Managing A Meddling Mother In Law

Published May 17, 2023, 10:00 AM

This week’s episode is all about mothers-in-law, when two women tell Iyanla that they’re both in conflict with their partners’ overbearing mother. The first caller feels abandoned by her own family and her husband, leading to a revolutionary breakdown. Iyanla’s second caller is dealing with a mother who micromanages everything, texting about every detail, like if her son has eaten for the day.
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I am Yamla. I've been very open about the fact that I was not always good at making my relationships work. I have been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In other words, I have seen a lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I am here to share with you what I learned along the way because I did take copious notes. Welcome to the r Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Sometimes the right road takes the wrong turn, and sometimes the wrong turn will lead us to the right place. We don't always understand why certain people, certain situations, certain experiences come forward in our life. What I've learned through many, many years of trial and error is that things are always as they need to be, and there's always more. There's always more going on that we can see or recognize or understand. The thing is this that when it's time for us to heal or grow or evolve in some way, life will send us people, circumstances, situations to facilitate our healing, our growth, our evolution. And what it looks like to us is this is bad, this is wrong. That person is bad. They're doing this to me. Will sink into the victimhood. But there's always more, and sometimes that wrong turn is leading us to the right place. We should always consider, all right, there's something more going on here. This feels like this, and this looks like this, and I'm calling it this, that or the other thing. But the truth is some part of me has called this in so that I can heal or grow or stretch or evolve always, and it's not always easy to recognize that the right road can take the wrong turn, and the wrong turn can lead us to the right place, which is always for our highest good. That's my first caller story today. The right road took a wrong turn, but it's led her to the R Spot. Take a listen. Good morning, beloved, and welcome to the R Spot. And how can I support you today and moving through whatever relationship issue, challenge, dilemma you are facing.

I'll just start with I've been married for how about we've been together twenty years and I had a business and I moved to another state to be with my parents. I had to close it because I had an injury and I met my husband. He wasn't working. I was working with two jobs at that time, but we started a relationship, and his family didn't approve of me. They didn't like me. They never have, and they made comments about me, you know, while I'm right there and just it's always been very disrespectful. I've always felt disrespected. Now we have children, and I moved back home. He came with me, and I've stopped visiting over there because I've been trying to tell him for years to speak up for me, to support me, and he feels like, I think it's if he says anything, they won't speak to him anymore, or yeah, it's just that's just how it's been. And I every time his mother will go around around me. We've never had a relationship, so she will go through him to get what she needs. Or if she wants to send something here, she'll she'll send it without I won't even know about it. My husband will just send it, and I feel like it's sending her the wrong message because he's never really dealt with the issue with his family, and I kind of feel like this is coming from I have a hard time dealing with this kind of stuff because I've I was adopted. My mother was not very she was not very affectionate towards me.

Take a breath, Take a breath, I was. I just tell him, wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, don't rush yourself. Let all of that come up. Let it come up. We don't have nothing else to do right now. What is that? Just take a minute and ask yourself. What am I feeling right now? What is this? What is it?

It's the near abandon.

Yeah, abandoned. Take a breath, don't rush yourself. Where are you feeling that in your body?

In my chest? That always feeling in my chest.

Okay, So sit right there for a moment, focus your attention and your energy on your chest so that you can take care of yourself the way maybe nobody else ever has. And when you focus in on your chest, what does it feel like? What else do you feel?

I feel like it's been released, it's going away, the tightenment.

Okay, good, So sit right there for a moment, as the grandmothers would say, let's tarry there for a minute. Can you do that?

Yeah?

Do that? Good? Check and see what else does it feel? What does it feel like? Or what are you thinking?

Ah like? Scared almost a bit?

Okay? Good, Yeah, it's okay, it's okay. That's okay. Let that come up because I'm seeing or sensing or feeling and there's a part of you that never felt safe enough to cry. Yeah, yeah, because if you cried, what would happen? What would happen if you cried?

I'm trying to remember. Just stop crying?

Is that what they said? Stop that crying?

Yeah, stop the crying?

And then what did they say? Stop that crying?

And then you're in the other room. Keep your mouth shut? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, come on, breathe, yeah, yeah.

Respect me. I don't need to respect you. I mean you respect me.

Yeah, come on, breathe. You're doing good. Come on, you're doing good. We just moving that energy out. We're just moving it out and I'm gonna sit right here with you until it's gone. Okay, you don't have to do it by yourself this time. This time, you're not alone. Okay.

