What’s Your FAMILY DRAMA Style? with Nedra Glover Tawwab
August 1, 2023
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
How are the both of you?
Glennon Doyle:
I think both of us are pretty good.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, we’re like, one kid’s in Berlin, another kid is hiking in the middle of somewhere, so we both feel a little less tethered.
Glennon Doyle:
We have misplaced our children.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, our children are like off, and then, we’re like, “Ugh. They’re great.” We’re like, “Oh.”
Glennon Doyle:
A little untethered.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
That’s good.
Abby Wambach:
How about you?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
My kids are at summer camp.
Glennon Doyle:
Nice.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And I will pick them up at five, so very not untethered. I’m in the thick of it. I love hearing about teenage and adult children, it is something that certainly makes all of the day-to-dayness like, oh wow, there will be a time when I don’t see them every day.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And it’ll be sad, but refreshing.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what? I would say that that is true. I used to be really scared of them getting older because of all of the horror stories and then… I don’t know, I just thought it would be this separation. You have them till the end of high school and then that’s it. There’s all those terrifying things in the internet that are like, “You have 18 summers, make the most of it.” All of this limiting, scarcity.
Glennon Doyle:
I will say that as our kids have gotten older, I think for every single one of them there has been a pocket, which has usually been around 15, where I’ve sensed a distancing, which has been scary every time because it feels like, oh, this time it’s not going to get better, this time it’s not going to get better, this time it’s not going to work. And then, that gap has closed later, a couple of years later, and then this beginning of this new kind of relationship has started, which I feel closer to them now than I did when they were teeny.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s also scary too, we’re like three years away from our youngest being gone. And if they choose to go to college, one of the things that I feel a lot right now is like, oh my gosh, I have to get to know myself again and I have to get to know Glennon again in this deeper way. So I’m going to start doing therapy and give myself a three-year runway to try to figure that shit out. Because I feel a little bit nervous about myself, like, oh gosh, I have oriented my whole life around these little humans that-
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
That’s so healthy.
Abby Wambach:
… life without them. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to come up there, but yeah-
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
The healthy part is you’re thinking about it. I think unfortunately, it’s when it happens when the kids move on to whatever, when they’re 18 or 19 or 20, and we haven’t even thought about that being a possibility or what that could look like, that it becomes who am I? Who is my partner? What is life?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm. And I think that’s amazing that we just jumped into this right now because today, Pod Squad. We are going to talk about family drama. What is it? Why does it affect us so deeply? How do we navigate it? And it’s funny because a lot of the things that family drama is about is actually about something else, and this is a good example of it, like I’m so scared my kids are leaving. Is it about them or is it about now I’m stuck with myself?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, for sure that’s me.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah. When you’ve built your identity around being a parent, and being a Uber, and picking up and dropping off, and being a activities’ coordinator, and being a summer planner and all of these things, it can be hard to consider what you might want to do with your time now, how you want to be in your friendships, how you want to be in a partnership or pursue a partnership or maybe go to your own violin lessons. What is life like? And unfortunately, sometimes that energy is put on the kids and it’s like, no, “You need to call me. You need to be here. You need to…” And the more there’s that pull, kids will back off. They’re like, “Whoa, wait, wait, I want my life. I want my life.” Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s exactly it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, children are the greatest distraction for yourself. They’re like the greatest magnifier and also, equally, the same amount of distraction. That’s what I think.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and I think for those of us that are lucky to get to a certain point in our life, just aging is such a freaking beautiful privilege. And many of us have never really had the time, the space. The cultural mandate of producing and caretaking has been what we’ve done since we were adults, so we never have had a minute to say, “Wait, who am I? What do I want?” free of the demands of caretaking. And for women, this moment is like, “Wow, what am I going to do? Who am I going to be?” It’s a freaking beautiful-
Abby Wambach:
It’s hilarious because we both have full-time jobs and we have a lot going on in our professional life and we’re really worrying about, what are we going to do?
Glennon Doyle:
So-
Abby Wambach:
Anyways.
Glennon Doyle:
… we’re here for Nedra to tell us what to do.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Yeah. Family drama.
Glennon Doyle:
Nedra, who is our just, beloved and really the world’s beloved boundaries expert is back. If you haven’t listened to episode 124, How to Say No: Boundaries with Nedra, please go back and listen when you finish this. Nedra Glover Tawwab is the author of the New York Times Bestsellers Drama Free and Set Boundaries, Find Peace. A licensed therapist and sought after relationship experts, she shares practices, tools, and reflections for mental health and relationships. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her family.
