Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm Nadrick lover to WIB and you need to hear this. In relationships, we don't just get into the relationship with the partner that we're choosing. We also become attached to or in relationship with their families in some way. When they come from families that we enjoy, they have those sisters that we love, or they have these wonderful family events, or even them having some things that we wish we had in our own families,
it can be lovely. However, when we get into relationships with people who have a level of dysfunction that we are not even used to, or if there are cultural differences, if there's enabling and just these things that we don't want to put up with, it can create a lot of toxicity and our relationship with our partners, even if it doesn't have anything to do with them. Where people comes from it can matter. It doesn't always have to if they're aware of it and they want to change it.
But when you get into a relationship with a person, you get into a relationship with their culture. And sometimes it's not just their ethnic culture. It could just be their family culture, which can be unique based on who those folks are and how things have been going in their families. So for today, we have a caller who is very concerned about her relationship and the cultural impact of her relationship with her partner. So this is a pretty interesting letter, so let's get into it.
Hi, Doctor Tawab, my name is Jocelyn. I'm not married, but I have been in a relationship for the past five years, and with this person, I became pregnant and now have a three year old son. We were both in our thirties and have been dating for a year and a half. When we became pregnant, the relationship had been rocky, but we decided to keep the pregnancy very intentionally.
We were doing so well right before and right after the baby was born, but family issues and domestic issues became so dramatic that I have recently decided to leave the relationship, which, while not legally taking place, amounts to a divorce or feels like a divorce. We are having custody conversations and because I'm going to be a co parent with this person and know them for the rest of my life, I'm really in the trenches of trying to understand what happened and why it happened, and I
have a lot of confusion. This is a person who was raised by immigrants. They are Indian American, and their parents arranged marriage was very unhappy and very traditional in terms of the wife being responsible for all of the cooking and cleaning, and even my partner, as a male in that household, didn't have to do any kind of
domestic chores. And so even when I met him in his thirties, this person, you know, does not cook, is very messy, like tends towards clutter, as is the family of origin home, but really didn't clean very much, and honestly I didn't think much of that, and then it once the baby came, it was really staring me in the face because I, you know, very typically I found
so many stories of this online. Felt really over whelmed having to do the vast majority of not all, of the domestic work around the baby and the household, and trying to get him involved in that work and getting him to understand why it was so stressful for me to come home to just a really messy house, or to have clutter everywhere, or to wake up in the morning to a sink full of dishes, or have to clean the whole kitchen before I start cooking dinner when
I'm the only person in the house that cooks or is thinking about dinner, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I could go on and on. Became a really big issue in our relationship and then his family as well. The family in addition to there being cultural differences, racial differences. I identify as Latina and I speak Spanish and have Puerto Rican
culture in my family, but I also am racially his family. Again, in addition to these very patriarchal gender lines and a lot of that patriarchy coming from Indian culture South Asian culture, there was also addiction in the family and very few boundaries. So my partner's mother, because she wasn't getting her emotional needs met from her arranged marriage, relied on him as a confidante from a very young age. I'm talking like eight nine years old. And the parents also enabled the
younger brother, my partner's younger brother, who's an addict. And when I entered the picture, this family was really coming out of a decade of crisis where this person would go missing, they would overdose, and just crisis after crisis because of active addiction.
What's striking to me is the before she starts to speak, I can hear the level of frustration, the level of resentment, the level of chaos that this situation has caused. One thing about us partnering with people as we do have to remember there is some impact or influence that the family of origin had on them. And as I'm listening to this, I'm hearing a new dating question popping out
to me. You know, maybe not the first date or the tenth date, but certainly when we are thinking about having children with people, moving in, with people, going on vacation, anything of seriousness, perhaps there has to be some sort of conversation where we talk about, how do you think you were impacted by your family? What do you think
those relationships look like. We need to have a better idea of what our partners think is happening in their relationships, because what I'm seeing is we can see the chaos and we may not recognize it until we're like intertwined and it is a part of our lives where we have children with these folks or we're married to these people, and we see this stuff.
But is there a step.
