You, Your Husband & His Mother: Boundaries, Triangles, and Staying Sober (Without People-Pleasing) with Dr. Tracy Dalgleish

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, alcohol, you, your husband, his mother, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, in-laws, boundaries, triangles, staying sober, people-pleasing, sobriety, women, I’m angry at the situation, I’m upset at the situation, I’m not upset at you, feelings, experiences, not personal, connected relationships, family wellness, conversation, extended family, partners, wife, spouse, couples, mom, dad, relationships, conflictual, tension, family systems, strategies, rigidity control, estrangement, treatment, therapy, VAULT method, values, identify what matters to you, boundary, sobriety support group, program, recovery, take the step, happier, healthier, getting help, getting more education, healthy, unhealthy, marriage, talk about it, find your support, resources, podcasts, listen to podcasts, substance use disorders, know that you are not alone, detox, stressors, family, work, kids, care, level of care, stabilize, withdrawal, stable, emotional, behavioral, cognitive differences, change, motivation, will, willingness, partner, loved one, agency, power, communicate, wine, professional, provider, manage, needs, treated, so important in early recovery, self-esteem, work on mental health, best gift to ourselves, meaningful conversation, benefits, sober coach, therapist, distress, anxiety, stress, integrate them into their life, individual therapy, women’s group, a cognitive behavioral therapy group, goal, assessment, safe space, residential, medication, not drink, alcohol-free, shifting other traditions in your life, curiosity, compassion, connection, collaboration, peer support, family systems, healing, recovery, coaches, triggers, drive women to drink, numb out, escape, family wounds, immediate reaction, problems in relationships, problems at work, problems that affect women, causing discomfort in their life, physiological changes, hormone shifts with perimenopause, creating an environment where people have support, they feel heard, they feel respected, they feel understood, emotional support, physical support, live, sleep safely, journaling, reflecting, bonding connection, my own identity

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Dr. Tracy Dalgleish

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hey there. Welcome back to the Hello Someday podcast.

I am so excited for this conversation because we are talking about

you, your husband and his mother.

 

And I know this is a really hot topic. I shared that I was interviewing this author last night in my sobriety starter kit member group, and within an hour I had 30 comments and questions and stories on the post.

 

So, I’m talking with Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, a clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and the author of, I didn’t sign up for this and her new book, You, Your Husband And His Mother.

 

[00:02:00]

She’s also the host of the Dear Dr. Tracy podcast and the creator of Be Connected Digital, where she helps people from all over the world build healthier, more connected relationships.

 

Her work has been featured in outlets like The New York Times Time and Forbes, and this book is going to be so helpful for you as well as this conversation because the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and spouse relationships. Can be so complicated and also huge triggers that make you want to grab a drink.

 

So, Dr. Tracy, welcome.

Hi Casey. Thank you so much for having me here and also for building this community. It is so important and so needed.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I was chatting with you before we jumped on because I loved your book. When going through it, there were so many things that I thought were useful for any relationship within your family.

 

[00:03:00]

But my favorite part was where you talked about what type of mother-in-law you have. It was something that I was totally laughing about and thinking about both my mother and my mother-in-law. But to jump in, will you tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book and the work you do?

 

Absolutely. What motivated me to write this book was really the 20 years of clinical experience and having couples repeatedly come into my therapy room, all wanting to be on the same page, all wanting to feel like a team, and almost every couple I see has that desire to have healthy, extended family relationships, and we know that across these 20 years, the conflict is always the same.

We have conflict around managing kids, managing intimacy, in-laws, finances, communications, those are the top conflicts that couples have, and yet there’s something different that’s showing up in the last 10 years in families, and that is around that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law tension.

 

[00:04:00]

Not because it wasn’t there before, but more so because in the last 10, 20 years, people are starting to do things differently in their families, and that looks like. A fair division of invisible, invisible labor in the mental load that looks like we’re parenting differently than previous generations. It also looks like women in the workplace and man managing all the things so.

It’s starting to bring about these different conversations, and because women know differently, they want differently, and so they no longer want to have these conflictual relationships or feel like they have to then have these critical comments come to them or have their house open because their mother-in-law wants to.

 

And so, now we’re having these conversations around how do we have healthy, extended family relationships?

 

[00:05:00]

That’s really where the heart of this book came from. That makes so much sense. And a lot of the women who listen to this show are working moms and high achieving working moms who have everything on the list to do and are really busy.

I know about that conflict. Both because I talk to women every day and I was in corporate America for 20 years and balancing that with the kids and my husband and his family is really complicated. But I also interviewed Eve Rodsky who wrote, Fair Play on this topic, and another author I interviewed wrote a book called, How to Not Hate Your Husband After You Have Kids.

 

Oh, Jancee Dunn is just, I absolutely love the conversations that she’s having around relationships and, and that that really was, you know, it’s interesting when I wrote my first book called, I didn’t sign up for this. In the context of you’re in this marriage, you’re in this relationship, and suddenly you’re looking at your partner thinking,

[00:06:00]

I didn’t sign up for this, and why is it that I’m at the park hating my husband and resenting him, and nobody else is talking about this struggle because it’s just so real. And yet, it’s so hard to have that conversation. So, you’ve had some fantastic guests to bring these conversations forward. And it resonates with everyone because that struggle of time and balance and who’s doing what is just so complicated.

And then, you bring in, as you described, your partner’s family of origin and their beliefs and you know how they were raised. And it is just a mess.