Glennon Doyle:
And what I can tell you about Nedra that you can’t see right now, but that you will hear is that she seems to have a calm nervous system, which for me is the measure of anybody is walking the walk that they’re talking is when they come on, if they’re any kind of emotional boundaries expert, and they actually do have a calm nervous system, I think, okay, I will have what she’s having.
Glennon Doyle:
Nedra, your new book is about drama in the family and why it happens and what we can actually do to minimize it or handle conflict or let it affect us less. So the goal of this podcast is to give people actual understanding of why it’s messing them up so much because it does affect us so much more than friendship drama, or anything else really. And then, to also give people some tools to deal with that kind of conflict. But can you start off by telling us, here’s my question, you answered a lot of this in the book, but as I was reading the beginning, I kept thinking, what is the difference between family drama and just family? Are there families without drama or is the drama part just inherent in these groups where we just love each other so much and we all have such limited tools? Is just being in a family dramatic?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I would say the way in which we manage conflict, differences, that’s what creates the drama. And some families, there’s a better handling of us not having the same religious views or us being from different income brackets or my kids being homeschooled and your kids going to private schools. There’s maybe a respect or a way that we can deal with that. But when there’s an unwillingness to manage conflict, when there is constant confrontation, we haven’t figured out any tools to repair, that’s when the drama comes in. Of course, in any relationship there’s going to be some conflict, but how we manage it is really important. And actually, the conflict isn’t unhealthy, it teaches us how to be in relationship with people. When I have an argument with my partner, hopefully we won’t repeat the same argument because there’s been some level of understanding. We know how to proceed in the future, but when those things are not repaired properly, that’s when the drama ensues.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm. So the three examples you just gave, these are all differences.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So is conflict in family, most of the conflict in family, you hear about navigating differences.
Abby Wambach:
Otherness. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And so, is what’s beneath it the resistance to individuation, the idea that we all have to be the same?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Absolutely. I think if you come from a family with a heavy pattern of addiction and a person is deciding to live a life of sobriety, that is problematic because that’s the difference, right? It’s like, oh my gosh, this person is not like us. This isolates them. Now I think they’re judging me. But yes, that’s about differences. And sometimes it’s good, right? It can be really inspiring, it can give us some ideas around how we want to be, but many times, it can cause conflict, it causes comparisons, jealousy, and all sorts of resentments.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you hear from people the most? When people are reporting to you, “Here’s my particular family drama. Here’s my brand, my family’s brand of drama.” First of all, how do you define drama in a family? And then, secondly, what are the brands of drama that you hear the most often?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Drama is high chaos and conflict that has not or cannot be resolved. The brand of drama that I hear the most, I would say, it’s between the child and parent. Now I’m seeing a lot of adult children wanting to live a more autonomous life. And as we started talking about, those parents haven’t learned to develop their own sense of self outside of parenting, and so, they want their voice to be very huge in these adults’ life. And maybe my parents’ generation, they respected that more. Now we’re dealing with new people where they’re like, “Hey, I’m doing whatever I want to do.”
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
We’re in a new generation where people want a different type of parenting. Parenting in, maybe the ’60s or ’70s, if your parent did anything, it was like, “Oh, my dad was gone all the time, but he needed to work.” Now, it is neglect. So at that time, it was like he just worked two jobs, that’s what he needed to do with his family. But now we have a different label for it because people identify, “Wow. While that was happening, although we needed the income, no one ever talked to me about my feelings.” When I started my cycle, I was just given a path. When I had these different life experiences, I didn’t have anyone there. And so now, we have higher needs, which is not a bad thing, but it certainly shapes the way that people expect to be parented in their adulthood. So I’m seeing a lot of conflict there with differences.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so interesting.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
It’s interesting to see some parents so resistant to allowing their children to show up in the world in the way that they want, not in totally bad ways. I’m not seeing a lot of people do anything ridiculous, it’s like, “I want to go to Mexico for Thanksgiving,” and they’re these family conversations and conflicts and “I’m going to cut you off. You don’t want to come here with your grandmother. How dare you go.” I’m like, “For going to Mexico?”
