When Love Feels Like Pressure: The Hidden Conflict in Helping Too Much

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Quiet conflict, avoidance, emotional dependence, overhelping, family dynamics, relationship discomfort, parental control, emotional thermostat, staying steady, curiosity, showing up, connection, family conflict, healthy family, relationship change.

SPEAKERS

Tina Gosney

Tina Gosney  00:00

Last time on the podcast, we talked about the quiet kind of conflict, these quiet forms that sneak in that we don’t usually name as conflict. This is, you know, how we distance ourselves, how we put up walls in between us and another person, the ways that we avoid. We go to great lengths to avoid even saying we’re fine in a relationship that doesn’t actually feel fine. I’ve tried to banish this word fine from my vocabulary. I think I’m doing pretty good. I know it sneaks in once in a while, but it’s really just hides a lot of pain when we try to say that we’re fine and we don’t really look at the reality of our life or what’s wet, what is happening.

Tina Gosney  00:42

If you did the practice from the last episode, which was to notice where you’ve been avoiding, where you’re just keeping things fine, or where you’re feeling distance that you can’t explain, and you don’t really know where it’s coming from. I want you to hold on to that, because that just directly builds on what we’re going to do today.

Tina Gosney  01:04

Here’s a scene for you. Picture a parent, their adult child mentions, you know, just kind of in passing, “Hey, I’m thinking about maybe changing jobs, and that night, you know, the parent can’t let go of their child changing jobs, they can’t stop thinking about it. They start researching things about different jobs and about their present job. They, you know, maybe find a few articles or podcasts about how to evaluate a job offer. They think about texting their child, you know, there’s some things here that you should consider. Here’s a list of things. Have you thought about this? They draft a text, they delete it, they draft it again. Maybe it’s a little shorter, maybe they reword things. Finally, they just send it and say, I’m thinking about you. Here are a few things that might help. Their child reads it and doesn’t respond for two days.

Tina Gosney  01:58

How does the parent feel? Well, of course, they’re hurt, and they’re telling themselves, I was just trying to be hopeful. So, I want you to notice something about this story. There is no fight, there’s no raised voices, nobody is slamming doors, but there is conflict. It’s wearing a disguise, and that disguise is love.

Tina Gosney  02:21

Welcome to Coaching Your Family Relationships podcast. If you are a new listener, welcome. I am so glad that you’re here, and if you’ve been here with me for a while, I want to welcome you back. I just appreciate your loyalty. I appreciate you, you know, clicking on this podcast repeatedly, week after week. This podcast has really been growing a lot lately, and I know it’s because you’re sharing it with others, you’re listening maybe more than once to an episode just to really kind of grasp the concepts, and I really want to thank you for that.

Tina Gosney  02:54

My name is Tina Gosney, I’m a family conflict coach. I also educate parents on what a healthy family looks like, and I used the latest research on what family science says families, healthy families, how they function, and the latest research on estrangement and family dynamics and conflict, and how do we strengthen family bonds in the current climate and culture that we live in, because our families are really, really being torn apart, and it’s mainly because of politics and social issues, religious issues. The the idea that we need to keep in touch with our families, even when we’re being treated badly, even in the midst of unregulated emotional expression and hurtful words, like there’s this idea that we have to stay and keep family even when we’re being treated badly, or maybe we’re treating other people badly.

Tina Gosney  03:53

So I educate on those kind of things, and we need this education now more than ever. In fact, we don’t just need to know what the education is and what the research says. We need to know, okay? Now that I know this and I know what the research is saying, how do I do it? How do I apply this to my life? And that is what I’m doing in this podcast. I educate, and I help you to apply.

Tina Gosney  04:17

I help you to just give a few ideas for implementing what you’re learning, and if you love this podcast, if you’re learning something, please consider taking a couple minutes and going on to Apple Podcasts or onto Spotify and leaving a review, even giving me a few stars if you think that I’ve earned those. Now those reviews are really important, because the more we can share this podcast, the more we can get this information out, and the more that we can elevate the families and the way that we are relating to each other inside of our families. So, thank you so much in advance for doing that. I really appreciate your time in helping me to grow this podcast.