There’s this concept called, kin-keeping, and it’s this idea that women are the holders of all of the family members, not just her family, but also her partner, her husband’s family. And this is this generational passing down. We think of who’s the one who sends out the phone call or the text to coordinate the Thanksgiving dinner.

 

[00:07:00]

It’s grandma. It’s the mother-in-law. It’s your mom, and it’s this matriarchy sitting at the head of the table that then falls to all of the women and many women today, daughters-in-law particularly, are saying, there’s too much on my plate. And for many of them, they have positive relationships and they say, yeah, I can keep doing this because it feels good. But for many others, they say, I can’t keep looking after your family. On top of it not feeling good and me being made out to be the bad guy. Quote, unquote, “bad guy”, when I’m setting a boundary with your mother.

 

Yeah. And the other thing I think is complicated is, you know, I’m the younger daughter in my family and my husband and I used to always fly for Thanksgiving and for the holidays to my family or his family. And once we had kids, I didn’t want to do that anymore. Right.

[00:08:00]

I wanted Christmas, which is what we celebrate to be in my home with my Christmas tree and my gifts.

And that was a conversation that we had to have. I was breaking like a generational pattern in my own family. We always went to Nana’s house for Thanksgiving. I went to my Nana’s house. My mom wanted everyone to come to her, and I just didn’t want to, and that’s really complicated for. She lives in D.C.. We live in Seattle.

It’s a 4 day weekend. My husband works in a school like, but it’s hard, right? Oh, and, and that is the thing that we’re doing differently. And, and partly because our villages look different today. We live further away. From our families of origin, we also have access to more people via social media. So, our villages are bigger.

Social media can also create conflict because you know, people are seeing what you’re doing or someone’s posting pictures that they’re not supposed to be, or that shows up on social media as well.

[00:09:00]

But Casey, this piece here is that in previous generations, I think of. My clients who describe their parents and parents will say, well, that’s just what you did.

You pack up the 3 month old, you get in the car, it’s a snowstorm. You drive 8 hours from one end of Ontario down to the other end, and it’s through the snowstorm. But you have to show up and everybody is there. And while that worked for previous generations.

Today, we’re saying we are exhausted and we want to create our own traditions, and we don’t have enough leave from work to take those long weekends and multiple times.

And here’s the, and you know, I talk about this in the book around healthy and unhealthy family systems. In a healthy family system, we can know that our feelings matter, and also that when our adult children are not able to come and do these things, we know our relationship is still strong enough to hold onto.

 

[00:10:00]

We know our kids aren’t responsible for meeting our needs. We know we can connect with them at other times, but in unhealthy family systems. It’s almost this sense of fusion. So, for people listening, when I think about merging an emotional fusion, it’s like I have one fist and the other hand goes on top of it, and so you actually lose the individuation between two people.

 

And so, then we think of the head of the family, whether it’s your father-in-law, mother-in-law, or your own parents, and they. Use strategies like, rigidity control. So many people have said, my mom comes to me saying Thanksgiving always happens on Thursday, and if we don’t go, we get the silent treatment for months, which is just so hurtful for adult children.

 

Yeah. Yeah, and you’re also, you know, you need to be mindful that it’s not just your family, right? You’re merging a whole nother family, and I have clients who are divorced and that is yet another layer, or their parents are divorced.

[00:11:00]

Now, you’ve got 4 different families plus your own trying to negotiate that.

Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s really tricky. So where do you start? We’re talking about you, your husband, and his mother. Where do we begin? I like to say to the women that I work with and also their partners, when they come, is that we need to recognize that the family system was in place before you joined the family. And just acknowledging that is so powerful because there could be people in that family system that say things like, we didn’t have these problems before you joined the family. The reality is you are, I’m going to use quotations intentionally. You’re an “outsider”. You did not grow up in this family system.

 

And so, you’re going to notice things. You’re going to be, oh, like that. This is kind of a guilt tripping thing. This doesn’t feel good, like, what’s happening here? So, you’re going to point things out. So, I think it’s important for us to recognize this.

[00:12:00]

And then the next thing I say to people is, and this is so important around what my book is here for. This is not, we’re not going to estrangement right now.

You might get to the end of the book and decide this is where you need to go. You might have all of these steps and tools in place, and you might decide that’s where you go. The goal is to create the relationship that you want. Healthy relationships. We all do better when we have relationships that work for all of us.

So, then, I say to men and I make sure it’s really, they, they need to hear. This is that you are not being asked to abandon your family of origin. You are being asked to choose your partner and to focus first, make a priority, the fa, the needs and the emotions in your chosen family. Then once you are co-creating together with your partner and you’re on the same page, then you can bring in your family in a way that works best for all of you, and that sometimes means you’re breaking out of these really difficult patterns.

[00:13:00]

Mom might be upset, mom might stop talking to you when you first set that boundary saying, I’m not showing up on the holiday this year. Knowing, and this is a really tricky piece because when couples come to the boundary setting piece, it’s step 4 in My Fault method, but when you’re setting boundaries, family members are going to be upset about it because you’re changing the family system.

 

Yeah, and it’s, it almost calls on us to have to really sink into that, okay, I‘m doing this because it’s important to me. We’re doing this because it’s part of what matters in our family. We want to stay home for Christmas and make our own traditions together. And so, now I have to sit in all of this discomfort and I can do that because emotions fade and wow, it’s really hard to have to do that.