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Isn’t it fascinating though because it makes me feel as if there’s a category of family drama that’s just about true dysfunction and not being able to communicate correctly. But isn’t there a category of family drama that is based on culture moving on and having different values than the previous generation that it makes inherent conflict that actually it plays out as an individual who wants to go to Mexico and a mother who can’t let go of, but what it’s representing is this cultural value of true to thy own self being the cultural value, whereas last generation’s culture value was like wait, togetherness, family, the collective? And so, there really isn’t a right or wrong, it’s just the inevitable conflict that comes up as culture shifts, values, and so every generation has a different right and wrong.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah, I would say so. I was born in the ’80s and I think about all of the things that weren’t necessarily around or acceptable. When I had children in the later 2000s, so many things had changed. You can’t use baby powder with kids anymore. They have to be in the car seat until they’re 20. Just all of these new things and it’s like, I don’t even remember a car seat, but it’s mind-blowing to me, my kids will have a recollection of a car seat in their childhood. And there are so many other things that have changed the way that people may or may not attend church, the way people may or may not want to celebrate their holidays with family or with friends or by themselves. All of these things have shifted.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And within families, we’re like, “No, this is the only way to do it. If you do anything else, it’s a rejection of us. If you don’t allow this person to borrow all of your things or do all of this stuff, it’s like you’re rejecting us as a people.” And it’s really, I just want to decide who I am. I just want to create my own life. And that might look a little different and I still love you.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
But with that, we have so many new ways to be connected. Do you remember long distance calling in the ’90s?
Abby Wambach:
Yes, oh, my gosh.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
It was such a thing. Oh, my… It’s like, “Hurry up, get on the phone. They’re long distance.”
Glennon Doyle:
“Five dollars a minute. Five dollars a minute.” Yes.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I remember traveling to Ghana and I had calling cards.
Abby Wambach:
Cards. The worst.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, calling cards
Abby Wambach:
The worst.
Glennon Doyle:
You had to put in like a 14-digit number so you could get the call through.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah, but now, we can be connected to people so easily. So has that made up for some of the disconnection that we had over those years? We had to be connected in that sort of way. But now, I could just pick up the phone and call people. There’s so many different ways. I feel like I am connected with you if I could just Zoom. Do I need to see you?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
There’s so many technological advances that have made it more possible to maintain relationships in a different way, and I think sometimes those things are not necessarily accounted for, how things used to be and how things are now. You have generations now where they’re like, “I don’t want to answer my phone when people call. Just text me.”
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. Even our kids, their relationship with those technologies and devices are very different than ours. So they’re like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Our kids in Berlin, he’s like, “This is fine. No problem.” We’re like over here sad. Oh, we miss him and he’s like, “No, we’re connected as ever.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I think about it a lot in terms of women. I’m in recovery right now for a like eating things. And we look at what we know now in our culture about diet culture and about how to treat little girls and their bodies and then we feel very upset about our parents and how they handled the same things in very different ways. And we think how could they have? How could they have?
Glennon Doyle:
And then, I think about my kid who’s 20, they’re older, and I think about when he was a baby and little, I used to put him all over social media, Nedra. They were little, small children. All the time, five times a day. “Look how cute they are.” Now the consciousness that they have about their own agency and parents who put their kids, it just wasn’t a part of the consciousness 20 years ago.
Glennon Doyle:
But I know it, I know they’re already doing it. They’re going to be like, “How could you have?” And I’m going to have to say the same thing my parents are saying to me, “I loved you so much and I did not have the consciousness that we have now. If it were now, I would’ve made different decisions. And I’m so sorry.” But that is a how could you that is actually culturally explained in some ways, right?
Abby Wambach:
It’s interesting, we can’t forgive our families for some of the how could you moments, but we know that we’re probably actively creating those how could you moments for our own children.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, of course, we are.