Tina Gosney  05:01

Today we’re going to dive into something that I think is one of the hardest things for parents to see. One of the most powerful forms of conflict does not look like conflict at all. It looks like you caring about another person and you’re very concerned about them. This can look a lot like love on the inside, it looks like love, and you feel like you’re being loving, which makes it really hard to identify this and really hard to question what you’re doing, but on the other side, on your adult child side, this, what you’re doing lands very differently. This is why it’s so hard to see. It’s really tricky with the quiet conflict that we talked about last time.

Tina Gosney  05:46

We talked about, you know, avoiding walking on eggshells and saying we’re fine. At least there’s this little voice inside of you that knows that something is off. You don’t always know what it is, but you know that something is off. You can feel that static that we talked about, even if you don’t name it, you can still feel it, but with the kind of conflict that we’re going to talk about today, the one that looks like love, that small voice often is not there, because what you’re feeling on your end really is loving, and it is love, you’re not trying to perform love and pretend like you love them, you really do love them. It’s not a cover for something else. And when your adult child responds with distance, or they’re frustrated with you, or they start to pull away, it feels just really confusing. And you can really think, and even maybe say, I was just trying to help.

Tina Gosney  06:38

What is the problem? Well, here’s the honest answer. It might not be a problem with the love itself, and in fact, it’s probably not. It might be a problem with where that love is landing and how much room it leaves for them, because love and pressure can come from the same place and feel different depending on which side of it you’re standing on. Let me give you some examples. This is an over helping example. We’re going to start with this pattern from that story I just told you.

Tina Gosney  07:12

You know, this is over helping, and inside your own head you have thoughts like I’m just trying to be helpful. I don’t want them to make a mistake. I want to warn them about something. I don’t want something to happen in their future, and I didn’t warn them about it, and they can’t see what I can see. They haven’t had the life experience that I’ve had. And from that mindset, you can find yourself giving advice that they did not ask for. You can find yourself sending articles, texting. Hey, just one more thing.

Tina Gosney  07:44

After the conversation already ended, you can find yourself explaining why you’re doing it again, just in case it didn’t land the first time, just in case they didn’t understand you the first time. Let me tell you again, because maybe you just.. I need to say different words this time. So, from your side, every bit of this is love. You’re not really trying to control anyone, you’re just trying to spare them from pain. You’ve lived longer, you have more life experience, you’ve seen more. Of course, you want to help, but here’s a question that is worth asking. How does it feel from their side? For a lot of adult children, this feels like pressure when their parent does this. It sends this message, often a silent message to us, but very loud to them. I don’t.

Tina Gosney  08:34

It’s in that message, is I don’t trust you to handle this. And as a parent, that might be the furthest thing from your mind, the furthest thing that you ever meant to convey, and often the more capable your child actually is, the more it stings when you step in and do things like this, because they’re managing a career, a household, sometimes they have kids of their own, and then you give an unsolicited list of, hey, did you think about this? Did you consider this, and without anyone intending it, that message underneath becomes, you know, I don’t think you’ve ever thought of this, you know, even if they maybe have.

Tina Gosney  09:14

So, here’s a metaphor. Think about teaching a child how to ride a bike. You start out, you know, showing them a few things, and then you let them start moving the pedals, and you hold the seat, and you run alongside them. You’re right there, ready to catch them in case they fall. You don’t want them to get hurt, and that is exactly the right thing that you do at that stage.

Tina Gosney  09:37

But at some point, when they’re riding that bike, you have to let go. That’s the really hard part, especially when they’re not actually riding a bike anymore, but they’re doing other, more grown-up things. That moment right before you let go feels the scariest. They’re starting to wobble, that bike is shaken back and forth, you know, they might fall. Every instinct in you says grab that seat again, hold on tighter, but if you keep holding on to that seat, then they never learn how to balance, they never feel what it’s like to wobble and then find the balance themselves, and then eventually something interesting happens, they start to pull away from you, this is not because they don’t love you, not because they don’t appreciate everything that you’ve done, but they need some space to learn how to ride that bike on their own, and if you don’t let go of the seat, the only way they can get space is to pull back from you entirely.