And, I mean, I know I identify as a recovering people pleaser, but a lot of the women in my group are this fantastic combination of overachiever and people pleaser. I call them like gold star girls. And boundaries are really hard, especially with a mother-in-law or a father-in-law.

[00:14:00]

I mean, I think the dynamic is the same. I think we really need to call that out, Casey, in the sense that when we enter into a family, we do enter wanting to please, we want others to like us. That’s adaptive. That doesn’t make you flawed in any way, and I often see this where in the book I talk about 3 styles of daughters-in-law, and I call them styles because it’s more fluid depending on what’s happening in your life, and so those people pleasers, those high-achievers are often the good girl daughters-in-law, and that is someone who does please, who wants to care, who wants to say yes. The challenge with that is often then you get stuck in this victim mode.

Not that you’re playing the victim, but in the sense that it feels like you don’t have your own home. Mother-in-law shows up unannounced and she wants to see baby. And so, you let her in. You don’t hold the boundary, you don’t have, right, and so then things just keep happening to you and it doesn’t feel good.

 

[00:15:00]

And then, sometimes when, especially our people pleasers who you know, gosh, I know that place so well, and we need those people in our world and the caregivers and the high-achievers. And sometimes what we do is we swing into becoming a manager. And I see this sometimes after having a baby, and the stresses of navigating the uncertainty of sleep, of not knowing how feeding’s going to go.

Are we going to sleep tonight? What’s the next milestone? Sometimes we tap into the manager position. The manager position holds more rigid boundaries. They are kind of the more high expectation folks. They’re the people who say like, well, nap time is 10 o’clock, so we can’t deviate from this at all.

And when you then bring in family systems, there’s more tension within that. And so, oftentimes, then people get labeled as the villain because you have boundaries, because you say no, and because you are setting this new standard or precedent that has never existed in this other family system before.

[00:16:00]

And then the last style, I’ll just finish this up, is the collaborator.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the collaborator is someone who can do this self and other in relationships. So, being able to see, I know that’s what you desire, and we can be flexible to that, to build this relationship. And also, here are the things that I need and we can build a respectful relationship on both ends.

And of course, all of this matters with what’s happening in your marriage. Is your partner on your team, do they get it or do they dismiss you and deny it? And also then, who your mother-in-law is. And that’s really where the triangle dynamic comes in, because it’s not that anyone’s in the middle, it’s that you’re in a triangle.

 

Yeah, I, I was telling you that my favorite part and what I think is genius is in the book you go into what type of mother-in-law do you have? And it goes from like the martyr or the victim, or the er, the blamer. Tell us about that because think everyone is going to want to diagnose their mom or their mother-in-law.

I [00:17:00]

Okay. Two pieces with that, because I, I’m with you. I, so, I’m not, I did not make these out of the blue. These came from my years of clinical experience of just hearing the stories of working directly with clients, of working with mothers in-laws, well, of working with generational patterns. And so this is not meant to be a diagnosis. Although, when one of my articles came out recently and, and a friend had screenshot it saying, we both went through it and picked it, who our mothers were, and they, they were on the same page. Right. And that’s what I mean. It’s just kind of fun.

Yeah. It’s, and, and it can be right, as long as your partner doesn’t see it as an attack, but if Oh yeah.

It’s The other thing too, Casey, that I did in the book intentionally is I don’t label the mother-in-law as a narcissist. We are overusing that word, and it’s not to say that the experiences you’re having might not be along the narcissistic tendencies. The piece here is, if I use the word as a label like that in the book.

[00:18:00]

And then, you go to your husband and say, aha, we discovered it. Your mother’s a narcissist. That’s just, it’s going to boom. And so, I really then wanted to categorize this in a much more rich way. So, you can look at types, and I did that in 3 categories. There’s the internalizers, who make everything about themselves.

Externalizers. So, that’s the martyr and the victim. Then the externalizers are the ones who make everything about the outside world, and that’s the blamer and the controller. And then, we have more of the balancers who can do both. And we have the er who, and I hear this from so many clients where they’ll say, you know, my mother-in-law lives 20 minutes down the road, and we see her twice a year. And she doesn’t know my kids. And it’s just this grief and painful experience. And then, of course, we have the supporters. And the supporter is where one of my clients had described her mother-in-law saying, I’ve just hit the jackpot. It’s, you know, we still have to work on communication. It doesn’t mean everything is always rosy and happy because we’re two people trying to get along.

[00:19:00]

But it is someone who comes over and says, your marriage is important. You guys are doing a great job. How can I come and care for you during this hard season? I actually have to say, I feel bad when we have these discussions and I’m not just saying this ’cause she might listen to it, but I hit the jackpot with my mother-in-law.

We get along great. She’s fantastic. I like it when she comes to visit. She lives in Florida. I live in Seattle. But I get it, and I think we all have complicated relationships with our own either mother or father or whoever. Oh, of course. Of course. And there is no shame or blame. I, I say to people that we are products of our own patterns, and I know for many of us in this generation right now, we’re talking a lot about breaking cycles.

Your parents also broke some cycles. That’s just what it is. And they didn’t break all of them. And so, now we’re doing some of it.

[00:20:00]

We’re doing another layer of this work and it’s, it’s gone speeding fast because of all of the information that’s available to us. But the intention of this is not to then go to your mom or your mother-in-law and label her and say, you are being such a victim.

