Katie Matty. Our
intern is an Anna Doherty and special thanks to our

(01:16:01):
podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric. We can't wait to see
you at our next session. De A Therapist is a
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
Fisherfold