101 Family feud causing strain at school where both mom and son work / How do I mend relationship with son?

Dear Annie: For the past year, our son and his wife of three years have chosen not to be part of our family. We all made mistakes, but anything we do now is interpreted as evil. He refuses to talk things over. He blocks a1l calls and e-mails and sends back gifts I mail to their children. I haven't seen my grandchildren in over a year.

My son teaches at the school where I substitute and won't have any communication with me. He sees me and turns in the other direction. He won't eat lunch if he knows I am in the cafeteria. I try not to cause problems for him but it truly hurts for him to ignore me the way he does.

Should I quit subbing at this school? I've taught here for 13 years and enjoy seeing the kids, and some of my friends still teach here. It is obviously causing a lot of strain. - Stressed Mom

Dear Mom: We don't know what happened to cause such an estrangement, but it's possible the breach can be patched up if someone will act as an intermediary. If your school has a counselor, make an appointment to discuss this and also ask the counselor to talk to your son and find out what you need to do to make things better. The counselor may be willing to get involved for the sake of the school. Two teachers who cannot get along create tension for everyone, including the students.—Annie

Gabby’s Reply

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Gabby's Reply:

Hi Mom: Congratulations! You have taught your son well. He has chosen a most difficult and commendable path. Most therapists advise, “if you want an abuse-free life then remove yourself from relationships that trigger abuse, especially your parents.” Now would be a good time to accept credit for teaching him how to extract himself from relationships that don’t work. Given your unconscious addiction to blame and make-wrong his only responsible choice is to not interact with you so as to not create even more abuse.

Re: “I try not to cause problems for him.” This is a lie. When on a date and the other says “no” and one persists, it’s called date rape. You refuse to honor his nonverbal communication, “No communication.” You emotionally and psychically stalk him continually making his life even more miserable. Worse yet, you attempt to make him feel guilty because you drove him out of your life.

Notice that your letter does not mention what you did to drive him out of your life. Instead your write “our son and his wife of three years have chosen not to be part of our family.” This is what’s referred to as covert blame. It’s further evidenced by your repeated use of the word “we” instead of I, and your blame statement, “He refuses to talk things over.” A responsible person would have written, “I’ve lost my ability to communicate with my son. I’ve driven him out of my life. I even find myself blaming him for not wanting to interact with me.”

You ask, “Should I quit subbing at this school?” You already know the answer. It doesn’t matter whether or not you were there first, in your universe you’re the one who messed up your relationship with him.

If you keep interacting with children you will teach them (nonverbally-psychically of course), as you have your son, how to ruin a relationship and blame it on the other. Your vibes are not healthy for impressionable children, without anyone knowing it you sap their very energy. Your pleasant-act only masks the hurt and anger that you drag around daily.

BTW: He’s smart to keep you away from his children because you’d only impart your adversarial way of communicating, you’d accidentally teach them to create friction. One visit from a grandparent addicted to abuse imprints a child for life. Think of it as the psychic vibrations directed towards an impressionable child made by a visiting leering pedophile. The child doesn’t know what happened they just aren’t the same thereafter.

One thing you have yet to learn therefore you couldn’t teach him is that there is a responsible way to recess oneself from an abusive relationship. Dumping you abusively, as he has, ultimately won’t work for him. He’s dragging anger and blame into interactions with everyone throughout the day. Your very presence, without opening your mouth, triggers him to behave the way he does. You can of course facilitate his transformation by healing yourself. Once you get off of your position, the one that causes him to resist you, then he’ll begin to see his responsibility in the matter. My guess is that once you completely back off, to the extent that he doesn’t get his daily fix of resentment-generated adrenaline, he’ll have no one to fight/resist. Then he’ll start dramatizing his unresolved anger with his wife.

Now here’s the cool part. You have an opportunity to begin the advanced communication mastery curriculum for parents. Seek out a communication skills coach and ask for coaching; if you are willing to let go of your relationship with your son you can begin to learn how to create space for satisfying communications with him. You have to begin from the point of view that unbeknownst to you the genius in you has created this situation for an as yet unknown purpose. You will learn from a coach how to complete your relationship with your son, and your son will learn (via osmosis and example) from you.

A very good beginning is to ask yourself, who in your life would say that you’re treating them as your son is you? As you’ve noticed, it has hurt them. With aloha, Gabby

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