Dear Annie: We have a 52-year-old married son. He and his wife didn't acknowledge our 55th wedding anniversary. When I asked him why, he said, “What's the big deal?" I know if it were his wife's parents, it would have been a big deal.

We live in the same town, and through the years, they only call if they want something. They have never once asked us how we are or if we need anything. My daughter-in-law's parents always come first. They go to her folks' for every occasion. I gave up on holiday meals long ago.

This bothers us to no end. I’ve talked to my doctor because my blood pressure has been very high lately. We also spoke to our pastor. Both said we should write a letter expressing our feelings. Is this the right thing to do? —No Respect

Dear No Respect: If you can write the letter without complaining or making accusations, it can be a good way to re-establish communication.

The letter should state that you love your son and his family, and you miss them. If you want to add general family news, by all means include it, but don’t turn it in to a diatribe about how unfair or neglectful they are. Keep it simple and see how it goes. —Annie

Gabby's Reply

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Hi No Respect: Such a great letter. Many parents have created similar situations. I’m so pleased you wrote.

What you’re looking at is part of the parenting masters curriculum. It begins with a willingness to acknowledge that your leadership-communication skills, how you’ve been communicating with your son, have trained him to withhold acknowledgments; specifically, he's verbally withholding certain extremely uncomfortable, possibly embarrassing thoughts. Consequently he's unconscious about the acknowledgment process and things for which you'd like to be acknowledged. 

You have yet to learn how to create a safe space for the truth to be told so he has had no choice but to dramatize his disrespect of you. You are stuck doing your imitation of communication with him; you’re not getting his communication so he has to keep repeating himself (non-verbally).

In other words, he is acknowledging you, he’s just doing it irresponsibly and non-verbally. He’s communicating so many things to you that it’s virtually impossible to identify any single incomplete, any single childhood issue, having to do with upsets and thoughts of resentment and disrespect (we’re talking hundreds of withholds between the two of you). Guess who taught him to communicate this way? And no, it ain’t “we.” In this matter you are the leader.

Re: "My son is ignoring me." This is a blame statement. Stated responsibly it would read, [I've caused my son to ignore me] or, [I need support in identifying what I've done to cause my son to ignore me]. This alone could be the cause for him not wanting to be in verbal communication with you. It's extremely unsettling and unhealthy to engage in conversations with someone addicted to blaming.

You could begin by asking yourself, “What did I do to drive my son out of my life?” but I don’t think your mind will allow you to get to the truth. There’s too much blame going on; notice that you're covertly blaming him for your high blood pressure (read Communications in Support of Health).

Your consideration about writing him is intuitively correct; if you continue to use your present communication model to express your "feelings" you would only produce more of the same.

The best way to get to the truth of your cause in this matter is for you (alone) to enroll in a minimum of 25 sessions of counseling, keeping to the front of your mind during each session—What must I have done? What has the genius in me been up to that I would intend (albeit it unconsciously) this condition? Who in my life would say that I am treating them the same way my son treats me? And the biggie—Who else am I blaming for the effects of my leadership-communication skills?—all the while focusing on completing your relationship with your parents. Keep in mind that the first ten times you ask yourself for the truth your mind will hide it from you. It (your mind) has hidden it, the incident, the fork in the road, even from itself.

An alternative to counseling/therapy is to schedule a single 3-hr consultation with a communication-skills coach; a coach is skilled at getting to the truth, typically, one session is all that's required.  

I do advise a specific letter to your son (see sample below). Your daughter-in-law is an entirely different subject matter—notice that she supports him in treating you abusively—she'll require that you complete an even more advanced course—leadership-communication skills. Once you’ve begun the parenting masters curriculum (it's about creating a new mutually satisfying communication model) your son will begin to emulate you, not through interacting with him but via emanations—psychically transmitted waves of love and support—minus your present irritating waves of make-wrong and blame.  Your newly acquired skills will eventually get passed on to his wife by his example. Please do not misunderstand me. I don’t recommend that you try to change your son. He has had no choice but to behave this way; he is merely mirroring you. The minute you open your mouth it triggers a Pavlovian-like response. Once you shift your ground of being, from blame to cause, he’ll have nothing to resist.