Abby Wambach:
And it feels backwards.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah, but I think about what could make that a healthier experience is when a parent can own that. Because I hear some owning in that, “Yes, I did do that. And my apologies for what I did not know.”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
The dysfunction comes in where the parent says, “You can’t say that to me. I did what I wanted to do.” Or all of these other things like, “How dare you have a issue with me putting you online?” All of those sorts of things are the reasons that families have conflict because when a parent comes to you and they’re apologetic and they’re able to hear you, that’s a very different experience than a parent saying, “You’re just making up stuff. That’s not how it was,” or, “This was what I meant to do. And hey, you have to deal with it.”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
But when you can honor and respect a sibling, a child, or anyone else in your family, it makes for more of a restorative experience when having conversations. But we really get trapped in that, “I did the best I could,” or, “I didn’t mean to do it.” And so we get into over-explaining ourselves or not wanting to be accountable.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
One really positive thing I’m noticing now with younger folks is there is this desire for accountability. And it’s something that maybe our parents have a really hard challenge with, with just saying, “Yes, that happened that way. I did that.” Because it’s so hard to see yourself as a harmful and also loving person.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Because we will do harm as humans, accidentally, all the time. And when we can acknowledge that, what we’re gaining is respect.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes. It’s like they fear they’re going to lose respect by admitting it. It’s like parental fragility. It’s a little bit like white fragility. It’s like, “I can’t look at that because that will ruin my identity as a good parent.” Is that what you see because there’s a million different versions of family drama? Is accountability a cultural thing? Is the older generation like, “What the hell are you talking about? Because they had an authoritarian model for parenting”?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah. I think accountability is a thing. When people want accountability and you refuse to give it to them or refuse to accept their reality, it deteriorates the relationship because then it’s a lack of trust.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
They can’t trust that you will even change moving forward because you haven’t acknowledged what happened in the past. So to move forward, that acknowledgement piece is really big with couples. I’m seeing a lot of conflict with their parents when they start to have children because that’s when the boundaries are coming out and they’re like, “Hey, people who raised me, here are these things, I want to be different with my children. And how do I know this? You raised me.”
Glennon Doyle:
“So yes, you can babysit, but here’s the page of things that we’re doing differently here.”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yes. Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Like the hurt feelings my mom has felt over that, she’s like, “Like I don’t know what I’m doing. I raised seven children.” And I’m like, “Yeah, well, you got to follow and respect their reasons and guidelines for the way that they want to do it.”
Abby Wambach:
My family’s kind of drama I think is like a step before what we’re talking about in terms of any kind of conflict, my family’s kind of drama is complete brushing everything under the rug and not even engaging in the conflict. So I feel like I’m being gaslit my whole life. It’s just the way things are, the way my family does things. But then when things happen, nobody talks about anything.
Glennon Doyle:
How does that affect people? Because that’s a different kind of family drama. It’s like a refusal to have any drama, drama?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, but there’s drama, just it’s this pot that’s spoiling, bubbling over the top.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
The unnoticing is its own drama, right? Because it does create this questioning experience, like, “Did this really happen? Am I the only person who sees this?” And when you’re in a family and they’re trying to convince you of a different reality, it is gaslighting. “Oh, it’s not that bad.” Or, “You should feel this way about it. This person is having a hard time. They didn’t mean it that way.” And all of those things could be true, and also it hurt. “They had a really bad day at work and then they came and yelled at me, that’s all I’m saying. I didn’t say they didn’t have a bad day, I’m just saying they did something harmful to me and that’s the part of it I don’t like.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I think when we have addiction in families, this covering up is a really big thing. There are some family members who will acknowledge it and there are others who will really just, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s like, “But you’re not noticing any behavior? You’re not noticing things missing?” And that creates conflict, and sometimes, not even with the person who is maybe creating some of it, it’s with the other family members, because now they’re arguing about what the issue is.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
So that refusal to see an issue is really problematic and we have to step outside of that protective barrier that we try to have around people and honor what someone is saying.
Abby Wambach:
And it’s hard for me, I think, in my family dynamic. There were seven children, two parents. And I think a lot about how different I felt from the rest of them. I don’t know if it’s because I took an observer role being the youngest or whatever, but there is this weird, interesting dynamic too that if you do feel like you’re the X factor, however you want to describe that, it feels like it’s this dynamic that it’s them versus me. And I bet a lot of listeners feel that way. And so, it feels like they’re always like, “Well, this is how you are this. This is just you problem.” How does somebody in that position try to engage with conflict? How do you get the courage to speak up for yourself when you feel like you’re going against the whole clan?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Well, Abby, as a fellow baby, there’s a lot of observing that you can do as the youngest member in your family. And so, you have the ability to see your siblings do certain things and you’re able to start, “Okay, so when they do that, then this. And then, oh, don’t say this to mom because if you say it this way…” It’s a really privileged position sometimes, but I do think the drawback is it makes you a bit different from people sometimes because you have this level of awareness that they didn’t have the opportunity to have.
