You Need to Hear This with Nedra TawwabThis week's message comes from a frustrated step-parent who is concerned about her family's spending and career choices. Secret-keeping and avoidance behaviors are in play and Nedra helps understand what fears these actions may be rooted in.
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Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm natur Glover to WAB and you need to hear this. This week, we'll be talking about financial boundaries and if there is some enabling going on for finances. We all have different ideas about how we manage our money, how our partners may manage theirs, how our friends and cousins and everyone else. You know, finances is one of those topics where there is just endless information and ways of doing things, and sometimes we can't agree on you know, how do you help a person, when do you not help a person? When do you budget? When don't you budget? I think it's just confusing for so many of us, and that's why finances remains one of those top three reasons that you know, many couples get a divorce. It is certainly a top dispute when we end our relationships with people, whether that's loaning or you know, maybe we are the person who borrow and we don't pay back. So, you know, there are just so many relationship challenges that come up with finances. In today's call, we'll talk to someone who is married and they're having an issue with the way in which their partner handles finances. With their children. Sometimes it's not just the way your partner handles finances with their children, but also with other family members. You know, I've certainly been in situations where you know, I was dating someone and unfortunate we didn't have the same way of viewing how we can help family. And it's you know, further complicating when maybe we're not in a position to be helping. So that sometimes is a challenge, how much we feel we need to help when we're not in the position to be helping in the first place. So a big question today that we'll be sorting through is what is enabling versus helping, because sometimes we can be calling enabling helpful. I remember one time I was talking to a family member and they were talking about loan and somebody money once again. They said, you know, I just have to help them, And I said, have they been helped yet? You know, it seems like you're helping them once a month. When does the help run out? When do they get to the point of, wow, that was helpful. It doesn't seem helpful if you're always doing it and they have the same problem. They haven't made any progress with their issue. And it's some things like you know, in that situation, it was like their phone bill, and you know, I think this family member who was helping was like, oh my gosh, they can't live without their phone bill. And I'm like, well, can they live without amenities on their phone? Like could they just you know, have a basic phone that's maybe cheaper? You know, I think sometimes we think, oh, this person should be able to live in this way, but they might not be able to afford it, or we might be offering some level of support that keeps them from getting to the space of having to be accountable for how they utilize their finances. So let's get into the call, because I can talk about this all day. I will say finances is one of my personal favorite topics. You know, when I'm reading books, I love to read books about finance. It's just to stay on top of lingo and things that are happening because it's you know, it's such a complicated thing, and therapists talk about everything with their clients, and so I, you know, it's hopeful when I have some ideas around how to think about these different things in our relationships. This week, we have the pleasure of having the letter read by my wonderful producer Mia so Less. Listen to the first portion of today's call.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking the time to read my email. I really enjoy your advice and your podcast. I am married to a wonderful man going on almost three and a half years, and we've been together total almost six He has two sons with his ex wife, a twenty two year old and a nineteen year old, and a nineteen year old just started his freshman year of college in Rina. His twenty two year old is getting a certificate in cybersecurity through an accredited university here and we'll be done with it by the end of this month. His son has stated after getting the certificate, he will easily make six figures and have no problems getting a job. As this date gets closer, he says he can't find anything and isn't sure what to do. I offered him suggestions of looking for jobs on websites, and he's kind of like, yeah, I know that.
The one thing that I'm thinking about as I'm hearing this is what does your husband believe about paying for his kids' education. It sounds like there has been some belief system around what parents are responsible for and perhaps these beliefs developed more than six years ago. So maybe it's not even something that your husband spoke to you about, but it sounds like he agrees with paying for his children to go to school. So where is the conversation around, what are your thoughts about paying for your kids to go to college? How long do you pay, how much do you pay, what is your expectation once they leave? Those are very big questions that you need to have in your relationships, particularly when there is a blended family situation. I know, for me with my kids, you know, the belief is that will pay for them to go to college, so you know it's it's already set, and they're pretty young that you know, we'll pay for them to go to college if they need that level of assistance. So it sounds like your husband has a similar sort of belief that, you know, it's my responsibility as their parents to help them through college. And I'm hearing that perhaps you don't agree with us. Perhaps you believe that they have some responsibility in getting themselves through college, which hey, I get I pay for myself to go to college, so you know, student loans help me and it has helped many of us. So perhaps that is your belief or the way that you think about it, But it sounds like a conversation is needed with dad and or their biological mom to talk through what is the expectation for financing college? Do we pay all of it? Do we pay a portion of it? Is something subsidized through loans? How will we sort of help them through this process? Let's keep listening.
