He feels distant from adult sons
Hi, Carolyn: My husband and I have two grown sons who both live far away. I call and text them more often than my husband does, and persist in trying to reach them when I want to talk. Often, when I tell my husband I have talked to one of them, he responds, “Did they call you?” or, “Why didn’t they call me?” or, “Why didn’t they tell me that?” or other ways of telling me his feelings are hurt because he feels they have a closer relationship with me than him. I don’t know what to do with this.
Today I told him it made me feel bad when he says that. He got really upset, saying it made him furious that I was saying it made me feel bad when he told me he felt bad that they have a closer relationship with me. So, I am at a loss.
What should I say or feel about this? – Bad Feelings All Around Bad Feelings All Around: When someone is so resistant to doing the one thing that would solve his problem and that also happens to be right in front of his face, and gets “furious” (!) at you at the thinnest excuse of an excuse to dump the blame on somebody else, it can feel like an invitation to fix it for him. Because it’s right there! And it’s so simple! And it’s causing so much stress!
But it’s actually the opposite, a warning to stay away. When someone resists the obvious or simple thing, that usually means there’s something complicated going on that they’re unwilling to face. Thus the dumping on you.
Plus, presuming to untangle someone else’s emotional knots tends to get the helper caught up as well – as you pretty much just described.
It is hard to watch, yes, and it is hard to know how to respond when the person who doesn’t keep in touch is sad and angry that he’s not in touch. But it’s not your place to fix the consequences of his actions. Seeing it as a family-unit issue – yours to engage with - might have been fine, but your husband’s obstinacy ruled that out. Understanding this simplifies how you respond to his questions. You stop trying to give the answer that will fix everything, and instead give the actual answer.
He: “Did they call you?”
You: Yes/no.
He: “Why didn’t they call me?” You: “I don’t know, and he didn’t say.” He: “Why didn’t they tell me that?” You: “I don’t know, and they didn’t say.”
You aren’t at a loss for these answers, right? Because they’re the truth as far as you know it, unembellished. If he wants more information about what your sons are thinking, then he will have to ask them. Anything beyond the truth as you know it is speculation anyway – including your diagnosis of these questions as “other ways of telling me his feelings are hurt.”
Until he starts owning this, his feelings are hurt when he says they are. His questions are requests for information. His relationships with his sons are his to improve, with the most basic tools he already knows he has. Call, text, care. If you’re badmouthing, undermining or sabotaging him to your boys, then that would be on you to fix – by cutting it out immediately. And getting professional help for whatever went horribly wrong.