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Happy Monday!
I hope you had a nice weekend!
FREE Q AND A TODAY!
Monday, May 16 at 11:30am Pacific
Listening method: Phone or Web
Ask me anything you like related to estrangement but please keep all questions between 2-3 sentences. Questions are answered on first-come, first-served basis.
Can't make it then? Enter your question at the website using the link below and listen to the replay later on your computer using the same link:
To attend by web, visit:
To attend by phone
Get local call-in numbers here
When prompted, enter the following 459546#
"My DIL Is Setting Me Up to Be Estranged!"
QUESTION My future daughter-in-law will only communicate to me via email or text. Currently she will only communicate via text, yet she is not honest in this text communication. She cuts and pastes my texts so that the end result is a negative misrepresentation of what I said. Isn't that creative?
Even though we have spoken honestly to her and my son in a friendly and non- threatening way about preferring the phone or face-to-face whenever possible, she refuses any other form of communication.
For example, she texted me the message that if I want to invite family guests to their upcoming wedding, I must deliver a list to her by text or miss the opportunity to invite guests. My son is avoiding the issue. He phones me when he knows I'm at work and doesn't pick up when I call him back. What next steps should I take?
ANSWER: This is a pre-estrangement scenario; The son is in some kind of contact with the mother; the future daughter-in-law is in contact with her but she's goading her future MIL into doing something which is going to justify her cutting the parents off.
She has already started by limiting the contact that the son has. She's doing this thing with the texts where she intentionally makes it seem like the mom is being critical.
Several things are important here: One is that there's an upcoming wedding. If this is a more troubled person, and I would argue that she is given this bizarre form of communication, she must have a lot of anxiety about the upcoming wedding.
People who are more troubled tend to have more anxiety about weddings, especially those where there will be expectations of her which could create opportunities for shame or disappointment.
My advice to you is to not fight her on this. You should show her that she has the power and you're not a threat. If there's a wedding in the works, she's probably going to be particularly watchful of
you to see if you're going to let her call the shots. I'd make it clear that you are.
Sometimes a difficult son-in-law or daughter-in-law is the main cause of a long-term estrangement.
If that's true for you, join us TOMORROWwhere we'll address the following questions:
- What are some normal, expectable conflicts that one might have with a son-in-law or daughter-in-law?
- Why is marriage so often a turning point for creating an estrangement?
- What kind of concerns might the adult child have about getting married vis-à-vis his/her parents?
- Why is thinking about your child's issues around independence, autonomy, and identity so important in understanding the role that your SIL or DIL plays in the estrangment?
- Why does criticizing their choice of partner almost always backfire?
- What kind of concerns might any future SIL or DIL have about their future in-laws?
- Why is the family history of the SIL or DIL so important in trying to figure out what might have caused or perpetuated the estrangement?
- Why is a pregnancy or the arrival of a child often important in understanding an estrangement?
- Why are sons who were close to the parents sometimes more at risk to be estranged once they become married or become parents?
- What are some ways that a SIL or DIL may be important in causing estrangement?
- How does the SIL or DIL's mental health issues play into it? Why does your own child's mental health issues tempt him or her to use the DIL or SIL to "gang up" against you?
- Why is the psychological fragility of the DIL/SIL or your own child so important?
- Why do they sometimes have to cut off anyone who's at all related to you?
- Why is your child's ability to manage conflict so important?
- What is the "glue" that holds families together today and how is that different from other cultures and prior generations here.
- Why is it so important to try to make peace with your SIL or DIL if possible?
If you need more help addressing these questions, join us TOMORROW for:
May 17th
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
DEALING WITH YOUR DIFFICULT DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OR SON-IN-LAW
The Right and Wrong Ways
Which other topics will be covered in the new series?
Tuesday, May 24
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
HOW DO I COPE WITH THE PAIN?
Learning the Best Ways to Respond
Tuesday, May 31
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
SHOULD I KEEP TRYING OR JUST GIVE UP?
Learning to Make the Right Decision
Tuesday, June 7
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
SHOULD I CUT THEM OUT OF MY WILL?
Handling the Issue of Money, Gifts, and Inheritance
Tuesday, June 14
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
DOES MY CHILD HAVE A PERSONALITY DISORDER OR OTHER MENTAL ILLNESS?
Understanding Its Role in Estrangement
Tuesday, June 21
530 PM Pacific, 630 PM Mountain,
730 PM Central, 830 PM Eastern
MY ESTRANGED CHILD IS BACK: NOW WHAT?
Learning How to Navigate Early
Reconciliation
Each webinar comes with:
- Free study guide
- Link to the live webinar to listen to over the phone or computer
- Q and A during live webinar
- Complete transcript of lecture after it airs
- Link to the webinar recording after it airs
To hear what others are saying about the webinars, go
here
CAN'T MAKE THE WEBINARS AT THE TIME SCHEDULED?
No problem- you'll still get the full transcript of the lecture, the study guide, and the link to the recording.
NEED A 1:1?
email me at josh@drjoshuacoleman.com
WANT TO CONTACT OTHER
ESTRANGED PARENTS?
About Dr. Coleman
Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. He has lectured at Harvard University, The University of California at Berkeley, The University of London, Cornell Weill Medical School, and blogs on parent-adult child relationships for the U.C. Berkeley publication, Greater Good Magazine.
Dr. Coleman is frequently contacted by the media for opinions and commentary about changes in the American family. He has been a frequent guest on the Today Show, NPR, and The BBC, and has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, America Online Coaches, PBS, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. His advice has appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London, The Shriver Report, Fortune, Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Psychology Today, U.S. World and News Report, Parenting Magazine, The Baltimore Sun and many others.
He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin's Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin's Press); When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along (HarperCollins); and Married with Twins: Life, Love and the Pursuit of Marital Harmony. His books have been translated into Chinese, Croatian, and Korean, and are also available in the U.K., Canada, and Australia.
He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.
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