About a year ago and without telling me, my husband co signed his sons alone for thirty thousand dollars for school for this certificate. I found out when he was doing it online that night. Needless to say, caused a huge argument. I also asked why his son never asked his mother, and my husband threw up his hands and said, I don't know. I believe both his boys think were rolling in money by some of the comments they still make. And I have a funny feeling why he went to his dad to ask. What gets me is his son has made no attempt to look into getting a job in this field and has been doing piecemeal work for his dad. My husband, he's never ever had a real job except for working for his dad here and there. I know he's not paying the loan no, and no, my husband is paying it without even telling me. He has an account he and his ex have as he still pays her alimony, and I believe he pays the loan more out of that. So I never see it.
So I hear some discomfort around being lied to. And let's talk about that for a bit. Why do people lie to us most of the time. If we think about why children lie, why adults lie, it's because we don't want to get in trouble. You know, I am a grown woman and I still don't want to get in trouble. However, you know, sometimes we tell the truth and we suffer the consequences, or we just avoid the truths. We're not directly lying, but you go around this corner of well, if I don't say anything, then it's not necessarily a lie. You just don't know about it. It's in a mission, But it sounds like there is some line being done, maybe to minimize, you know, some of the trouble that he might get into, or even you know, we lie because we don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. And here's another reason that we lie, because we want to be able to do things without having a certain level of accountability. You know, I want to be able to do this for my son, and I don't want anybody to say anything about me. So it's important to know where is the line coming from. What is the energy behind the dishonesty. I don't want to say lie, I want to change that. What's the energy behind the omission? What's going on there that in this environment he can't be honest? And I'm hearing it as I listen to this letter, that there is this idea around him not helping his children. You know, I don't want you to provide for them financially when they're adults. And so if that is the energy in which he is navigating this situation, there may be some dishonesty there. I do wonder, as he's trying to pay for college and you know, maybe pay these pay these loans back. Why is that an issue? I'm assuming it's an issue because the kid isn't matching the effort. Right if this kid was trying to find a job that dad wasn't paying him for, perhaps you wouldn't be as upset. But then we have to think about you know, well, in certain situations, particularly when a parent owns a business. You know, there is some nepotism, There is some you know, hiring your kids, hiring you know, sometimes your partner or other family members because there's an opportunity to provide a living for them as well. So again, what is your concern with your husband being able to say, well, I will employ you, and I will will cover some of these things for you. I think we are digging towards a fear of some sort, and we'll see by the end of this. But I'm gonna jump in here and just wonder, is the fear that you will always be providing for these children? Now, nineteen twenty two, that's still pretty young. I know we tend to think of adulthood starting at eighteen, But what we're now saying is adulthood is extending itself. It's now, you know, maybe twenty two or twenty four. What's the age where kids can sort of get off your insurance as a twenty five twenty six, you know, people are needing help a little bit longer. I wonder sometimes what a nurturing way to continue to show up for your children. But also as a parent, it is important that you show up without the enabling piece you do want your children to be able to figure out some things. You do want your children to be able to manage some of these situations on their own. However, you also want to be there to comfort and support them when they needed it. Sounds like for you and your husband, there are some different ideas about that. You know, your husband's parenting has been in the making for twenty two years. He's parented this way for twenty two years. I don't know if when his kids were, you know, maybe ten years old, he started these conversations around them having to get a job, them having to go out into the world. When they're eighteen or nineteen, they may not have gotten those talks. And so now that they're at this adult age, it sounds like, you know, they're still pretty much figuring it out. And that might have to do with the way in which they were reared. It's not you know, all at once now they have to figure it out because they are these big grown ages. They may still be in that phase of getting that parenting from their mom and from your husband because you know, maybe it wasn't taught earlier that you know, Okay, once you go to college, here's the expectation that you know, by twenty three, you'll be able to live on your own and pay these things that may not have been communicated. And I hear that you're frustrated with seeing it at this point, but those are conversations that typically need to start happening really early. And I'll give you an example. That was taking my daughter to school one day and she saw a really nice car. I think it was like a Porsche or something, and she was like, oh my gosh, that's a nice car. Where you buy me that car when I get older. I was like, no, but I hope you get a job where you can afford to buy yourself that car. I will buy you a car, but it won't be a Porsche. And you know, I just want to be clear about that now because I don't want you to feel like maybe when you're sixteen or eighteen, that mom is going to get you a Poors. It's like, I will get you a vehicle. I will get you some transportation. I'm not getting you a PanAm Era. I don't want to get that for you. I want you to be able to get that for yourself. That feels really good when you can achieve that big goal that you've had for ten years. You know, I want you to experience that. But we're already having those conversations. So sometimes we hop in on the maybe the tail end of you know, the child rearing, and we're like, oh my gosh, why don't they know this stuff? And it's like they were never taught these things. These conversations weren't had. They're starting to be had. But if mom and dad were on the same page, it's gonna be quite difficult to start to, you know, roll back and say, okay, these are the things. They're twenty two and nineteen, so there are some things that can be implemented, but it's going to take some time and it'll be a little different. Let's keep listening.