Abby Wambach:
That’s interesting.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
So how do we connect with people when you may know something and they may not yet know it?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Okay, say more. How do we do that?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah, it’s-
Glennon Doyle:
You just yell at them repeatedly that you are-
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
No. No.
Glennon Doyle:
… able to say things louder and louder?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I think that’s where the meeting people, where they are comes in, you have a level of understanding that they have not been privileged to understand because they’re in it, but you’re like, “I’ve been watching this. I’ve been watching this play out for years and this is what I know. And I have this information.” And you may come across as like, “Oh my gosh, your perspective is so different,” it is. I’m in a different position in the family just like the oldest is in a different position in the family, just like the middle children are in a different position, just like if your parents get a divorce. All of these things change our roles in family and what we’re able to see.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And sometimes, we don’t have to improve situations by telling people who they are and what we think, it’s just allowing them to be themselves. That can be harder for some of us because what is really comfortable is when people are just like us. If everybody like to watch the same TV show, we all like to have the same thing for dinner, we all like to go to the same places. That would just be wonderful. That’s not very likely, especially in a family of seven.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
What’s going to happen is I’m going to be over here doing my thing and sometimes, people should come over there with me. And then, sometimes, I may go over here with you. We need to figure out what this looks like just like you would do, remove family from it, in a classroom, in a friend group setting, in a workplace. We figure out how to make it work. We figure out how to be in relationships with people. But in families, what we don’t want to do is figure it out. We want them to get on our page. We’re like, “Okay, the way that this situation improves is if you become more like me. Just be like me and we would just be happy.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting you say in the book that family is like a classroom. There may be two or three people in a classroom that we really connect with, but not everybody in the class is going to be invited to our birthday party. But the thing Nedra is that family is like everyone has to be invited to the birthday party, riI? What do we do when we do feel like everyone needs to be invited to the birthday party and we are with people who are saying things that are hurting us? Because I’m sure that’s what you hear a lot, the put downs or the-
Abby Wambach:
Teasing. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. How do we handle that?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Does everyone in the family have to be invited to our birthday party or is that a choice we make? Is that a way that we try to keep down conflict by being uncomfortable with that person’s presence?
Glennon Doyle:
So how do people know whether their family ranks in the dysfunctional/drama situation? How do you as a therapist divide people between, “You’re just a human being who’s living among human beings and that causes some inevitable conflict, you over here are in a drama-filled dysfunctional family, and we need to find ways to extricate or handle that”? What are some symptoms for people to know, oh, I’m in the drama?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Frequency and intensity. How often is this happening? Is this a one-off with your sister-in-law or is it every time you see your sister-in-law? Is it a small situation or is it a big blow up? How often is it happening and how intense, how severe is it? What is the offense? Is it something that you can cure with saying, “Hey, yes, I’m not eating a ton of food, but I also don’t want that to be an experience where you feel the need to comment on my weight because I didn’t eat a lot of food.” Do they receive that or don’t they receive that? Does that lead to having a big blowup? Does this other person get in it? What’s happening in the family? Sometimes there is this thing that happens in families that is very normal but also unhealthy and it’s gossip.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Family gossiping is very harmful and it’s also very normal to get on the phone with maybe a sibling or a cousin or whoever and say, “Oh my gosh, did you see that person when they brought their son over? Oh my gosh.” It’s not very helpful. It’s just not like, “Hey, I saw Riley.” It’s like, “No, did you see his face? He’s really in puberty.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Like why are we doing this?