Tina Gosney  10:36

Why does stepping back feel so hard? Why does it land as pressure even when it’s offered with so much love? Well, here’s what I have found to be true, both in the research and in real homes and real families. When people feel controlled, even gently pressured, lovingly they will push back or they pull away. This is not about them being ungrateful. It’s not about rebellion. It’s about something much more basic. When you have a say in your own life, your own choices, your own mistakes, determining your own path, that is a fundamental human need. It’s there at two years old, when a toddler insists on, you know, buckling their own seat belt or feeding themselves, and it’s there at 35 when, even if it shows up a lot more quietly, it’s still there.

Tina Gosney  11:32

Your human being that you raised and that is in your life, this adult child is wired to make their own decisions, even when they’re the wrong decisions, especially when they’re the wrong ones, because that’s what, when the real learning happens, we are supposed to make wrong decisions. Sometimes we don’t learn if we always make the decisions that everything turns out well. When you step in more than they asked for, even when you have the best intentions in the world, this creates tension, and this is not because they don’t value your perspective, but because in that moment they received this message that I don’t fully trust that you can handle this.

Tina Gosney  12:18

Nobody wants to feel that way around the people that they love the most. This is also why it can feel like your adult child is pulling away for no reason, when on their side there’s a very clear reason they’re trying to create some space that they weren’t given, and often the harder it is to get that space, the further they have to pull away to find it. Here’s another example. Let’s look at a different pattern. This one is quieter, and honestly, it’s more painful to talk about. This is emotional dependence, and it sounds like, hey, are we okay? Did I do something wrong? Or even asking yourself, why haven’t they texted me back? Maybe you notice your mood rises and falls based on how they’re responding to you.

Tina Gosney  13:07

If they’re warm, if they reach out, if the visit goes well, then you have this feeling of peace and subtleness. You genuinely feel good, but if they’re distant, if a text goes unanswered for a day or two, if a visit feels really short or rushed, you feel this sort of panic, this unsettled feeling. Yes, there’s kind of even a spiral sometimes of, you know, what did I do wrong? And I want to be super gentle here, because I know how this sounds, and I know it doesn’t feel like what it is, because it feels like love.

Tina Gosney  13:40

Of course, you care how things are going between the two of you. Of course, when they’re quiet and you don’t hear from them, you begin to wonder, but there’s a difference between caring about the relationship and your sense of okayness and those being dependent on each other, especially from moment to moment, I once talked to a mom who told me she could tell within the first 10 seconds of her daughter picking up the phone what kind of day the mom was about to have, because if the daughter sounded upbeat, then the mother relaxed.

Tina Gosney  14:16

If the daughter sounded tired or she was short, then she spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why, and wondering what she had done, and what she could have said differently, and whether there was something wrong between her and her daughter, and the daughter, by the way, you know, when she reacted that way, we found out she was often just tired, she’d had a long day at work, and that was all that it was, but the mom told so many stories to herself about this. There’s this thing called an emotional thermostat.

Tina Gosney  14:45

Here’s another way to picture this. Imagine your sense of calm, your sense of I’m doing okay today. It’s like the temperature in your home. Now you’re going to hand that thermostat to your adult child. And when they’re warm, when they reach out, or a visit goes well, or the text comes back quickly in a time that you think it should be coming back, that temperature in your home rises, and you feel warm, and you feel settled and secure, and you feel good, but when they’re distant, when the text doesn’t come, when the visit feels short, when you feel you start feeling a little unsettled because the temperature drops and you’re feeling cold and anxious and you are worried.

Tina Gosney  15:28

This is the part that makes it so hard, is that they don’t know they’re holding the thermostat, they have no idea that their response on a text is adjusting the temperature of your whole day, and that actually is not fair to give that to them and have them manage that for you. That is not their job, and it never was their job. But somewhere along the way, no one really decided that they were going to do that on purpose. We just gave that to them and assigned that as their job. Okay, let’s go into another example. There’s another pattern that I want to walk through, and this one is sort of, you know, the opposite reaction.

Tina Gosney  16:09

And this is really when we shut down. It sounds like, what’s the point? They’ve already made up their mind. I’m so tired of trying. So, you stop engaging, you stop initiating things, phone calls or visits, you stop bringing things up. Maybe you tell yourself I’m just giving them space. Maybe you tell yourself they don’t care about you anymore. Maybe you’ve made peace with however things are. Maybe you, you know, convinced yourself that you know they just don’t care about me, so why should I care about them?