Yeah. Stop doing this. You’re just making it right? No, the book goes through how you can communicate with each type of mother-in-law, because that’s where your own sense of agency and power comes from, is when you can ask yourself what’s going to be best. How can I communicate with this person knowing what I do?

So, looking at the drama triangle, we have these 3 roles. So, when you have someone who plays the victims, that’s your mother-in-law, then we have someone who plays the rescuer, and we have someone who plays the pro, the prosecutor.

And the prosecutor, let’s say, for example, becomes the father-in-law. Mother-in-law’s, having a really hard time. Something’s happening. She’s saying, oh, everyone’s out to get me. Why did this happen?

[00:21:00]

I remember one client, I’ll really ground this in a story. One client, he rushed over to his mom’s house because the dishwasher wasn’t working.

It was flooding their kitchen, and so then. Her husband goes, well, I told you not to trust those contractors, and why did you decide to do that? Et cetera, et cetera. So then she calls out to her son and same story, oh, this is happening to me. I can’t believe this, and your father, he said this and did this.

And so now son, adult child comes over and it feeds the cycle. Of that victimhood. So it’s not helpful to go to your mother-in-law and say, okay, you’re, you’re being a victim. But it is then helpful for us to ask ourselves, what role do I want to step into? And maybe you don’t go and rescue her every time she goes into that mode.

And instead you validate emotions and then you change the topic. And I remember with one client, we had agreed that when her own mother would pull her into this therapist role and she would talk about how much she was struggling.

[00:22:00]

Then my client would say, okay mom, I really love you and I look forward to us chatting next time I got to go.

And then, she’d hang up the phone. And that was the message to her mom, of course you’re struggling, but I’m not going to be the one to solve this. And because before she would come on the phone and she would try to do all of these interventions. She’s not a therapist, but she would, what about this? Have you done that?

And can you try this? And well, here I found you a therapist. But then my client would feel so frustrated every time talking to her mother. ’cause she’s like, mom, did you call that therapist? Oh no, I don’t need the therapist. It’s okay. And that’s just this dynamic. That’s really tricky. Yeah. And your partner is a huge part of this, right?

One thing that I thought was very interesting is you talk about assessing sort of both of your family dynamics, family of origin, how is it set up? What are the rules? And then meeting your inner child, like are you the caregiver, the rebel, the golden child, the good kid?

[00:23:00]

But you look at that with your spouse as well, right?

What is their role within the family? Yeah. Can you talk to us about that and how you even start the conversation with your spouse? ’cause they could be very defensive or have their own challenges. Mm. And, and when we go in and we go, I, I talk about the top down and bottom up process. What works better for people naturally is when you plant seeds.

So if you go into this conversation with your partner and say, wow, look, you’re a peacekeeper and you keep doing this with your mom, and look at how this pans out for us, and we’re having all these problems. Of course, what do people do? We naturally protect our histories, our childhood memories, and our parents.

We always do. And so instead, then what’s more helpful? First, if you have grab the book and you can go through this together and say, oh, wow, look, here’s myself, I’ve just discovered that this is this role within myself that I haven’t fully healed and I played in the family and isn’t this interesting?

[00:24:00]

Do you identify with any of these?

And then, you know, maybe it’s poking around of like, you know, I wonder if sometimes you feel like you have to be the peacekeeper in the family. And that’s been the role you’ve always taken. And so it’s inviting him into the conversation. I, I always say it like, imagine getting this like Lego set in front of you.

You’re sitting shoulder to shoulder and you’re not telling him what to do, but instead you’re inviting him to be curious because it really isn’t you versus me. This is you and me versus the problem. And the problem is how do we all feel safe and connected with family?

Yeah. And I love this conversation because this episode is going to come out in early November, right before the holiday season.

Mm-hmm. And one of the things that, that I talk with my clients all the time is like, how can you not drink during the holiday season and establish those boundaries, like maybe you don’t travel.

 

[00:25:00]

Maybe if you’re visiting your in-laws, and they are huge booers, lots of them are, you stay somewhere separate, you stay in an Airbnb, so you have a safe place to retreat.

 

Maybe you show up later or leave earlier, and that’s a huge conversation to have if you’re. Changing dynamics and someone might be the victim or offended or the martyr or whatever it is. Having these conversations with your spouse, with your scripts from the book could be very helpful before you go into that.

It really is this before piece and that that is what readers will walk away with from the book is those scripts, the specific things that you can plan and say and be together on this. And for, for listeners to understand the book is written so that in the first part you really have this sense of insight and understanding at the problem.

And the second part is my vault method. And the vault is step by step. All of the skills and tools I walk my couples through. In my therapy room, and whether you’re doing it on your own or with your partner, both are equally powerful.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

 

[00:26:00]

And it’s so important when we sit down with our partners and we, I mean, hold this in mind first, when you go to that holiday event, you can usually say that family is predictable and consistent.

When politics comes up the table, the last 4 years you can you know, 98% predict that politics are going to come up again. At the holiday table again. And the challenge though is we go to these family events and we have hope. And we have to have hope because we want, you know, hope is good. It’s not a bad thing, but then we, we go hoping that things will be different, and then we’re at the table and then politics comes up, and then everybody’s in this uproar and you get frustrated because you’re like, oh, they’re doing it again instead of you.

And your partner having that agreement that when politics comes up, you excuse yourself, you grab the kids and you just say, we’re just going to get our after dinner walk if you’re staying with them, and you go for the walk, and then you come back.