Glennon Doyle:
Totally.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And it doesn’t stop there. It becomes this spread of calling other people, bringing other people into it, and being very hurtful toward the people that we love.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. Okay, I need to understand why this is so difficult. This is so hard for me to even think about. I have a loyalty. I have a nostalgia. I have a primal DNA tie to these people, and I don’t understand why it’s so hard for me to set a boundary or talk about the drama rather than just continue to keep the party line with the family and to keep sweeping everything under the rug. Why is this so hard to deal with or not deal with family drama?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a good question because we can do it with friends, we can do it with everyone.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Because little Abby is activated.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm, okay.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And that big, grown voice has not had the opportunity to come out because you’re still thinking about who you used to be, what used to happen, “You’re going to get in trouble. You can’t say this to that person because…” Instead of saying, “This is my life and this is an issue. And I have the ability to express my challenge with what’s going on in this relationship.”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
But with family, the relationship started before you were you. And I don’t know if you come from one of those families where people love to remind you of little you, right? “You were this. You were that.” Now when big, grown you has to say something, it’s like little you is saying it to them. It’s like, “Whoa, how does little Abby say that to me?” It’s like, “Oh, I’m an adult now. This is big Abby, not little Abby speaking.”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And so, we have to claim that space in our adulthood of being a mature person who can speak up in our relationships regardless of the history, regardless of the family tie because when we do not, it builds the resentment, it builds a lot of issues in that relationship. And naturally, we start to pull back, we start to have animosity, we start to maybe talk about these situations with other people. And if we want to be in those relationships, we have to do the work of repairing them and that’s going to be having some of these adult conversations that make you a little bit uncomfortable.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I’m hearing two things in there. One, the reason why it feels like I can do a lot of hard things, but talking to my mom or dad about changing patterns is not one of them. I’d rather die. It feels primal inside of you like I would rather die than do that thing. Is that because that’s attachment, like little Abby not rocking the boat was the way you survived because your family is your safety on the earth? So it’s reminding ourselves as adults, oh, but now we can survive without the caretaking, so it’s okay to say things that maybe weren’t okay when we were little. And it’s the reminder of what Nedra’s saying about it being the kind thing to do. We don’t confront our families kindly, even though we love them, we confront them kindly because we love them and we want to continue the relationship.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I just also think it will be heartbreaking to have some of these conversations with my mom and dad about, I don’t know, if it’s even my experience or just what I’m seeing. I don’t want to come off as a person who’s judging them or being so critical. I don’t know. I think this is what I was taught to not question them, and that is what is, I think, I’m feeling like I’m going to be in trouble.
Glennon Doyle:
So that’s why it’s hard too because you’re fighting something in yourself. Family stuff is in you. It’s like the call’s coming from inside the house.
Abby Wambach:
Ugh.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah. That’s the little you though, the I’m going to get in trouble. I wonder what have they done to make you feel safe in the relationship to be able to talk about difficult things. And I bet it’s some of what both of you are doing with your children. Because my kids are seven and nine and they’re very clear with stuff. It hurts my feelings, but I always say, “I want you to be honest with me. I will deal with being mad, I’ll deal with being upset, but I want you to be able to say whatever it is you need to say to me.”
Glennon Doyle:
I love that. That’s not exactly the message that the older generation passed down.
Abby Wambach:
No.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it ever just too late? Therapy is a big thing for our generation. My parents did not. My parents were both teachers. They were working their asses off. Nobody was going to therapy. So we all have all this therapy that then we’re bringing to our parents with these conversations. Is it always a good idea to point out patterns that we think are unhealthy with our parents or sometimes is it just work we need to do on our own?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Sometimes it is work that we need to do on our own, particularly when we have a parent who’s expressed the lack of desire to change. Because just because you want something different doesn’t mean that the other person wants the same thing. It can be very scary to change. It can be something that you don’t even know how to get started. You may have your own things that you need to go to therapy for, but you’re not ready to take that path. All sorts of things. So a lot of the changing is really on us. Even if you have that conversation, sometimes the takeaway is not, okay, now this person will change everything, it’s just I said the hard thing and they’re aware.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I just need you to be aware. It’s not even that you have to do these things differently, but if I start to do things differently with you, you’re aware of why.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And that does shift everything when we approach things differently. So how do we know when we should bring it up? How do we know when we should bring up conflict with someone or when the mature thing to do is refrain from that?
Abby Wambach:
And work on ourselves.