Okay, it's scared and it's angry.

Yeah, yeah, good. Let's go to the anger for a minute. It's not gonna hurt you. It's not gonna hurt you. Let's go to the anger, and I want you to let the anger use your mouth. Okay, what does the anger want to say?

Why are you trying to turn like kids against me. Why are you yea, why are you feeling them with Why are you talking bad about me to my children?

Why are you hurting me? Yeah? Why are you doing this to me?

Yeah?

Yeah, breathe? How about this one? I want my mommy. I just want my mommy. Breathe, come on, ok yeah yeah yeah, right there, Yeah, yeah, that's it. Just let her weep, baby, It's okay, you're not alone this time. Yeah, yes, it's okay, it's okay. Yeah. Yeah, Just let all of that come up, all of that come up, because that's what gets triggered every time you encounter your mother in law, every time she's me to you, every time she doesn't hear you, every time she doesn't acknowledge you, when she doesn't empathize with you. There's a part of you saying, I just want my mommy.

Yeah yeah, nobody to run to that I could.

Go to, yeah, somebody, yeah, somebody that'll hear you, somebody that will love you. But because you're holding all of this old old energy of hurt and sadness and grief and anger, you're just recreating everything that you lived, and your mother in law's just playing a role in your movie. Yeah, doesn't make her right, doesn't make her wrong. But I want you to understand that the deeper you can go to release this energy, the easier it'll be to deal with her. Does that make sense to you, Yes, it does, yeah, yeah, because she's not empathizing with you, she's not treating you well, you're recreating and reliving not in your mind, but in your energy, all of those things. And you're alone because your husband, dealing with his mother, abandons you.

Yes, yeah, which doesn't choose a side or he doesn't want to have said to his mother.

He doesn't choose you, that's the bottom line. He doesn't choose you, which then recreates the abandonment by your birth mother and the neglect by your adopted mother.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then unfortunately, the children, your children become collateral damage in this war, this discord between you and their grandmother.

Yes.

Yeah. And I heard you say when we started, when you start speaking, things get all jumbled up in your mind. And that's because you've swallowed so many words from when you were a young girl what you couldn't say, So you still have all of that residue gathered up in your brain. Yes, yeah, take a break.

I've been going to therapy and working with a therapist and trying to get better at articulating that I have to say I can, I can heal. I've been listening to for a couple of years too. That's really helped me. I take you everywhere I go from it my heart right here. That's study. My heart has been having issues abound heart medicine. Mm hmm.

It's because your heart is broken. Yeah, your heart is broken.

Yeah.

And I am so happy to hear that you've got some outside intervention, that you're getting some healing work.

Yeah.

I mean some you know work, but you need deep, deep healing to.

Work in that.

Yeah. And and sometimes in addition to therapy, you also want to do some energy healing work. Because I can feel the energy in your heart. Yeah.

I've been having to pray. I would be going to church and the voluntary over there, and I've had them praying over my heart and the holy hands of my heart. And I go in for prayer a lot. And I love on my kids a lot. I make sure that I'm giving them exactly what I didn't have, so they probably get tired of all my husbands love.

But I know children never get tired of that.

Yeah, everything that I didn't get, I make sure that they're getting everything.

But I don't want you to give it to them because you didn't get it, because that doesn't work. I want you to give it to them because you want them to have it. Yes, we often make that mistakes as parents to give our children what we didn't have, which strips the gift of its integrity. We're not giving it to them from a place of open heartedness, We're giving it to them from a place of woundedness. Okay, So don't give them what you didn't have, give them what you have for them. It's a slight difference, but it's very important.

Okay.

So let's deal with what you called about, which was your mother in law. Okay, Yeah, we'll talk more about it when we come back. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's pick up where we left off. She is what I would call a catalyst for your healing. She is simply triggering and bringing up the broken, wounded places so that you know what needs to be healed. And you are recreating or reliving the early childhood experiences. And while it's hard and it's difficult, it's also brought you to the awareness of what needs to be healed. Right, She's really not out to get you. Go ahead.

I've talked about it. Is there as you that since my husband's not he hasn't shown that he can support me yet, so I've cut off going with him on trips to go through his family. They just had a funeral recently, his grandmother, and I got along with her so good. She was so so nice to me, And but I didn't go because I don't want to be around that. I just I just feel triggered.

