After a few slip-ups, he started to prepare himself for his mother’s tactics. Over time, he became firm in his expectations. While James was learning to implement boundaries consistently, I worked with Tiffany on using motivating language to support her husband as he shifted his relationship with his mother. He struggled with establishing himself as an adult with Debra. She had drilled into him that she knew best and wanted the best for him, and he feared that setting boundaries would push her away. He hadn’t considered that he could set them with his mother
holy moly i experienced this with mom recently. she wanted to know stuff about behraam and ammarah and i kept saying ask them, ask ammarah. ask behraam and then finally, i told mom that i didn’t think it was my business to say anything on the topic and that i believed if i weren’t living with them i wouldn’t consider it my business to ask this either. therefore, i told mom, i don’t think it’s really her business either. she countered with i just want to make sure everything is okay and that things are good then she brought up how i was living there and that wasn’t appropriate… and i just laid it out: ask behraam, if he’s okay then i’m okay for living there until i can get my act together and figure out what to do. Behraam can engage with his parents accordingly, and if it becomes an issue i will know since i ask regularly. i also give them their space, i encourage them to go do things without me on their own and to plan things and to kick me out when they want to. as for the other stuff, agari i told mom to ask them but that my advice is that it’s not our business, they are happy with the setup they have if and when they need help or advice or want to share, they can choose to do that and it’s not our place to meddle. you and me may like to do things differently or want stuff in certain ways that doesn’t mean everybody should be that way too. it was so hard. yes i wasn’t prepared, and i felt pressured but i also just felt like i was in the right and mom even out of sincerity and love wasn’t doing the right thing. so i stood my ground.