Glennon Doyle:
Because sometimes confrontation is healing to the family drama, and sometimes it’s just contributing to the family drama. So how do we know the difference? When do you as a therapist say, okay, in this scenario, it’s the right time to say something?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Well, the first thing is have you ever brought it up before? Are they aware of it? If it’s something they’re aware of, you don’t need to bring it up a 10th time. You will have some people who are like, “I keep saying it to them.” And it’s like, “Okay, that is a sign they’re not listening. Don’t say it anymore. Saying it an eighth time is not going to be the magic number. Just stop, they’re not listening.” But then you have other folks who haven’t said anything and they’ve just been sitting with this stuff. So I would say at least speaking up once.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And then from there, allowing them to have some time to sit with it or even an opportunity to make some changes if that’s what you’re requesting. I have clients sometimes write a letter to their parents or sibling or whoever. At the end of writing this letter, you can decide if this is something you want to keep or if this is something you want to share. If you want to share it, that person has a choice to respond or not. Look at all these choices. So you can keep it to yourself or you can share it. Sometimes just being honest with yourself is enough.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And there are other times where it’s like, oh no, they have to have this. So I think getting it out in and of itself is its own kind of magic. And then step two could be taking it to this person, but if you know that people are not in a space to change, it can be harmful to take some information to them or to address some things. It can be a re-injuring of sorts. It can be a gaslighting situation. It can be a situation where now you’re really unraveling because they’ve denied this stuff or something like that. So we really have to be clear about our people because there is no one way to manage this.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I got into a conflict with a brother a couple of years ago. There’s alcoholism involved. And I have decided there’s no way I’ll be able to repair anything unless he’s ready for any kind of repair. And so, I said my piece then. And I will hopefully be able to circle back around with him, but I’m waiting for him to get healthier for that time. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but that’s kind of the way that I’ve thought about it.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that so many people think of the reason to work on family drama is to fix the relationship or to change the relationship, but to me, the reason to focus so much on the family drama is because of the call inside the house thing. It’s because as children of a particular family, it’s baked into us. And so, we work on the family drama so that we don’t pass it down to the next. It’s not all about going back and fixing a thing between the two of them, it’s working it out inside of you so you don’t go forward with it.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So the letter works either way, the letter works whether you give it or not.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah, because there is an acknowledgement of what can be done differently. A lot of things that I see parents improving on is a correction of what they didn’t have. When you see all of this emotional neglect, now we have parents who are like, “How are you feeling? What are you doing? Do you have your feeling word? What’s going on? Use it. Come on. Okay, you’re upset. All right, I’m going to let you be.” So there’s this movement of allowing kids to feel, allowing kids to be upset, not shutting down the tantrum, and it’s as a result of not being able to feel, being told if you’re crying to stop it. And so, that’s a very healthy thing that many of us did not have.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And so, yes, just acknowledging some of that stuff is a path to correction. And it can be scary to be in a family with people who won’t acknowledge that because that means that we’re repeating the pattern. When you’re in a relationship with someone, like you said, who has some alcoholism going on, it can be a really hard thing to watch. And you were saying, “I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.” And I think about the sadness that one has to endure to watch a person deteriorate, especially a family member that you also have memories of, and you have, at some point, had a connection, to watch that can be a level of pain that might be intolerable for you. So stepping away from the relationship is the healthiest thing because I can’t even see it, I can’t even watch this. It’s heartbreaking. And so, whether it’s right or wrong, it’s healthy.
Glennon Doyle:
You were talking about the moment of repair, and I’ve been looking into a lot of things in churches lately. And I was reading this account from a person who had reported abuse to the leadership of the church. And what she said again and again is when I reported the abuse, the way that the elders, the people in charge non-reacted and gaslit and refused responsibility was more traumatic to me than the first abuse. And that just feels so similar. It feels like, oh my god, if we could just do anything, it could be, let’s just look at that moment of repair. It’s not even what has happened all the time, our posture and our reaction when people come to us and say, whether they’re our children or whoever, “You hurt me.” What is the best posture, response, approach that you’ve seen a family unit have when pain has been brought to the forefront?
Abby Wambach:
This is a great question.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
When people say hard things about us, what typically happens when a person rejects it is they don’t believe in duality. If a person or if I do something bad, it means I or this person is completely bad. Everything else I know about them, I have to discard it because now they’re bad. And so, the only way for me to live in this relationship is to deny what is being said because I can’t believe this and continue-
Glennon Doyle:
Literally can’t.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I cannot believe this and continue in the relationship, so I have to say, “It didn’t happen that way. Perhaps you got something wrong.” I have to say all of that stuff because I can’t believe that this person who is nice to me is also someone who would assault someone or whatever the situation is, when in actuality we are many things. There are parts of us that we represent with different people. And so, if someone comes to you with a story, it’s best to just listen to them, not to add to their story, not to change their story. You can ask questions, but it’s best to just listen. And a really helpful thing is to say, “How can I help you and what do you want me to do?”
