Advice for the Journey

by Evan Kimble

Liv Fun: Vol 2 – Issue 3

Question: Our son married a crazy, needy woman with no boundaries and no recognition that other people have needs too. They live out of state, but visit us from time to time, usually without much advance notice. We moved from our house to a retirement condo, so we don’t even have a decent space in which to put them up, but they won‘t consider sleeping in a hotel. No matter how hard we try, something sets her off every time, and then we get to overhear her tearfully complaining to our son about how awful we are, how we don’t accept her, etc. My husband thinks the best thing is just to let them visit when they visit and get it over with — to avoid additional conflict. I want him to set a boundary with them about visits. He and I end up fighting every time we try to talk about it. How do I deal with this?

Answer: It sounds like you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so you don’t have much to lose from attempting to set healthy boundaries. I encourage you to deliver a carefully crafted message describing your fundamental needs. Make sure you present it as a unified front: “This is what we need.” Put it in writing, and deliver it to your son. Give him time to digest it and share it with his wife. See if you can collaborate with him so that ultimately everyone’s needs (hers included) get considered, and everyone can accept some predictable structure around visits. You never know, sometimes people feel safer with structured boundaries. Or, if the rules infuriate her, maybe she won’t want to visit at all for a while — that’s a “win” of sorts, right?

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Liv Fun

by Leisure Care
Autumn 2013
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