I guess very good. Good. Wait a minute, wait a minute, good for you. Do you know what you really did? You took care of yourself. Yes, not because you were triggered. Let's let's raise it up. You took care of yourself. Good for you. Yeah, there is no reason on God's green earth that you have to subject yourself to abuse.

No, and my children didn't want to go. They didn't want to go either because they and they heard overheard a conversation with him and his mother. And my husband thinks that the kids don't hear everything, and so they know and hear everything else since since they were able to hear with their ears, they see and hear everything, and you know, they they want to stay with mom, and I just feel better and he can go see his mom and I'll stay here and I'll wait for him, and when he's ready to go into therapy with me, then we'll go. Then we could start working on that then until I see that. I actually haven't even been intimate with him for a couple of years, so we're kind of just co parentinge. And he still comes and gives me a kiss on the cheek when he leaves to work, and like, oh, okay, for he's fine with it. He just wants to keep his mother happy. Right now, I guess.

First of all, I want to bring something to your awareness. Okay, when you called, your voice was low and your words were muddled. Do you just hear how you spoke out loud? Just now?

Yes?

Yes, that's what happens when you move energy and when you take care of yourself. And since he is not capable, willing, ready, able, whatever you want to call it, to take care of you, you have to take care of yourself and you that's what you did when you said, I'm not going to the funeral to subject myself to violation, abuse, dishonor and disrespect by your family. I'm not doing it. Good for you?

Not doing it a no more? Yeah?

Good?

It made me serve That's why I finally had to get to the bottom of it.

Yes, good for you. Did you celebrate yourself for that? I'm telling you that deserves a new pair of shoes or new pair of panties.

Do I go out on my own into my own thing? And good? I'm just trying to I am being truthful with myself and trying to take care of yourself. Yeah.

Maybe that's something that your adopted mother didn't do. But what I want you to do, because this is your husband, is when you're ready. You don't have to do it today, tomorrow, next week. I want you to sit with what we've talked about, and when you're ready, I want you to tell him the truth and explain it to him. One of the reasons I stop being intimate with you is because you abandoned me in the face of your mother's mistreatment, and I cannot allow you into my sacred space. I cannot be intimate with you when you don't see me, you don't empathize with me, and you don't protect me. Because Your responsibility is your as my husband, is to provide for me and to protect me. You're not doing your job as a husband. I can no longer do that part of my job as your wife. Let him know because since you are the one on the healing line right now, that's what we call when you're going through something like this. As his wife, you want to encourage him to heal. So let him know. You can't worship in my temple if you don't. If you keep abandoning me, why would I share myself with you when you have abandoned me. You need to work on that, sir. But help him understand. Help him understand, not just that you're withholding sex, you're taking care of yourself because he didn't.

Right.

So here's here's the deal. First of all, good for you. Oh my god, I how do you feel right now? How does it feel?

I feel so good. I'm gonna make me a good prefaces and wants to do.

Good. Just watch Mindless TV.

Thank you. I have to share with you that I've I've been pretending that you're my mom talking when I listened to you all the shows that I feel okay, I can relate to everybody that you talk to It's like something in there for me. I feel every time I hear you. So that's right. But I'm so glad that you I got to do it more deeper.

Yeah. Yeah, And and I can be your mom because very often when when the family we have doesn't work, we have to pick another one. Right, So all you did was just pick another mother. We're gonna find you another father and sister. And that's fine. You know whoever that is for you? You know you do that. If you were to go away for a weekend, do you have someone for the children to stay with? What they stay with? Your husband?

Yeah, you have to take time off, you would stay with him.

This is what I'm gonna do for you. I'm going to give you a scholarship to my Rights of Passage Program for Women.

Oh yeah, no, it's.

A nine week program. It's a nine week program. You're gonna work online for nine weeks and then in August you're gonna come to Boone, North Carolina. So start saving your money and you're going to go through a healing process with other women, and I'm going to give you a scholarship to that process. The online program starts in June because part of what you're going through is you just miss so much teaching as a woman. But based on what you're saying to me, I hear it coming through your intuition. You're doing the right things and the right way. You're learning how to take a stand for yourself and stand up for yourself, and I just want to celebrate that with you. Thank you, great, great work, great great work today. Okay, and just imagine, if it wasn't for your mother in law, you would have never called me. Yeah, thank you mother in law.

Okay, love you, thank you so much.

Love you back. Great great work. Keep that voice strong. Okay, you're sounding real strong right now.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, good for her. Did you hear the change in her voice?

Oh?