Before that where we can get an idea from the person who has been in it what they're seeing. If they say, oh, my family is great and everything is wonderful, and you show up to a barbecue and all you see is chaos, we can now understand, Oh, this person is also a part of this dynamic. They don't want to change anything because they're not even noticing some of these issues. Because what we're doing, and I'm saying, we're I've dated people and you walk in and you're like,
oh my gosh. Right, And when I'm saying walk in, you get into this relationship and you see the level of boundaries maybe your partner doesn't have, or you see this overbearing personality within you know, maybe one or both parents, or you see all of the sibling issues.
You start to see this stuff.
If you have some dating history, you have dated someone you know potentially.
With these sort of issues.
So hopefully you know you are beyond it, but if you are still in it, this is an opportunity for you to sort of think about perhaps some of these issues are really big problems for you but not a big problem for your partner. They can be used to this level of chaos. They may not see the need for anything to be different. And when you're stepping into someone's family, you may see these issues. You may have done the work. Heck, you're listening to this podcast. Heck, you're following my content.
So you know what red flags are.
You know what might be healthy and what might not be healthy. When they're in this culture of unhealthiness or these you know, interesting behaviors, they may not have a different viewpoint. And so you're seeing this stuff and you're like, Op, that's enabling up, that's codependency, up, that's addiction. Oh, my gosh, they're borrowing money and they're not paying it back. That's taking advantage of you. You see all of these things. But to them, guess what it is normal. This is normal.
This is not anything to raise a flag about. They're like, Oh, that's just.
How she is. Oh that's how that person is.
Oh it's just by Bob, she doesn't mean anything by it. This is their normal. So when you are already in this situation or you're newly in a situation like this, I want you to remember this is their level of norm. You don't have to make it your level of normal functioning.
You don't have.
To tolerate certain things, and as we continue to listen, we'll talk about some ways in which you can shift as a partner or how you can show up in these relationships. You don't have to adopt the culture. You know, that's a choice to ignore some of these behaviors. You know, you may seem like, you know, the interesting party saying, hey, should we have alcohol here because there are four people who are coming who may not need to drink. You know, I can handle my stuff, but I also don't need it,
So could this be an alcohol free event? That might be, you know, something that everybody sort of looks at, but it's also something that you can control in your house. The second thing here, you can notice problems, but you cannot change people. So noticing that people have issues with addiction, or noticing that there is some patriarchal gender line issues going on that is a problem, but it's also a problem that the other people may be unwilling to fix.
So you can have a problem with their problem, but you cannot fix their problem. How do we let people know that we have some sort of issue with their issues that they're unaware of. You bring it back to the partnership. This is what's happening in our relationship. We don't need to talk about your relationship.
With your mother and father.
This story you told us from eighth grade, how your brother did this at the thing. These are the ways in which I'm having concerns about our relationships. I need help with unloading the dishwasher. The conversation is not about your dad never helped your mom unload dishes, so therefore you don't unload dishes. All in the men in your family, nobody is a dish unloader. We don't have that conversation. The conversation is around how the issues are showing up
in your relationship with this person. I am having a direct issue with you around who is supposed to wash and fold close. This is what I need. When we're stating our issue with people, Please please please tell them the solution. Sometimes we're going to the people who are creating a really big problem. Oh my gosh, you never foel close.
What do you want?
I need you to help me fold close. You may need to go to step number two. After you fowl the.
Close, can you put them in the drawer? Step number three when.
You wash the clothes, I need you to use such and such detergent and such and such fabric softener and throw some dryer.
But we have to be clear with people.
Assuming that they know how to do these things, particularly when we know they don't have a family history of doing it, can be very unfortunate for our relationship.
And highlighting all.
Of the reasons that they're not doing something is not going to be particularly helpful. Keep it very tight and focused on your day today with this person, not their history, not their family history, not their great great grandfather. You know you come from a long line of this, and that's why people don't do that. That's great information for you to know, but it's not very helpful in an argument.
What I need today.
Is I don't care if your your grandmother didn't do it, or your great grandfather didn't do it. What I need from you is all of those other things those people And I understand a piece of this is cultural, but I am an and you don't have to say the culture part. But you are in the relationship with this person. These are the things that we need to work on in our relationship. Culture aside, these are the things that we're working on. We have now blended cultures and as
a part of my culture. This is what could be hopeful for us, for us to be in a relationship. We'll get back to this call after our break.