The Sun lives rent free in his mom's condo. His mom is my husband's ex and they were married a whole twenty years. In my opinion, my husband and his ex baby and enable him by not making him get a real job or handle any responsibilities. He basically stays at the condo all the time, and when he isn't taking his classes, he plays video games online all night. His parents know this and yet never do anything about it. If and when I try to offer suggestions or say that he needs to show some tough love. My husband brushes it off or will get defensive about it and take a son's side. My husband's excuse is I want to give my son a better life than what I had when he grew up in a stable family and was always provided for. This kid has literally been like this since I met him six years ago, and his parents continue to enable him and treat him like he walks on water. He can do no wrong. My husband and I have no children together, just looking for some direction or some advice. So my husband will put his foot down or my fighting a losing battle, will he always defend this kid. I just feel like what I say goes in one ear and out the other. With my husband read his son, thank you for your time and appreciate your hope.
I don't know if you're fighting a losing battle, and I also don't know if you're in a battle. I wonder if you're in a blended family situation where there are different ideas about parenting. I hear that the foundation has been I want to give my kid or my son a better life than what I had. We have to be careful about what we put on our kids. We feel that the best way to parent them is to parent them how we want to be parented, and that's not always needed and it's certainly not always effective. What I needed was based on my circumstances. What my kids need will be based on their circumstances. So it's very hard to give them what I needed. Those things will be very different. I didn't have uber, I didn't have certain types of technology I didn't have, So it's very hard to say that these are the things needed based on what I did or didn't get. So as we're saying that, we have to look at Oh, what does that really mean? You know, I want to give my son a better life? Does that mean that I want to give them a more stable foundation until they're twenty five? I want them to have these things. I want my kids to be exposed. I want my kids to like. What does that statement really mean? What does it actually look like? What do you want the outcome of this better life to be? Sometimes in our attempts to give our kids a better life, we are giving them things that they haven't worked for. We are giving them things that they don't even know how to manage. They don't even know how to take care of yet, so it's very important to make sure that we are checking into ourselves and what we're putting on other people with our story. Right, Like, my parents never did this, I'm going to do it for my kid. I never had this, so I'm going to do it for my kid. Well, that might not be the thing that your kid is missing, you know. Maybe their thing is they want more time with you. Maybe their thing is they want deeper communication. Maybe their thing is they want more space. I don't know. So it's very hard to create a life for a human being without having the conversation and understanding what they even want, what they even need, you know, to provide a better life for someone would mean you know, maybe noticing the person and what they actually need, but certainly not overdoing it to a point that we are crippling a person's ability to at some point be able to care for themselves with support. And when I say with support, I mean that it's hopeful for all of us to have some support, whether we tap into it or not. You know, a child in the world at any age without any support or assistance from their parents can be a really unfortunate thing. I am still at an age where if I'm sick, I want to call from my mommy. You know, if I'm going through something, it would still feel very great for me to hear some affirming things from my mother. So I think that, you know, there is this idea that we grow out of needing parenting. I think the parenting that we need it evolves as we get older, it evolves as we're better able to take care of ourselves, but it's certainly is still a presence that's needed. So my suggestion here would be talking about with your husband what does parenting a twenty two year old and a nineteen year old look like? Like, what are some of those things that your kids need at that age? And it sounds like right now, a part of what they need is a place to live, you know, which a kid, if they're in college, parents usually do pay for them to have somewhere to live. So if it's mom's condo, it's mom's condo, right like you would pay dorm fees, you would pay for off campus apartment fees of some sort, So that might be a reasonable expectation. So perhaps talking to your husband about timelines, like how long do we expect to pay this thing? What is the amount that we will give towards it. Is it us pang the full thing, or is it us paying a portion of the thing. But you want to create an environment where there is comfort around talking about these things openly. So it's not such a secret. It's not something that's done behind your back, because it sounds like it's being done anyway, whether you like it or not. There is some level of support happening. So it's not like, oh, if I don't support it, he won't help him. It's like, no, if you don't support it, he'll help