Made sick. In life, we have relationships with people that intersect with other people, and so very often we don't know how to keep those relationships separate, and we don't know how to build those relationships independently. So, you have a sister and your sister has a husband. You have a relationship with your sister as your sister. You have a relationship with your sister as another woman. You also have a relationship with your brother in law. As your brother in law and a relationship with your brother in law as a man. So that means you have four different relationships. And we have to learn how to have boundaries and clarity about the intersecting relationships that we have in our life, because if we don't, the boundaries get blurred and the responsibilities are abandoned, and it just becomes a hot mess. And I always say, first, deal with people on the common ground, deal with your sister as another woman and your brother in law as a man, and then deal with your sister as a married woman and your brother in law as your brother in law, because each of those relationships has different needs and different boundaries and different requirements. And when we don't do that, it just becomes a hot mess. And that's what my next caller is facing. She is in the midst of a hot mess. But there's a way out. Take a listen. Good morning, beloved, and welcome to the R Spot. What is your relationship challenge, issued dilemma, problem, circumstance situationship that we can nibble on together today.

Over protective mother in law?

I know, what does that mean? Who is mama in law? Over protecting.

Her fun?

Her fun and I just don't know what to do at this point. Yeah, you don't know what to do.

Alrighty, So tell me more. How long have you been married? What is the experience?

So me and the guy had been talking for three years. He proposed the second year, and it seems like since then, she's just been just finding nitpicking with me or finding little things. She'll call him all throughout.

The day.

Saying I need you to do this, or go here or do that, just finding little things to just get at me about, texting me throughout the day, asking me stuff like it's a lot like.

Did my son eat today?

What didn't my son eat?

And I'm like, oh lord, And what does he say about it?

I talked to him before about it. He basically just keeps saying, you're in a relationship with me, not my mother. Just trying to block her out, And I do like I I tried to block her out. I was going to block her on my phone and stuff. And I'm like, well, I don't want to be rude or disrespectful and I don't want to say anything out of line to her, but it's just getting to that point where she's just like everything, my son, my son, this my son that, And I'm like, I know who your son is. You don't have to keep, you know, reminding me.

So why do you think this is going on? What do you tell yourself about this?

I just don't know.

Maybe she doesn't want me to be his wife. Yeah, I I really don't know, because in the beginning she was she was very nice, very nice to me. Would invite me into her home. I haven't. She doesn't even invite me into her home anymore.

What does that mean into her home? What does that you?

Yeah, he'll go without me or if he has me to drop something off to her during the day or something like that. If he can't do it, he'll meet me at the door. And you know, that's it. That's it.

Have you ever asked her, are you going to invite me in?

Well? I have asked her what is the issue? And she has said, whatever we have going on me and you, you don't have to involve my son. He doesn't need to know about it. And I told her, I said, I don't have anything going on with you, Like I don't have any issues with you. I don't know what you mean.

By that, Is that true? I don't have any issues with you? Is that true.

Well, I didn't have any issues with her up until now. So my issue is trying to figure out I'm trying to figure out what is your issue with me?

Why do you think it's the issue is with you? Why can't it just be her issue?

Well, yeah, I think it's because he didn't grow up with his mom, and I feel like she's trying to like make up for lost time for her not being there in his life. And now it's just like it's it's just becoming too much. It's like check her or say something to her, like just becoming too much on our relationship. It's like either say something to her or then I'm going to have to say something. And I don't want to have to say something because I know that I know how I get, know how I get, and I don't want to come on. I don't want to be rue or disrespectful to his mother.

Okay, what makes you think it's rude or disrespectful to ask for what you need or want.

It's not.

It's not.

Oh it's okay, it's not.

Well, she's not your mother in law. Y'all are not married yet.

Is that right?

Right?

Do you have any issues around getting married being married. Have you been married before?

No?

I haven't. This would be the first time. It's a lot of side talk instead of him being able to talk out freely and her being able to talk freely when I'm around. I feel like, you know, they could be possibly talking. He could be talking negative negatively about me, and he just probably doesn't bring it to me, so I won't, you know, stress or worry about it. But yeah, I don't know.

Could they be talking positively about you?

That I can't really say, because how I don't see a person talking positive about me and then turning around when he's not around and just being nasty.