Let's keep listening.
And when the baby came, I went from being the girlfriend to being the daughter in law and felt over time that essentially my partner was going to prioritize as family of origin, their drama, their cultural norms, their wishes ahead of my own. And I felt that we never formed our nuclear family of three. As much as I try to advocate for our nuclear family of three and say, until we have weekly family time as a family of three, I'm not going to schedule time for your parents to
come and visit the child. We have to do it as a family first. And he really found that to be so offensive, and me not letting the child see the grandparents and the child being the one thing that makes these folks who have a really difficult family life happy. And obviously we all get satisfaction from seeing our parents happy because of a grand baby. But I came to
feel like an employee. I came to feel like I was there to serve these elders, and I have the cultural value of respecting my elders, but these elders were enabling an adult addict. My child's grandfather is mistreating his wife, and the wife is a martyr who isn't standing up for herself and is having these emotionally messy codependent relationships with both of her sons. I'm feeling resentment towards her.
It became untenable and I decided to leave the relationship, and I'm now dealing with the fallout of that, where I still have to be in relationship with these people who are going to be in my life forever, and because they aren't going to set boundaries or give the relationship any healthy structure, I'm going to have to provide that or I feel the proactive desire to take initiative and say this is how I need it to be, especially because now my instinct is coming from protecting my
child in relationship with them, in addition to protecting myself in relationship with them.
Resentment is really this all in one emotion. When I hear people talk about it, I get a sense of anger, hurt, sadness, and frustration wrapped up into one word. If it's not acknowledged, if it's not a process, if we're not actively working on it. It can eat away at us. It can really destroy our relationships with other people. It can ruin our compassion towards others because we're like, oh my gosh.
When I think about folks who are in the midst of enabling behaviors that are unhealthy for other people, like you know, maybe like addiction, the compassionate part of me thinks about how hard it must be for them to not only watch someone suffer but not do anything about it, especially when it's their child. You know, I think about my kids doing something, even if they caused it. You know, they're running down the stairs fast, running down the stairs
with their tablet, they fall down the stairs. I don't want to say to them, that's what you get. I'm still gonna be like, oh my gosh, are you okay. So even when a person causes their own pain, as a parent, we may have compassion towards that, right, like, oh my gosh, Like, you're causing yourself this pain, But I still want to be here for you. I still want to love on you. And I think that's what enabling is. Like I know you're hurting yourself, I know
that this is harmful for you. I still want you to be better. I still want to support you in this, and maybe the parent really feels like if I do
enough helping, they can get out of this. Now we all, you know, we know that that's not typically how it works, but from a parent's perspective, the only way to be hopeful might be to enable this person, you know, with this condition, with this behavior, with these tendencies, and so there is a little bit of compassion and grace that could just be pushed over her way as a parent, because we don't lose the love for our children even
if they're wrapped up in these behaviors where they're harming themselves. And you know, some parents we can be wise in how we offer our compassion, and sometimes we just have endless compassion to a point where it's actually harmful to the other person. So, yes, this is unwise compassion. However, it is compassion nonetheless, and compassion that perhaps you know from afar you don't understand. I think compassion from parent to child is different from you know, sibling to sibling
or spouse to you know, brother in law. But you know, like those levels of the compassion sort of lesson, you know, with each relationship. You know, it's not a direct relationship. So I'm looking at the situation like this looks like something on TV and it looks like a mess. That's my level of attachment to it. And for the parent, it's like, oh my gosh, this is me in this situation, and this is how I need to help. So just consider that as you're saying she is, she is in
this situation and it's really hard to respect her. It must be really hard to have a child in this situation and feel like I am the only person who can help. I am the only person who can pull them out of this. I am saving them from themselves by giving them money, by making excuses. There is something that I'm doing to help this situation. Now that you've decided to leave this relationship without them doing anything different, what can you do in these relationships with your I
don't even want to call them in laws. I know they refer to you as daughter in law, but it's kind of like your your child's father's family, right, Like, how do you exist in the relationships with them? You will have some sort of custody with your child, and during that time you can have some rules, some boundaries around their level of activity. And access, So in some ways you can manage your relationship with them. Now. Of course, whatever they do when your child is with your former partner,
they will be able to do. Now, you can talk about those things, but it does not necessary mean that he has to respect those things. The third thing I'm thinking of in this paragraph is the labeling that I'm saying codependent, enabling. Those terms describe a set of behaviors, right, it can be more helpful for us to look at those set of behaviors and talk about those than it might be to just label. Because when we throw that label out there, the people we're trying to get to
get it. They may be offended by it. They may not feel like the situation fits everything within the label. So messy codependent relationships, What does that actually mean? Your mom gives your brother money, your mom does X, Y and Z, your brother at family events has eight drinks instead of two. What is the behavior we're saying? People can relate to that a bit more than us may
be saying it's codependent, it's enabling. What are the behaviors that we're referring to speak to those behaviors as we're talking to people, and certainly as you're bringing these things up as an issue in your relationship, Remember, these are your issues with these people. These may not be your partner's issues. And I know we like to think like, oh my gosh, this is a general issue, this is an issue that everyone should have. But guess what sounds
like It's not an everybody issue. It is your issue, and you will have to figure out now that I'm out of this relationship, how do I want to deal with, you know, these things that occur in my excess family. How do I want to talk to my kids about some of these things that I've seen. That is now the work to be done in those relationships. Let's keep listening.