him in secret. So create more of an environment where he can come to you with these things and say, hey, you know, I get it. Your kids are adults and you still want to support them. What are the things that you want to do. You may not agree with some of those things, but they're gonna happen anyway. So how do you keep the secrecy to a minimum? And you asked a really important question, will he always defend this kid? When people say things about children, they are saying something about the parent. You know, if you're in a store and a kid is, you know, maybe tantruming and falling out, it's like, how is he doing that, it's like, you know, it goes back to the parents, Like the parents aren't controlling him, they aren't doing something, So it could be taken that way. You know, if a twenty two year old nineteen year old isn't where you may want them to be in life, you sang these things, it looks like, Okay, are you saying I didn't do any parenting? Are you saying that I wasn't a good parent, that I wasn't loving, that I didn't you know, maybe encourage my kids. So I would wonder how that energy of what's going on with your kids is being manifested within the conversations, within his behaviors and actions, like it sounds like it is being taken as you know, accusatory sort of belief that you have about how he parented his children. So I would just wonder, you know, what are those conversations like, Because if you're saying things like you know, at twenty two I did X, Y and Z, or I know other twenty two year olds or nineteen year olds who did, he shouldn't be working for you. I can't believe he can't find his own place. Why is any fought in the job Yet those statements go back to you did not parent your child.
Will.
You know, when you go to a preschool class and kids are biting each other, you know, the teacher may say, why why is he biting? As if you are at school telling your kids, hey, bite all the kids it's okay.
No parents.
Well, I'm not gonna say always, but they typically aren't doing that, right. It's just like a defense mechanism that kids develop. Right, It's like, hey, you're in my space. I can't communicate. I know how to bite. I got these teeth. They hurt, you know. So it goes back to what is this parent doing? So that's what he's hearing that there is some deficit in what he did. And I'm sure that you know, in an imaginary world that is all. Well, he would want his kids to be able to be you know, independent and able to care for themselves. He doesn't want to pay for college and you know, help them figure this stuff out. But it doesn't sound like that's the situation. So in some ways, he is you know, suffering in silence because he's not even able to talk about you know, maybe the disappointment he's dealing with. So take a more compassionate approach. You love this man, you want to be in a relationship with him. I haven't heard anything about any money issues between the two of you necessary, but I have heard about the secret keeping. So I wonder where you can create space for more honest conversation, more compassionate listening, more understanding around some of the things that were already in motion before you came along, Because this is, you know, this is a touchy subject and I think one that many blended families deal with, whether it's you know, helping your kids financially or babying them when they're upset, and just all of these different things. Parents already have this way of being in relationship with their children, and to be honest, whether it's a blended family or not, even if kids are at home with both biological parents, they still have this issue because it's like, we have different ideas about how kids should be parented. We have from the start, you know, whether they should be cloth diaper, diaper, breastfeed, and you know, just all these different things. Parents typically don't agree on every single point, and they don't have to. They don't have to whether it's a blended family, whether it's adoptive family, whether both biological parents are together. These are just conversations that come up that we must sort through. Yes, they are difficult, but there are certainly things that we can work through with some compassionate listening, understanding, and remembering that we love the person that we're in a relationship with and we're just trying to figure out a really difficult topic. You need to hear this. One way to discover if you are enabling or if you're being hopeful in someone's life is to look at the tangible ways in which the help is being manifested in their life. If you are giving them something, what are they doing with it? How is this helping them evolved? Are they getting closer to their personal goal? Or are you creating a personal goal for them? Help will be helpful enabling you will continue to see the same behaviors over and over, so you know you're helping when you see a different result. You need to hear. This is an iHeart production hosted by me Nadra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joe El Bobique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and relationships that you need to hear this at iHeartMedia dot com. You know, I'm really interested in people who want to talk more about frenemies, postpartum, and father son relationships. If you are having any challenges in those areas or you're looking to process something in those areas, please send us a voice note or write a letter and I would love to talk through those issues with you on You need to hear this
