How to Deal With Difficult Parents – Part II

It’s common to have conflict with your parents.  You learned how to view and move in the world through them. No one can push your buttons quicker than your parents. You can sometimes even feel that it’s not easy to deal with difficult parents and explain them how you feel.

The second part of this series of dealing with difficult parents is all about acceptance. When you don’t have acceptance in a relationship, you are “shoulding” on people. That is, you create suffering for yourself by having fantasy expectations of how she should behave and what she should say.

A Visual Exercise

Visualize this for a moment: imagine your family portrait from years ago (maybe it was taken at Olan Mills like mine was!). Everyone in the picture is able-bodied, correct?  Now, what if you saw your family members’ emotional disabilities show up in the photo as physical disabilities.

What would that picture look like?  Would everyone have all of their body parts? Would they all have eyes and ears?  However, for many families, it may look like you just survived a war zone with missing limbs, crutches, eye patches, etc.

Emotionally Disabled

Here’s the thing: most people are very quick to give compassion to someone physically disabled. We don’t expect him to shoot baskets with us if he has no arms. We don’t give emotional disability the same pass – we don’t let people off the hook. If a parent is emotionally incapable of telling their own child that they love them, that child may be angry and resentful.

What if you viewed that person for what he is?  Emotionally crippled – and probably permanently. If, on getting frustrated, you yell at someone with no arms for not playing basketball with you, who’s the jerk?

Creating Your Own Disappointment

When it comes to family, this is what we do. You have an expectation in your head of how they should behave or what they should say, but they may be emotionally disabled. You are arguing with the rain.

Sure, you’ll probably get wet, which can be unpleasant, but creating a lifetime of disappointment and hurt for yourself is many times worse. Stop. Breathe. Accept.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

Acceptance is not agreement. It’s not about letting people walk all over you. It’s simply standing closer to reality and seeing how things really are without made-up expectations of others.

Moreover, You may decide that someone’s emotional disabilities aren’t good enough for that particular role you want in your life. So, you learn to set healthy boundaries.

Who in your life is emotionally disabled that could use more compassion?

p.s. – Do you have a troubled relationship with your parents?  Reach out to me here for a free trial session, and we’ll have a chat.