So again, while we're fortunately not dealing with the legal headache or the perhaps regret of a wedding and a legal marriage, we were very much in partnership and I really am also grappling with a personal sense of betrayal.
My partner is in the public eye. I knew who he was before I started dating him, and was really attracted to his public values, which included his beliefs about justice and human rights and just kindness and how to be a human being in the world and to have he never really acknowledged his inherited patriarchy and how it affected our domestic life and the weight that it put on me, the load that it put on me, nor
the sort of trauma of this to functional family. And I ended up feeling really confused in gas lit because I would just be saying over and over again how important something was to me, like the bathroom being cleaned, of the toilet seat being down, and it just never changed his behavior. And eventually, you know, despite the words of I love you and the intention on his part
to be a good partner. I know it's important to him to be able to say that he's a good partner, to be a good partner, but he doesn't actually take the actions, and it would just be about how he could never meet my standards and it was never going
to be good enough. It's left me very confused. And while I'm pretty sure it was the right decision for me to leave the relationship, especially because it's not a regular breakup where I can just sort of distance myself again, obviously going to have to be in relationship with all of these folks, and as a parent, my son is only three, you know, want to be able to explain things to him if and when he asks, more like when, and just be in healthy relationship for myself with people
who have proven that they're going to maintain the chaos and dysfunction. If anything, these folks have proven to me that they're not really going to take the actions to change. I've never seen that in the five years now that I've been in relationship with them.
Is domestics support a human's rights issue? Is this something that should be addressed in partnerships?
I think so.
As a therapist who sees couples, one of the predominant arguments that we're working through is domestic support. What do task and duties look like in our household? Who's doing what? I'm thinking of the book fair Play, which I would suggest as a read if you are going through domestic support issues. It is a wonderful book about redistributing the task load in your relationships.
There is an.
Idea among women and among men that women can handle certain tasks, and what we're starting to see is the rise and anxiety, the rise in depression and burnout, and certainly female initiated divorces, And a huge part of that is because of the domestic load women are getting to the point where they're tired, they are burned out. There's a lot of fatigue around having to work, having to parent, and carry weight of the household. I wonder in our relationships,
what is this idea of good enough partner? What is your partner's definition of I'm a good partner? What is your definition of I'm a good partner? I hear you saying that he thinks he's a good partner, But what does that mean to him? Is it?
You know?
I do all of these things on the outside. I maintain a job, I work in humans rights, I do all this political stuff that makes me a good partner that sounds to me like maybe a good person. Right, And just because you're a good person, it doesn't mean that you are a good partner. Just because you're a good chef, it doesn't mean that you're a good partner. Just because I'm a good therapist, it doesn't mean that I'm a good partner. So, you know, what is this definition of good partner?
Again?
I think there are you know, phrases in terms being used, but what do those things actually mean? We have to break those down. Doesn't mean that I'm here every day, I listen to you talk. Maybe that's not what you need. Maybe your definition of good partner is a person who helps me in these areas with the children, a person who helps me in these areas with the household, a person who helps me in these areas with blank Maybe the work stuff isn't even important.