Well, let's see if we can just break this down a little bit. We'll talk about that right after this break. Welcome back. I am yan learning this is the r spot first of all, your beloved relationship. His mother is mothering a child, not an adult. So somehow in the mix, she has missed the boat in terms of understanding he's not a child, he's an adult, So she hasn't learned how to mother an adult. That don't have nothing to do with you. You're just getting caught up in mix. She's mothering a child as opposed to mothering an adult, and it is his responsibility to let her know, Hey, mom, mama, mommy, whatever he calls her. I suspect he calls about her first name. I don't know.

No, they.

Nicknames for each other, Okay, but.

That's his responsibility to let her know. Wait a minute, I'm a man. I don't need you checking on my laundry, my food, my shoes, my nose, my we wei. I don't need you checking on that. I'm a grown man, and you are my mother. I love and respect you, but there are places in my life that you are no longer it's no longer appropriate for you to be in and calling my beloved to find out if I've eaten is one of those areas. So that's one thing. You've got a mother parenting as though the adult is still a child. Again, that doesn't have anything to do with you. Then you have a mother who consciously or unconsciously sees you as the other woman. So that says to me that somehow, in some way, she has made her son your beloved, her emotional husband. Mothers do it all the time. She's looking for some sort of fulfillment or care or attachment to him emotionally as though he were her husband, not as though he were her son. Again, that has nothing to do with you. It is incumbent upon him to create the boundaries. Does that make sense to you? Yes, So she sees you as an other woman and she's vying with you for his affections. That's a problem. But for you, you're dealing with an elder woman, b a woman who matters to your beloved. So you have to deal with her first woman to woman, junior to elder, and second as another woman in your beloved's life. And that's your stuff. That's your stuff, and it may not seem like it's important, But the fact that you haven't talked to your mother about this to get some wisdom and insight about this says to me that there's something going on with you. Yeah, yeah, you think.

So.

Mother in law has really come to okay, So what is that? What is going on with you?

I don't know, I don't know. I remember just the other day I was telling him about how I wanted to start going to like counseling and stuff like that individually and then together, and that was like an argument because it kind of was like, well, what is it that you need to talk to a stranger about that you can't talk to me about, and I told him, you know, I just want to make sure that I am prepared for marriage. I want to make sure that I am the best version of myself. And I never, you know, really thought about going to therapy or anything like that until like a couple months ago, two, a couple months ago.

So it doesn't have to be anything wrong. It may be that you need an objective third party to support you in growing, healing, stretching into this new role of being a wife, eventually being a mother, eventually being a daughter in law. When you've got a difficult situation with your mother in law m mm hmm, because your relationship with her is going to mirror your relationship with your mother. And just as you said, you haven't spoken to your mother about this situation with your future mother in law, and so that means there are things that you haven't said to her. There are things that you haven't said to your mother in law that you need to say, not in a disrespectful way, not in an angry way. But if you withhold, you withhold, I would want to know, are you going to invite me in? Okay? I just need you to understand that it hurts my feelings when I come to your house knowing how much you mean to Boo Boo, I don't know what his name is, and you leave me on the doorstep like a stranger. What are we going to do when we have children. I want them to be in good relationship with you, but they can't be in good relationship with you if you're not in good relationship with me. So I want to fix this. How does it make you feel when she doesn't invite you into her home? And why are you running errands? Why can't he take it to.

Her if he's at work, she.

Waits and you have to let him know. When I go to your mother's house, she doesn't even have the decency to invite me in for a glass of water. I'm not running your errands anymore. If she doesn't know how to treat me, then it's incumbent upon you to train her or you run the errands. I'm not doing it. You got to take care of yourself. This is an elder woman and she's out of order, and you're not telling her how the way she treats you makes you feel. Why not?

I know the first time I didn't say anything because she came to the door like she was on the phone, So I'm just like, okay, well you're on the phone. But even then, it's been a few times when I've been over there and you know someone has called or something like that, and you know, you still let me in. So that's why I was just like, well, if you don't want to let me in, then it's no need for me to continue to keep coming to your home. And I'm not going to beg to come into a home that I'm not welcome in.

I want you to make some clear distinctions here. First, junior woman, younger woman to elder woman, and she may not know how to be in relationship with you in that way, so you may have to teach her. And then as the other woman in your beloved's heart, you want to know that he has room for both of you. You're not trying to take her place, you're not trying to replace her, and that she is important to him, which makes her important to you. You've got to establish that with her, woman to woman, junior to elder, daughter to mother. That's your work, that's not his work. His work is to create some boundaries with her and to remind her he's a man, he's not a child. His work is to remind her that you are important to him, and she is important to him, and both of y'all have to live together in his heart.

Right.