[00:27:00]

And it really does depend on who you’re dealing with. And again, this is why it’s so helpful to know you’re in-law type, is that, you know, if someone is able to hear that feedback, you might have that conversation ahead of time and say, Hey, you know what, listen, mom and dad.

 

And always, always start with reassurance. Your family needs to know that they’re important to you and that they play this role in your life. We all need to know that. And if you can give that to them, it’s so important. And saying to them, we love having this holiday time with you, but hey, you know, our needs are changing and the kids’ needs are changing.

And so, this year we’re going to actually explore this Airbnb just down the road, and then we can come in and out. And that’s something we’re going to just try out this year to see how it feels. If they’re upset, this is where our pleasers have to really hold into that boundary, expect that they’ll be upset, and then you say, I know you’re upset.

I know this is not what you wanted. We’re going to try something different this year, and that’s all you need to give.

[00:28:00]

I love the scripts because those conversations are so hard and I love that you tailor them to the type of mother-in-law you have, and I just, you know, I found it so helpful with. Your father-in-law as well ’cause those dynamics are, are similar, but you know, your mother-in-law with your spouse for women is just, is a unique challenge most of the time. You mentioned your VAULT method. And I wanted to ask you about that. One of my favorite things, because what everybody wants of course, is the solution.

 

You talk about understanding your triangle limits and boundaries and taking action. But what I love about it is you don’t start there. You start with values and aspirations. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about why that’s important and, and how it fits in? I love that you picked this up, Casey, because it is essential to this conversation.

 

[00:29:00]

If I started and, and here’s where couples struggle. They come to my office and they say, I told him to set a boundary with his mother and he didn’t. He doesn’t know why he’s setting a boundary. He doesn’t know what a boundary is. He doesn’t know why this matters. He doesn’t see the issue the same way as she does.

 

I’m using heterosexual relationships, but this applies across with many couples. And so, you know, I think what’s tricky about this is that then people get defensive and they’re not going to do the thing. But instead, we need to understand that our boundaries actually do. Come rooted in what matters to us, how we want to show up, and what that actually looks like on a ground level.

So, we start first looking at what matters to you. This is the word. Values. And Casey, you know, it’s kind of, I, I chuckle a bit because when I talk about values, a lot of people will say. Values. What? What does that mean? And yet, I had a text recently from my teenage niece and she said something about values.

 

[00:30:00]

And I just love that this word is being used. So, it is important. And so, what’s a value? A value is what matters to you. It’s like your North Star. They’re not goals. Goals are I want to see my family once a month, but a value is being connected to family. A goal would be, I want to go to the gym. Three days a week.

The value is my physical health. So you and your partner walk through these exercises to really identify what matters to you. The exercise is so robust, you’re both going to get together to then see what really matters. But then here’s what tends to happen, and this is where step two aspirations comes in, is that.

Couples come together and they say, well, we both value family. And I tell this story of this one couple where when she married into the family, yes, they were on the same page around this value, but then every Sunday he wanted to go to his mother’s for espresso and biscotti. And she’s thinking, but Sunday is the day I get ready for the next day.

[00:31:00]

And I’m sure your mom would be okay if we don’t go every Sunday. And then, having kids on top of it and it no longer works on Sunday and he’s insisting they still have to go because they’re 35,000 feet in the air with their value, and now they need to come on the ground level.

What do holidays look like? What does it actually mean to have your mother come and live with us and visit us? What like, and so the aspirations piece, as I walk couples through, or even just you yourself, I walk you through all of these questions that you and your partner are going to discover so much more about each other. And when I tested out these questions, one of my friends had said, oh, these are fantastic.

Do you mind if I take this list with me now to do it with my husband? It was cute. So yeah. So then that’s this, this piece here is really about self-discovery and carving out what this looks like. And then I know in step two I also talk about the nervous system because. We can’t do this work if we are constantly going on autopilot.

[00:32:00]

If we are having our nervous systems shut down, numb out, we can’t do that work. And so, this is about them getting out of that autopilot mode and really getting into this engaged, connected space.

Yeah, and a lot of what I hear from clients and for women who are trying to not drink or are moving through it, is that they are tired of also managing their husband’s relationship with his mother.

 

Why is his mother calling her about the holidays? Why is she the one in charge of the presence? Why is she the one in charge of thinking ahead about what his mother would want? And then, also why can his husband, or, and also why is there partner, male or female? Why can’t they go on their own to see their family? Like, if he wants to go every Sunday, great, but why does she need to be involved?

[00:33:00]

Mm, there’s, there’s this little bit of a depends piece in there because if a family can welcome you into it and you’re not an outsider and you’re not being scapegoated or talked about behind your back and you have a healthy, solid relationship with everyone, then it probably is okay for him to go on his own and to nurture that relationship with between him and mom, him and his family.

 

Nurture that, and I say to men, it is your responsibility. To build that relationship with your parents, that does not default to your partner. There’s, and so then the other piece too that I see where couples come to this place is, I remember with one woman that I worked with several years ago. She had said, going there on Sunday and having people yell and swear at each other at the dinner table just doesn’t feel good for me.

And so, we talked about what would it be like to just allow your husband and baby to go to that event and you stay back and you look after yourself? And there was a lot of this like, Ooh, is that the right thing to do?

[00:34:00]

I’m not sure. And when we came back to her values, she was able to say, it doesn’t feel good to be there all the time.