Tina Gosney  16:40

So you go quiet, but underneath you’re really hurt, and there’s a lot of grief. There’s a version of you that wishes things were different, even when you stop saying that, and even admitting it to yourself. Sometimes this comes after a long stretch of other patterns, maybe you overhelped, you overstepped, you didn’t acknowledge things that you had done, maybe these things didn’t land well, and they tried to tell you, and you didn’t acknowledge that, maybe you leaned on the relationship for your own sense of okayness, and it just got too heavy for your adult child to sustain, and at some point you’re so exhausted you just stop.

Tina Gosney  17:22

This is not actually a strategy. You don’t actually plan to do this, usually. You just ran out of steam to keep going and to keep reaching. I think of this one like, you know, a castle that has a drawbridge. At some point, the relationship gets too painful, too many disappointments, too many conversations that don’t go well, too much hurt inside of you that goes unaddressed and unprocessed.

Tina Gosney  17:48

So that drawbridge goes up, and here’s what’s true about the drawbridge going up: nothing else can get in. You can’t have any more disappointment, you don’t get any more hurt feelings, you’re not waiting by the phone anymore. It feels a lot safer in there. It’s quieter. You are more protected. And here’s what else is true: you’re alone. The drawbridge doesn’t just keep out the pain, it keeps out everything, including the chance for things to be different. This feels a lot like protection, but it blocks us from connection. So, let’s bring all of these things together today that I’ve discussed, the over helping emotional dependence and shutting down. These are three very different behaviors.

Tina Gosney  18:35

One looks like I’m giving too much, one looks like I’m needing too much, and one looks like I’m just giving up entirely, but underneath all three of those patterns have they all have the same root, and that is that the discomfort in a relationship is not being handled in a grounded way, so there’s discomfort with their choices, so you try to control the outcome, there’s discomfort with the distance, so your emotional state attaches to their behavior, and you try to close the distance. There’s discomfort with your own disappointment, so you protect yourself by pulling away. These are different costumes with the same character underneath.

Tina Gosney  19:16

If you recognize yourself in one of these, more than the other, that is really useful information for you. This is not a label, we don’t want to put labels or diagnosis on this. This is just a starting point. Most of us have default patterns. These are the patterns that we reach for first when things feel really uncertain. You know, what we usually have a secondary pattern to the pattern that we slide into when it feels like the first one doesn’t work, but the truth is that most parents don’t want to hear, but need to hear is that you cannot control your adult child, you cannot force connection, you cannot eliminate discomfort, your own discomfort or their discomfort.

Tina Gosney  20:00

And I know that might not feel like very good news, but here’s what is the good news. You can learn how to stay steady and grounded inside the discomfort. You’re not steady because nothing is happening. You’re steady in the middle of what’s happening. You’re steady when they don’t respond right away. You’re steady when they make choices you wouldn’t make. You’re steady when a visit fills off, and you don’t know why.

Tina Gosney  20:27

And here’s why that matters so much. Relationships don’t change when the other person changes; they change when you change how you show up. That’s not you giving up your influence; it’s actually the opposite. It’s where real influence lives, because the only person whose response you can actually shape from moment to moment is your own. That is what all the research for decades has told us. If you, the parent, can remain steady in their relationship, you are more likely to be seen as a person that they can connect with, when you get emotionally reactive in the ways that I’ve described in this podcast, and in the last podcast, you will be seen as a parent that is not safe to be around. I know that’s hard to hear, but this is what the research tells us, and this is what’s true.

Tina Gosney  21:18

How do we actually do this? How do you stay steady in a moment that feels anything but steady, and you’re so uncomfortable? This is the moment I want to introduce you to something that I use with my clients, and I use this in my own life, and it’s just a really helpful framework, and it’s called stay. I’m not going to walk you through the whole thing today, but I do want to just give you a little bit of it, a little taste, because I think even just the first two pieces can help you to start making some changes. The first step is to slow down.

Tina Gosney  21:50

S stands for slow down, so before you respond, before you send a text, before you say the thing that you want to say, slow down, take a breath, take a moment, go for a short walk, even you know, five seconds can be enough for you to move from reactivity to choosing on purpose.