But as a woman, you can also have a relationship with her that's separate and apart from his relationship with her. But you have to create that. Right now, you're just dealing with her as though she's his mother, and you're not dealing with her a woman to woman. Does that make sense to you?

It does?

So what is it that you need to say to her that you haven't said that?

I don't know, because I have told him, but I haven't told her that. I'm not trying to take her spot again. I don't know if I need to tell her life. I'm not. You know, I know that you weren't in his life in the beginning.

It's none of your business. That's none of your business. Stay out of that. Stay out of that. That is pillow talk between you and him. That's his sacred information. You don't reveal that to her, You don't use that against her. You don't even reveal to her that he told you that, because that is his relationship with her. You have to establish your relationship with her and to share with her how it makes you feel, Not that what she's doing is wrong or she shouldn't do it, but how it makes you feel when she does these things. How does it make you feel when she doesn't let you in the house. How does it make you feel when she calls you checking on your son? Create that boundary, Say mo, miss Williams, it doesn't feel good to me that you're calling and checking on your son, calling me checking on your son. He's a grown man and I'm not his mother. You are. So if he doesn't eat, that ain't on me, that's on you. That's on him. Why are you asking me that? Ask him? Why are you asking me that? I'm just curious, why are you asking me that?

Right?

So, this is about you using your voice and creating boundaries and establishing relationships that value the other person but also honor you, Okay, And don't do it from a place of anger and victimhood. Create the boundary because the same way you are the other woman in his life, she's the other woman.

I see.

You know, I have a relationship with my daughter in law that's separate in the part from my relationship with my son. She's a junior woman to me, and I have made sure I'll call her, invite her places. I don't even tell him about it. Why because it's not about him, it's about my relationship with her. He bought her a coffee maker for Christmas. I was like, what in the blazon of Jesus a coffee maker? I don't understand. I didn't even know that she drank coffee. I didn't. I didn't know. But when I saw what he bought her for Christmas, and he bought it over here and asked me to wrap it up for it, I ran around my house and found every little intimate thing I could find and wrapped it up. And when she came to get her gifts the next day, she had perfume, and she had a this and a that, And I ain't nothing to him or to her. I didn't say anything to him or to her, and she was happy about the coffee maker, but she was even more excited about the perfume that I found in my closet that I hadn't opened and gave to her in his name. What in the world a coffee maker? You need to go somewhere and left the price tag on it too, because as a woman, I knew how it would felt feel for me if my husband gave me a coffee maker for Christmas. So, woman to woman, I wanted her to feel better. And then I'm like, Okay, he has lost his good mind. That's all he brings in his wife on Christmas? Yeah, what is wrong with him? But I wasn't gonna beat him up, so I dealt with it as a woman how I wanted her as a woman to feel, not as a mother in law. You understand. So that's why I'm saying to you, establish a relationship with her woman to woman, and then create boundaries for her as your mother in law. You better put your big girl panties on. You're gonna be navigating this for the rest of your life. Invite them to lunch. I don't mean no harm, miss Williams, but it don't feel good to me that you're calling me asking me if booboo ate. That's a question you have to ask him. So if you want to know something about him, please call him. I want us to talk about us. I don't want us to talk about don't you know? And if she'll do it again, you say, Miss Williams, Mama Williams, whatever you want to call her. I've asked you not to text me or call me asking me about him. That's something you got to ask. That's about you and him, That's not about me and you.

Okay, thank you, sir, Thank you for calling.

Let me know how the lunch goes. Okay, bye bye. All relationships require boundaries, and there are three levels of boundaries that we must think about. First of all, the boundary for yourself within yourself. I don't care who the relationship is with. You have a right to create a boundary for yourself between yourself and the other person. And then you have a right to request and honor the boundaries that the other people said between themselves. Boundaries, they're so important. And the final boundary that we always forget to set is the boundary that keeps us safe and the boundary that honors everybody in a way that honors everyone's highest and greatest good. Because until we have clear, well established, honored and respected boundaries, our relationships will bleed into each other in inappropriate ways. Now, you can't set the boundaries that people have between themselves. But if your boundaries are clear, you do have the right to request and require that they honor your boundaries. I hope this has been helpful to someone, and if you have a question about this or any other relationship issue, you can call me live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven sixty eight. Now be sure to follow me on social media for all of the calling times, and until then, stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

The R Spot with Iyanla

Each week, New York Times best-selling author and famed spiritual life coach, Iyanla Vanzant, invite 
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