You know.
I wonder what is your definition of a good partner, because right now I'm hearing that those two things on the line. He is being a good partner for his idea of what a good partner is and for what your idea is is not adding up. We will finish listening to this call after the break. Let's keep listening.
It's a lot.
This happened during the pandemic. I've left two jobs during this saga, this chapter of my life. And while I've absolutely loved becoming a mother, I love being pregnant. I want to be a mom again if I can. The chaos of this and the way I feel manipulated by it because my version of events was really never validated by anybody, and that I'm going to have to continue to be in relationship with these folks, It's just really
spun my world around. I did do individual therapy and couple's therapy with my partner while this was going on, and sometimes I've felt that the therapists didn't necessarily have the cultural competence or the experiences necessary to help us navigate such a tricky conflict. I often felt like my partner just wasn't being held accountable, and it's complicated my feelings even towards getting therapeutic help, which I know on some level that I do.
So thank you for listening.
I know that was a lot. Yeah, I just I've loved your books and your podcast and just your entire groundedness in your perspective and in boundaries has been incredibly fortifying for me. So I'm extremely grateful. Thank you so much, doctor twelve.
Cultural competence that is a term that refers to a level of training, education understanding a therapist has around a culture. Right. I remember when I was in grad school, they give you this book, It's called the Ethnicity and Something Book, and you can almost go to any sort of ethnicity and it tells you like, this is.
How you treat Polish patients, this is how.
You work with African American Black clients, this is how you work with you know, all of these sorts of ethnicities, and it was slightly helpful. But what we're doing as therapists is working with actual people. So one part of
them might be that culture. But if there's a book where it's saying for black people, these are the sort of things that you know you may need to address with them, or this is the way that you present treatment to them, that's not true for all people in that culture, right, So can we teach cultural competence.
A little bit?
I think what we're actually learning though, is like cultural openness, because even if I know a little bit about a person being Chaldean, or a person you know, being Jehovah's witness, or you know, just just all of these different things, it doesn't mean that this individual in particular has adopted every aspect of themselves from this culture. It gives you an overview, right, but I need to speak with you to figure out what your culture is, which can be
influenced even by stuff outside your culture. Where did you go to school, where did you grow up? Let me hear about your parents, what was your class within your culture? You know, what are some other dynamics. So cultural openness is very important for therapists to implement.
With clients. We have to be open.
I can't say that, you know, anybody is the same, not anyone within ethnicity.
I can say, okay, these things apply to them. I think we're unique.
We're unique, and our level of cultural competence needs to be unique for our clients. It is unfortunate that you felt like the therapist was was siding with him and didn't really understand the cultural dynamics at play. Sometimes with couples, the best thing they could do is go to individual therapy separately, because a lot of the things that you're
bringing to that couple's dynamic is individual stuff. All of the things that you've mentioned here with your partner was a lot of individuals stuff, and your individual stuff was showing up as well. Right, you want to be treated fairly, You want, you know, like all of this stuff. So sometimes when we are not getting along in our relationships,
it's really important to do our own individual work. And then in addition to that, both of us going to individual therapy, then we're showing up to couple's therapy because then we have that space to work on our stuff. Because some things come up and we shouldn't even talk about it as a couple. These are things for you to work on with your own person. I don't need to walk you through this experience you had when you were twelve. This is something for you to work through
with your own individual therapist. So perhaps the couple's therapy it was a little premature if he wasn't in his own therapy working through these very personal issues that he's having. Now here's the thing with that. Sometimes when we tell our partners to go to therapy, they're working on stuff that has nothing to do.
With the issues we have with them, which sucks. It sucks. It's no clinical way to say suck.
