First, you have to actually be able to talk to your adult child. That starts with being available.
When the adult child is male, maybe especially if you are female, that can be quite the challenge.
I’ve only seen my twenty-six year old son once in the three months, so far, of the stay-at-home recommendations from state and county government during the pandemic.
He worries about me, as I am in the age category that’s most at risk. As a parent, I’m ready to risk illness to see my kid. Except, he isn’t a kid anymore, and he won’t risk me. So there’s that.
On Mother’s Day, I overruled. We planned on a hike and picnic, but when he got here he was too tired to hike. We compromised on getting take-out, and sitting on opposite couches, at least six feet apart, watching the first two episodes of the Michael Jordan series.
My son was a very determined basketball wannabe as a child, and was a starting player his four years of college. I took him every summer from age twelve to seventeen, to the Michael Jordan “Flight School” Basketball Camp. It’s where he first learned teamwork, how important it is, and how to achieve it.
As we watched, he would pause the show to talk about our memories there, and our experiences with Michael Jordan.
Somehow, that parlayed into talking of other things. More important things. While this was a notable expansion of his sharing with me, it developed from years of being available to him.
He paused to share with me things he was thinking about and doing while working from home, and away from his previously insanely, hectic social life. He is charismatic and funny, and has an entourage wherever he goes. The current pandemic situation is giving him time to create more music and comedy videos. The time alone has him reflecting on which relationships are supportive and valuable, and which aren’t.
I’m glad I made the cut.
We’ve always been close, but he shies away from telling me about his romantic relationships, and has traumatic memories of mine, a single parent for most of his life. So, this new openness was surprising and refreshing, and I took advantage of it as only parents can, but often don’t. Which means I listened.
A previous girlfriend had told him I was the reason for all his relationship problems. She hadn’t, and never did meet me, and he didn’t explain at the time what she meant. You can believe I had to leave the room and deep breathe when he shared that little bit of information with me a couple of years ago.
Another one, I called “Scary Girlfriend,” although not to her face or to him, until after they broke up. It was a long distance relationship. She went out of her way to do things for him, and to get close enough to me to let me know everything she was doing. At brunch, when he was away from the table, she said, “We had to take him to the emergency room last week for a toothache.” WHAT? How the hell did I not know he went to the emergency room? That was bad enough, but when I told him what she said, he replied that she hadn’t even been there. Apparently, she was using the “Royal We.”
In spite of my very different concerns about each one, I could see parts of myself in them. We all choose partners who remind us in some ways of our parents. They feel familiar.
Even so, what he told me on Mother’s Day took me by complete surprise, although in my capacity as a therapist, it shouldn’t have. He said he had trouble forming a relationship because he expected women to take care of him the way I did. It turns out, that’s what the first girlfriend meant when she told him I was the cause of his relationship problems.
It’s the issue that broke him up with the first woman, and why he broke up with “Scary Girlfriend.” The first one refused to take care of him, even in situations where that would be the norm (as in when he was sick), and the second took controlling care of him, as a way to guarantee he wouldn’t leave her. Damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t.
I told him a romantic relationship can’t be the same as a parent relationship. That parents, (not all parents, of course), will open up a vein to feed their children. They will lie down and let their child walk on them to get that child to safety. And that is how it should be. But that he wouldn’t really feel that until or unless he becomes a parent. Your romantic partner is not your parent. They aren’t supposed to be.
The second thing you have to do as a parent to help your adult child find a healthy relationship, is admit to your own faults and failings.
Yeah, I know. Parents are supposed to be infallible and the last word on everything. Or that’s what many of our parents taught us. In my case, my parents projected that while screaming and yelling at each other. Great role models for relationships.
More than just admitting to our romantic relationship errors, we also need to admit our failures as parents to our children. It makes us authentic, and gains their trust. Plus, it keeps them from feeling crazy for knowing where we went wrong, but hearing us deny it.
Authenticity, self-examination, and seeking forgiveness are excellent tools in romantic relationships, too. Parents should teach that by personal example.
I apologized for bringing men I dated into his life. Especially the ones who left us both. He asked me about his father, and I explained why we hadn’t married, but assured him he had been a planned baby. His father had told me he didn’t love me as much as I loved him, and I refused to put my son through what I’d gone through hearing my parents fight.
We talked about the reasons I hadn’t married someone else. One was that most men I dated wanted to take over the raising of my son, or wanted in some way to displace him. I chose him over them. Maybe that wasn’t the wisest choice, but it was the best way I could protect him at the time. After I exposed him to a small parade of men in my life, I mostly gave up on romance while I raised him.
Next conversation, whenever we get a chance after the pandemic, or safely during it, I hope to talk with him more about what forms healthy partnerships. When I was seeing couples as a therapist, I witnessed all the unhealthy ways couples come together. And, of course, there are the lessons from my own past relationships to share if he’s interested.
Here’s something you can share with your adult children about romantic relationships.
Romantic relationships should be b “partnerships. They’re comprised of two or more people agreeing to mutually support one another, in every way. Financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and psychologically.
Romantic partners form a team. They look at every obstacle as something to be overcome together. Every problem is one to solve together, as a team. They each take care of the other in healthy ways.
In therapy, I tell couples that they started the relationship as a team, with mutual and individual goals they each support. But somewhere in the middle of the game, they stopped running toward the same goals, and turned and tackled each other. They formed opposing teams, and the goals were forgotten.
If there’s one thing my son understands well, it’s how a team works together.
I have hopes for him forming a healthy relationship someday. And then giving me some grandchildren. Someday. Maybe not enough to form our own basketball team. One or two will do. I promise to be a better grandmother than I was a mother. And, not coincidentally, an excellent mother-in-law. I’ll try not to coach from the sidelines. As long as his team is winning.
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Previously published on medium
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