I actually grew more resentful to them. And so, then she shows up once in a while and is still part of the family. And that’s okay. And then in some scenarios too, Casey, there is the scenario where mother-in-law has made her daughter-in-law to be an outsider and the bad one and is not including her.

And so, the couple then has to decide, are we okay to be separate and to keep facilitating this? And for some people they are. That’s okay. And they’re able to work through that as long as the couple always comes back as a team, and I do this in the book. I have scripts specifically for men around this. If you go to mom by yourself and she says hurtful things about your wife, you stop those comments and you say, that’s not helpful.

Hey mom, we’re not going to talk about my partner behind her back. You know? Let’s talk about, yeah. How was whatever club this week that you went to.

[00:35:00]

Yeah, that is awesome. And then, I’ve also seen families playing off, like for example, they have two daughter-in-laws, or they have a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law, and just playing one off the other, which is difficult too, because then that can fracture your relationship with their siblings. And then, you all have to come together. The comparisons between families is so harmful and it, it’s really interesting. There’s research around speaking about other family members or speaking about your own marriage as a mother-in-law, and when mothers in-law do that. The relationship is more strained with their daughter-in-law.

 

And it, it’s not, and hopefully people listening can feel empowered to do this, is that if your mother-in-law speaks, or any family member, if any family member speaks about somebody else and they’re not there, you don’t have to engage in that because it actually creates, so again, it’s the triangle. And you’re stepping into a triangle anytime someone is coming to you, and let’s even contextualize this.

 

[00:36:00]

I say this in the book, is that the reason we go into triangles is because we feel distress with another person. Distress, anxiety or stress, and we don’t know how to work through that and to alleviate it. We bring in the third. And so if it’s say, mom talking to you about the other in-law, then you’ll say, Hey, you know what?

If you have a problem there, you do need to go speak to them. But why don’t we talk about the kids and they just join tennis club and they’ve been smashing it, and you change the topic and you say to them, I’m not going to engage in that conversation.

Yeah. I think, you know, I mentioned to you, I think this book is so helpful and as we are approaching the holidays and women are changing the way they interact with their partner at parties with each other and establishing new boundaries as they are going alcohol0free, this is a great time to have that conversation about values.

 

[00:37:00]

And about aspirations, like what do you want this to feel like, and getting to know your partner can help you in terms of like, what do you care about, right? Like, you’re inviting me to your office holiday party. This, I, I don’t enjoy going, it’s a ton of small talk. Everybody’s drinking. It’s a, you know, it’s a three hour marathon.

Is that really important to you that I attend that? Or is something else important to you? And if so, why and how can we compromise? But I feel like going into the holidays, if you are changing your relationship with alcohol, which requires you to change boundaries, which requires you to disrupt longstanding traditions or alter them.

Starting with the values and aspirations conversation can be helpful not only with family dynamics, but also with other things.

 

[00:38:00]

You’re shifting other traditions in your life. Yes. Oh, I love that you’ve added that here because it is, it is about bringing in these principles that I, that couples need, which is curiosity. How do we get curious together? Compassion? How do we also have this understanding and softness and empathy for what the other person’s experiencing? How do we come together in connection and actually have time together? And then, collaboration. I talked about those four Cs in my first book. That collaboration piece is.

This sense of we’re on the same page and if you feel uncomfortable, then we need to do something together. And if you had this desire to, whatever it looks like, then I want to be there to do it with you. And it’s not, I’m not making you out to be the bad one or the problem, or you know, disrupting patterns.

I’m saying we are in this together. Let’s do this together. And a relationship needs that prioritization.

[00:39:00]

And I even like was able to do this with my mother a couple years ago. She very much want, my kids are much younger than my sister’s kids and we don’t see them very often. Right. They live in Ohio.

My mom lives in D.C., we live in Seattle, so my mother sees them. My mother sees us. Her kids are out of college. I have an 11-year-old and a 17-year-old, and so my mother, a couple years ago when my niece was graduating high school was like, we need to go to Ohio. We need a big family event. I’ll pay for it.

It’s a reunion. Just trying to coordinate that with my son’s select baseball thing and my husband’s fishing trip and you know, it’s a lot of money. It’s time. I don’t have that much vacation. All the things. And so, I was like a little bit cringe, just like, what’s going on here? And finally I asked her, I was like, what is important to you about this trip?

[00:40:00]

What is really, what do you really care about? And she said, okay, I really care about Lila. My daughter, who was like 8 at the time, getting to spend time with Abby, her, my sister’s daughter, and we both have sons. And she was like, before Abby goes to college, because my daughter, Lila had never actually met Abby.

My son’s 17, now he had, and I was like. Okay. I can work with that. Right. We’re not taking my son out of baseball, which he can’t get out of. We’re not impacting my husband’s vacation schedule. I was like, Abby and I, you know, Lila and I will fly. We’ll spend a long weekend with you guys. That was awesome.

As opposed to like trying to coordinate two full families and my mother insisting on it and not even understanding why.

Mm-hmm. Particularly like, why it was so important to her. Mm. Oh, that’s such a beautiful example, Casey, of how you were able to not get stuck in this binary this yes or no, right? Like, no, that’s not possible.