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
You may not even want to end your relationship with this other person, unless that’s the help they ask for, maybe it is, but you are there to receive because in the receiving you are healing this other person. You are continuing in the relationship. You can’t account for another person’s action. So I’m always puzzled when you watch the news or when you hear of these sort of stories and they’re like, “My neighbor would never do that.” Well, any neighbor on my street, I don’t know what they do inside their house, so if you came to my house with a camera, I’d be like, “Oh, he could’ve.”
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
“I don’t know. He’s nice, but I don’t know?”
Glennon Doyle:
Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
And so, we have to believe people’s stories. It’s just so hard for us to hear. And our response to that is rejection. And I’m going to throw this in, people have a lot of trauma that they have not identified, and so, when you bring similar trauma to them, in an effort to not have to go in their closet and deal with their stuff, they reject your stuff too. I’ve seen that over and over, especially with sexual abuse. When you have family members who deny it and this sort of things, they likely also have been sexually abused. And so, in their unwillingness to deal with their stuff, they’re trying to get you to do what they did that clearly hasn’t worked.
Glennon Doyle:
So if there’s a parent who had a child bring them some shit and said, “This hurt, the way you did this when I was younger,” and they spun because of the inability to hold the duality of “I love this person more than my own life itself, so I couldn’t have done those things” and I did those things, and they spun out. What would you say to them to pick up the phone and say to their person now?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
I couldn’t hear you then, but I’m ready to listen now. Can we talk?
Glennon Doyle:
And when they say, “You did this. I felt alone. You weren’t there. You’re too critical. I don’t feel safe around you,” then what does the parent say?
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
My apologies for parenting you when I didn’t have better tools.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
So when kids come to you with issues, the most loving thing you can do as a parent is just listen. It’s so hard. It’s so hard to hear some of these things that they may think about you or their world or some of the decisions you’ve made that have impacted them because it wasn’t your intention. Maybe it wasn’t your intention, but that doesn’t remove the impact.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I just keep thinking about how so much of this is the generation before and they have the particular tools they have and they have the understanding of what success is, and then, a new generation. What is culture? It’s books, it’s movies, it’s conversations.
Glennon Doyle:
Is there an angle in here where we are sharing more with our parents about the way the culture is moving? I think one of the things that helps me understand my kids is constantly trying to stay plugged into whatever they are listening to, even though it feels nutso to me. But do you know what I mean? This is why parents just vegging out on Fox News forever causes these dramas because they’re not moving along with the culture, they’re not learning what everybody else is learning. Is that making any sense?
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Is there a way to share? If we can’t have a conversation with our mom, we could maybe send them a book we’re reading that helps shift our consciousness.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Absolutely. I would say book sharing is a wonderful thing. Also, I was listening to this song the other day and it really made me think about whatever, or I read this online. On my book tour, I had so many sisters and couples and mother/daughters come up. I mean, I had moms crying, “My daughter shared your book with me and it was so hard,” and they’re like crying, “but it was so helpful for our relationship.” I’m like, “Really?” It is helpful for a person who wants to receive it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
It is very helpful.
Abby Wambach:
I think one of the most important things that I’ve heard you say is this idea of duality. I logically know this, but when I do something wrong or there is some sort of conflict, I go into, I am now all bad. And that perspective can also be seen in the way that my brain works, I guess. So if my mom did this thing to me when I was younger, that means she’s all bad. And none of that is true because I don’t know, I want to say thank you for that because it will help me, not just in my relationships with our kids, but I think it really is going to help me add a little compassion going outward, and I think I first need to figure that out on the inside.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, we can love and hurt.
Abby Wambach:
And we can-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s actually all we do.
Abby Wambach:
And we can hurt and love.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Nedra Glover Tawwab:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Nedra, thank you so much. The conversations that your books are starting, we’re going to be screwed because moving people so far along. Our kids are going to be really freaking healthy and we’re going to be screwed. So thanks a lot, Nedra. Pod Squad, go pick up Nedra’s books, Set Boundaries, Find Peace and Drama Free. And you got to go pick up your babies at summer camp, so thank you so much, Nedra. It’s wonderful to see you as always. And Pod Squad, we’ll see you back here next time. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
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Glennon Doyle:
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Glennon Doyle:
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