Tina Gosney  22:11

Step two, the T in stay is turn to curiosity, instead of jumping straight to explaining yourself, you know, over explaining your intentions or trying to fix the situation or defending yourself, you get curious what’s going on for them, and honestly, what’s going on for you too. You know, you could say something like, “Help me to understand, tell me more. Even just asking yourself, “Hey, what’s actually happening here right now for both of us? That’s really helpful, so slow down, get curious.

Tina Gosney  22:44

Those two steps alone practice consistently can change the entire tone of a relationship, and those are the first two steps in the stay framework. Let’s go back to the job change story from the very beginning of this episode. Imagine the same parent hearing the news that their child was thinking about switching jobs, feeling that familiar pull to want to research things and give them advice, and to send them a text. Slowing down might look like waiting until the next day to respond at all, just sitting with the urge to, instead of acting on it immediately, turning to curiosity might look like when you actually do respond, saying something like, you know, that’s a big deal to think about. How are you feeling about that? Instead of, here’s what you should think about that same love, same care, completely different landing, and it sends a completely different message to them.

Tina Gosney  23:40

There’s more to this day framework than this. There’s a piece about, you know, acknowledging what you hear and about speaking your own truth without blaming them. But if that’s something that you want to go deeper on, this is what I work with parents in, in my program, Bridge to Connection. But for today, even just slowing down and getting curious is enough for you to start, here’s what I want you to try this week. The next time you feel that pull towards trying to fix something, trying to avoid something, to overthinking, to even to shutting down, just pause and ask yourself, What am I feeling right now, and how do I want to show up.

Tina Gosney  24:23

You don’t need to react, you just need to show up. So that’s a big difference. Reacting is automatic, and we don’t need to give in to our reactions. We want to pause and respond instead. Reacting looks like the text that you send before you’ve really thought it through, the silence that goes on a day too long, and the advice out of your mouth before you even notice that you’re giving it. Showing up is a choice. It might look similar on the outside, but you still send a text, but you stay quiet for a moment and offer a different thought.

Tina Gosney  24:54

Maybe it comes from a different intention, a steadier place. If over helping is your path. Pattern showing up might mean asking before offering. Would it be helpful if I shared a few thoughts with you, or would you rather just talk this through? If emotional dependence is your pattern, showing up might mean noticing the spiral starting, like I wonder what I did wrong, you know, having that thought go through your head, and then just gently reminding yourself that maybe they’re tired, or maybe they have something else going on in their life that has nothing to do with me.

Tina Gosney  25:28

If shutting down is your pattern, showing up might mean one small low stake reach, not a big conversation, maybe just a short text, like “Hey, thinking of you today. Nothing that requires a response, just, you know, leaving a crack open in the door. If you have been waiting for your child to change, so that the relationship can get feel better to you. I want to gently say, you know, this is what’s keeping you stuck. This is not because you caused this, and I want to be super clear about that, you didn’t cause this.

Tina Gosney  26:02

This is not about blaming you or them, but you are the one that can shift the pattern, and when you do, when you slow down, when you get curious, when you learn to stay steady, you create the kind of relationship that feels calm and honest and connected, even if nothing on the outside changes right away. That’s the work, and it starts with you, and there’s something I want you to remember from both this episode and the last episode.

Tina Gosney  26:26

Last time it was the quiet conflict, and this one is the conflict that looks like love. They’re not two different problems, they’re two versions of the same thing, discomfort that has not found a grounded way to be handled yet, but the good news is the same shift addresses both. Slow down, get curious, stay steady, showing up as yourself on purpose, regardless of how the moment unfolds or what’s happening. That is the thread that runs through all of this.

Tina Gosney  26:58

Thank you for being here with me for this two-part series. If any of this today has stirred up something in you, and you have felt maybe yourself in some of what I have talked about, that is actually a good sign. It means that you’re paying attention, and that is the first step. I’m Tina Gosney. This is Coaching Your Family Relationships. What I want you to take away from this series is that you can begin to change the relationship, but it starts inside of you, not waiting for them to make a change.

Tina Gosney  27:28

If this is something that you want help with, visit tinagosney.com for more resources.