[00:41:00]

Yes, I guess we’ll just do it and we’ll get resentful because everybody has to give up their things, but instead coming into what really matters about this, and then how can we make that piece work? And, and it is, you’re touching on something really tricky here too, is that everybody has expectations and that might not be an expectation of yours when we bring in the, all the grandchildren level, we bring in the adult children level, we bring in, you know, grandma’s expectations and it’s tricky. And I think for anyone listening, I really want to just sink into this because I know what happens around holidays is that you get the family photo picture on Instagram and everybody is sharing the cheers and the video of everyone being around and smiling.

And here’s the thing, all families struggle in some way. And that those few seconds don’t capture the entire experience to get to that moment or what happens after that moment.

[00:42:00]

And that it doesn’t mean you are bad, it doesn’t mean there’s something defective about you, how you’re choosing to live your life or your family, if you are struggling in this season.

So, I just really hope listeners can hold onto that piece and just show up with so much compassion for yourself ’cause it’s a lot.

 

Yeah. Yeah. And what you see on social media is so not true. Mm-hmm. I mean, it just isn’t, you could be fighting all day and miserable, but the picture you put up is going to be gorgeous. Right?

Mm-hmm. You’ll be like hashtag blessed or whatever your thing is, and it’s like, Jesus Christ, this is so far from the truth, but everyone else is posting those pictures and you believe that that’s true for them.

Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you about, because triggers are a huge thing that drive women to drink, right?

 

Mm-hmm. You want to numb out or you want to escape. You talk about how in-law, tension often triggers old family wounds, and how can you identify like the real trigger behind your immediate reaction?

 

[00:43:00]

One of the things people can do is go back to one of those hot button moments that you had. Spend some time journaling and reflecting around it and ask yourself, what does this remind me of?

 

Where else have I felt this before? And I think slowing this down so that you can understand it and also see what that unmet part of you is. So, maybe, it’s when your mother-in-law criticizes something you’ve done in the house or your parenting choice or something. Soc it’s a comment. And these, you know, they’re often paper cuts, but then you feel that surge of anger from your toes to your fingertips, and you feel that frustration and maybe you snap back, maybe you don’t, maybe you hide it, but there’s something inside of you and you asking yourself, what is this really about for me?

Can I slow this down? Where else have I felt this with previous partners in previous relationships and early childhood experiences?

[00:44:00]

Maybe it’s the critical comment that you used to get all the time from your mom. Maybe it’s a best friend who actually broke your trust, but used to put you down in these insidious ways.

And then, asking yourself, if I go back to that moment, what is it that that younger part of me needs and how can I give that to that part of me? And it’s not that we ask others to heal those for ourselves, we have to start giving it to ourselves.

So, I think about one client who grew up in a highly critical family, and she really needed this sense of compassion for herself and just being seen and known that she’s enough and that was the work that she had to do for herself before then going back into those family holiday events.

Yeah, understanding your inner child and giving yourself, you know, I’ve done an episode on reparenting and how to do that for yourself. Mm-hmm. And that’s really important. I mean, when I asked in my group what’s, you know, what’s going on?

[00:45:00]

What do you think, what, what triggers you? I mean, I heard everything from, like, my mother-in-law likes to make tiny digs over time and essentially exclude her, but make the mother-in-law feel more included and her husband takes the mother-in-law’s side. There’s stuff from small things like she met our dogs and you know, they, but she loves them and calls them her grand pups and sends them gifts, which makes her sister-in-law. Human children furious, like it’s over the place.

 

But another one that I’ve heard is that you mentioned earlier that the parents really are not interested in her children. Right. Her big value is family and they, you know, would rather go on a big vacation than spend any time with them. And that’s hurtful, too. So, not spending time with her children, I mean that to me sounds like an old family wound as well.

[00:46:00]

Or criticizing her someone and getting digs. I mean, that hurts deep parts of you from growing up. They really do, and they also speak to our expectations and desires that come in here. What was your expectation to welcome in another mother figure? What had you hoped for? What was your experience before with authority figures?

Because that will also, you know, contribute to how you’re feeling in this relationship. It is interesting ’cause then when you, you know, I think of the story I tell about the woman whose mother-in-law would show up and fill the fridge with all these pasta dishes and she would just feel so powerless.

And so, in sessions we really worked on her trying to find her power. But her friends on the flip side were like, can you send some of, past the dishes our way, like, please tell your mother-in-law to come into my house and fill my fridge. Like, I just, you know, I can’t even make meals because I’ve got the one and 3-year-old crying at the same time.

And I would just love to have that.

[00:47:00]

And it’s not, and I think this is the piece too about this conversation is your experience is real and valid. And someone else is going to have a different experience. And the piece here is how do we come together in conversation, in connection about this, to know that it’s not just us, and then also where’s our sense of agency?

How do we then get to decide what to do next with this? And then you have to define before you do that, what would a win look like for you? Like what do you actually want? Yeah. And I think a lot of women never take the time to actually mm-hmm. Define what they want and what’s valuable to them, which is why I love the values and aspirations.

Yeah. Of the vault method. I had one more question then I want to see what, what we haven’t covered and what you think women should take away from this. You talked about how women define themselves through their relationships, right? They’re a wife, a daughter, a daughter-in-law.

 

[00:48:00]

I mean, you write your bio and not you personally.

Yes. But anyone tells ’em about themselves and I do it too, right? I’m like. Oh, I, I’ve been married for 23 years. I have two kids. You heard that right? I’m a mother. I’m a wife. And then possibly your career, your title, where you work very little about their individual identity, and I love that that’s in your book.