So you know it sucks when somebody is going to therapy and you're like, okay, you're still having all these issues, and they're and there like yeah, I'm so happy I get to talk to you about my friendships. And it's like, hey, hey, hey, I sent you over there the therapy to talk about our domestic issues. So we can't even determine what they talk about. So much of the work that people have to do is their work, right, and we can't determine what they see their work ass which is you know,
another part of it. But you can say to a person, Hey, I think it would be hopeful for you to go to therapy and possibly just bring up some of your family stuff and you know, maybe process it there and see if they're willing to do that. We can suggest it. They may not take the task up or you know, do it to our level of desire, but you know, we could present it as an option. So individual with
couple's therapy is what we want to see. There are times where there are clearly just some couple issues, but if you're not making progress, it could be a huge sign that some individual therapy for both people is necessary to get over the hurdles in your relationship. I heard you mentioned here that you are feeling manipulated, and I have a question for you. If you're aware that you're
being manipulated, are you being manipulated? I wonder if there's something else there, right, Like, I feel like manipulation happens a little bit without our awareness, right if someone is doing something like if someone says to me, hey, can I have five dollars and I know they're going to use this five dollars to go shopping, and I'm like, they shouldn't be shopping, and I give them the five dollars. They haven't manipulated me. I'm aware of what you're doing.
I'm aware of what this situation is. Now. I might feel like I can't say no to you, I don't want to say no to you, or maybe I want to help you, but I am more aware of what the situation is and what your intention is behind this thing. So you have a level of awareness around the intention behind some.
Of this stuff.
So I would think a little bit deeply about the word manipulation. I wonder if there is another word that can be used other than manipulation. It might be helpful to just pull up maybe a feelings will, maybe a feelings chart, to just look at an assortment of feelings to pull something else out. I don't want to tell you what it is because I don't know, but I wonder if there's another word other than manipulated. While I'm on the subject of feeling wheels, they are so helpful.
Go to Pinterest, go to Google images, go to bing. I don't know what search engine you use. I'm gonna throw something out there, but pull up a feelings will, and I want you to challenge yourself around the feeling you think you're stuck in sometimes.
It'd be like, I'm so angry.
You look at that feelings will and the three feelings around it, It's like, ooh, I'm sad. Why did I say angry? Just look at the assortment of things that you could be feeling and how they're You know, feelings are like cousins. They're so close to each other. They are like first cousins just stacked on top of each other. But you realize like, oh, this is it, and once
you can really pinpoint I'm actually disappointed. When you get to the point of really getting to that feeling, it is like a release.
It is like.
Letting the air out of something. It's like it's like, oh my gosh, I'm disappointed. It feels freeing. It gives you clarity. It's not gonna change the situation. I'm not promising you change, but the clarity certainly helps you to feel a little bit better about what's going on. So my suggestion here is to get really really clear about the exact feeling. Is it resentment? Is it you know I'm feeling manipulated? Is it a level of anger? What
could really be working with this situation? I am so grateful to you for you know reading my books and you know going through my content and receiving the information. What's really important is you have made a decision to not being this relationship with your partner, and you can also make a decision to reshape those extended relationships that
you have with your former partner's family. There is some choice here, there are some options here, and you have less of an obligation because you're no longer directly in that relationship with your partner. Think about what you want these relationships to look like. You need to hear this. When we get into relationships with people, we get into relationships with their stories, with their history, with their paths, with their family, with their family doctor, all sorts of stuff.
We are just all of them. It comes up in different situations. Therefore, we have to be more considerate around the things that are really important to us. It doesn't mean that, you know, we can't date or be in relationship with folks who have a certain background, but we need to be clear about how they synthesize those things, what they think about those things, how they feel impacted, and what they're doing, because that is a really important piece. If I see the issues.
Do you see these issues?
Are we on the same page with what some of these challenges are.
If we're all ready.
In the relationship with folks, we have to focus on how those issues impact our relationship. We're not trying to change all these people into family. My focus is on how those family relationships impact our household. These are the things we need to work on. You need to hear this as an iHeart production and host it by me Madra Glover to WAP. Our executive producer is Joe L. Baldique.
Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and relationships that you need to hear this at iHeartMedia dot com right now. I'm really interested in hearing more stories from parents who are strange from their children, also people who are having marriage issues. I don't know about you, but I feel like I am in this space in life where I'm hearing more and more about, you know,
marriages and women initiating divorce. So I am really interested in hearing more about some of your marriage issues and self sabotage. What are you struggling with. What are some of the things that you find really hard to do? What are your barriers, What are your blocks? I'd love to hear more on Three Things Strange Men, marriage issues, and self sabotage.