To have the kind of relationship you say you'd like with your son you’ll have to be willing to let go of him and start all over again. You'll be attempting to reprogram your computer (your mind); the parenting mastery curriculum is much like getting a degree in medicine or law (but starting now at your present age) and, it could take ten or more years for you to get your degree (to be able to create and sustain a mutually satisfying supportive relationship with him). It could be said that you’re back a few moments before his conception; this time, now that you’re conscious, you’ll choose to not have him, knowing full well that you’re not ready to raise a child who honors and respects his parents. Now is the time to study and get ready for parenthood. Your golden years could be awesome (read Grandparenting—a primer).

His treatment of you (the karma of his behavior) is having undesirable consequences for him and his relationships.* He’s stuck treating others the same way. He’s waiting for you to learn so that you can teach him how to acknowledge others in a way that feels good.

BTW: It's not your fault. Public school teachers are not taught acknowledgment as a communication variable; they have yet to master, and therefore can't teach, the subject of acknowledgment. Their students (the voting public) continually acknowledge dissatisfactions with their educations by keeping teachers pathetically begging for pay raises and school supplies. Nary a teamster, many of whom are former “C” students, drawing thrice the wages of their mentors (teachers), think to campaign in support of wage parity for teachers (as an acknowledgment).

Here's a sample letter:

Dear son, I’ve decided to take a recess from our relationship. Something about the way I have been communicating and relating with you hasn’t been working for me. I continually find myself blaming you—a definite no-no in the parenting game. Please honor my wishes to not call, write, leave messages, or send gifts, until you hear from me again. I’m immersing myself in counseling/coaching to get to the source of what’s going on for me. I’ll contact you again in about six months to let you know if I am clear enough to once again engage in conversations with you and your wife. Also, if you’d like, I’ll pay 50% of any counseling sessions you might want for yourself; have the therapist send me the invoice. Experience tells me that nothing you could say or write at this time would feel good to me. Once again, please respect my wishes. 

—send via return receipt requested.

Part of what such a letter will model for him is to not engage in repeated conversations with anyone addicted to abuse. He is blind to the fact that he is abusing you and that it's an addiction. Conversely, you are addicted to creating abuse; you are a drama victim. I assure you the same stuff is going on in his marriage. Without your positive support it will be more of a challenge for him to be whole and complete. Notice, to his credit, he does understand that one way to maintain a semblance of completeness is to interact with you as little as possible.

It's important to know that such a letter might trigger his guilt and like an alcoholic who has been threatened with divorce he will promise anything and even be more acknowledging for a few days or weeks; however, his addiction to abusing and being abused will eventually take over again and he'll start [drinking] again.

Here's another letter that may be of value.

You letter suggests that it’s time for you to reap the benefits that come from a life of service, of motherhood, all that you know to be possible and that you deserve. —With aloha, Gabby

* If you and your husband are, say, alcoholics, habitual complainers, considered by others to be mentally unstable, into something illegal, or are committed to racism or drugs, or even condescendingly religious, then your son is acting consistent with his integrity by choosing to not interact with you. It would be suicidal of him to choose to interact with you knowing that it would bring him down. It would be unethical and hypocritical of him to hang around you (judging you non-verbally) if he can't support your beliefs or the way you behave. He would need your specifically requested permission to support you in changing. However, the way he has estranged himself is abusive which is out-integrity for him; it has undesirable consequences for him and those with whom he relates. There is a way to estrange oneself from another responsibly, Ask Gabby how.

P.S. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that most parents are so addicted to being right and to making others wrong, that they will go to their grave without having cleaned up their relationships. Typically, the mind will kill itself (most always in a socially/medically acceptable manner) with an unconscious intention of making the survivors feel guilty.

P.P.S. Check back occasionally for minor edits (last edited 10/26/11).

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