But what do you think as women think about this, how would you advise them to be supported and, and even take the first step to reclaiming their individuality and their identity?

Hmm. Discover what lights you up. I think that is so important and, and I also say this as a mother to a son. My son, you know, he is individuating from me. He’s separating from me. My kids don’t need me as much as they’re getting older. They’re 10 and 8 now, and there are these moments of closeness and connection and then moments of, Hey mom, I’m going to the park, my friend’s at the park. I don’t want to watch a movie with you.

[00:49:00]

And I think this piece in here is that I can be that secure parent when I also have my own identity and that I will be that safe place for him to land. And as he gets older, I will remember that we have our bonding connection and I also have my own identity. And so I learned to ski a few years ago and now my husband are ski buddies and I am trying to play the piano again, a love of mine from when I was younger.

 

And it’s just all of these things that only you get to choose how to do this. And this, the common theme that shows up in relationships in my therapy room is that women will say, well, he has hockey on Friday night, and then he goes and plays baseball on Saturday night. And you know, my own husband has six hour dirt biking events and.

[00:50:00]

You know, I’d be lucky if it’s 6 hours on the golf course. And those are those things that fill him up, and he does. And if I wait for someone to give me time, it does not happen. And so I have to be allowed advocate for my own identity. And so I think that there’s this peace here where we do need to step out of not only focusing on our marriages, not only focusing on our families, but also.

You know, and a nod to Eve Brodsky’s unicorn space and her, you know, it’s the her fierce message of making time for us. We have to do that. We have to. No one else will do it for us. Well, and the other thing IL seriously, everything you’re saying is, is also resonating with me in terms of what women need to do when they stop drinking.

Because you, a lot of, you know, I, my husband used to do X, y, Z. He coaches baseball, he plays baseball. He coaches basketball. Like he was gone lots of nights and weekends.

[00:51:00]

And so, therefore, whatever time I had sort of slotted in to when he didn’t have anything. And so, I would open a bottle of wine, right?

He gets to go do all these things and I instead stay home with two little kids. It’s difficult. Yeah. And my girlfriend asked me, he also went on like week-long fishing trips every year. He had annual events. I mean, my God, we used to make jokes like, must be nice to be him. But my girlfriend said to me when I was so upset, she was like. Is it that you don’t want him to be happy? Or is it that you are not happy? And I was like, damn. You know? So, had to start hiring a lot of babysitters and just be like, I’m doing this. If you’re busy, great. Like, I have a roster of babysitters, which is hard to do, but you need it, man. My kids were 2 and 8.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I could not agree more with that. And it’s so interesting ’cause I say to my husband, you know, when I get a little. My bucket is empty. I’ll say, well, it must be nice to have a six hour activity. I guess I will just go to the spa every Saturday since you go golfing every Saturday. Right?

[00:52:00]

Like, it’s, but that’s not, that’s not what I want. I don’t want that. What, what I want is intentional time for me. And oftentimes my activities are shorter and look different, and I also have to carve that out. Yeah. There’s also this appreciation around seasons. You know, I recognize that the mom who looking after herself might just be.

Having 10 minutes to wash her face and put mascara on because maybe that’s the thing for her that day. Or if it’s the 30 minute shower and bath time by yourself where your husband fiercely protects the door and doesn’t let the one and 3-year-old in like that might be the season you’re in, but something has to be there for you.

Yeah. And if he makes time for it, you can make time for it too. It does require shifting and it is a lot of hard work.

[00:53:00]

Yeah. And I understand how hard it is for mother-in-laws to let go because you mentioned your kids, like my son is 17 now, and you know, they go through these phases where they don’t talk to you in the car and they do, you know, they maybe are a little bit rude to you, but you know, whatever.

 

They want to spend time separately. And I, someone told me this analogy of, you know, in a pool, in order for your kids to learn to swim, they have to push off from the edge and swim. But your role is to stay there so they know they can come back. And we actually made it a joke with my son and my daughter does it now, too.

She’s 6 years younger. Whenever he would do something that like, was sort of like. Independent yet kind of shitty or I felt a little hurt. I would say to him, I’d be like, you swim, little Nemo, you swim. And it just became this joke that the whole family started laughing about it. Oh, that. And now my daughter’s like, you swim Little Nemo to his 17-year-old brother. But, but it’s such this beautiful way of saying you’re supposed to do this right now.

[00:54:00]

I also say to my kids, I love saying, I’m angry at the situation, or I’m upset at the situation. I’m not upset at you. And that really gives this differentiation of feelings and experiences and it’s not personal.

And so, then we think for daughters-in-law and mothers in-law, it’s not personal. This is what families are supposed to be doing.

Yeah. I could talk to you all day. This has been fantastic. I highly, highly recommend that any woman in a family relationship, whether you are the mother-in-law, or whether you’re dealing with, you know, your partner’s family or your own, get this book.

 

It’s so helpful. Tell us where people can find you, where they can work with you, where they can get the book.

Absolutely. And Casey, your words about my book are just so meaningful. So, thank you so much. It is just the most meaningful thing ever as an author. So, you can find the book on my website, drtracyd.com.

That’s the best place. All of my resources are there. Come and hang out with me. Check out what I’ve got going on there.

[00:55:00]

And if you’re looking for connection, I also have other options there. But then also come over on social media. Say hello to me. My handle on all spaces is @drtracyd.

Perfect. Thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Casey.