Your Child's Partner Is The Worst? Stop Scrolling.

If you hate your adult child's significant other, then this video is for you. And I don't mean just dislike. I mean everything feels tense when they enter the room. Your stomach drops, teeth clench. You're trying to figure out what not to say, how to avoid them, how to get around conversations, how to not talk to them. So if that's you, stay with me because this situation is really hard to deal with. Because on one hand, you love your child, you do anything for them, and you want to protect them from danger. But on the other hand, you know that if you point things out, you're going to distance yourself from your adult child, and you don't want that either. So you have all these mixed emotions of anger, disappointment, resentment, and just, you know, feeling like a failure as a parent because maybe I did something wrong and that's why they're ending up with this person. And you don't want to blow up your relationship with them. You love them and you want to keep that relationship solid. So let's talk about what actually helps. Okay, number one, the first thing that you need to do is you need to do some internal work. I'll be real with you, you have a lot of emotions that aren't being expressed. And I think that the best way to deal with these emotions is to journal about them. And I want you to journal until your hand hurts, until you've expressed all your emotion, all your rage, your your disappointment, how condescending the significant other is, or everything you hate about them. Keep on journaling because you have to process those emotions. Because if not, they're just going to keep coming up and coming up and they're rattling around in your brain and that's not helping anyone. So the first step is to make sure that you journal everything out. And that could be one session of 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or it could be over several days as more and more things come up. But every time you think about the anger, the disappointment, the resentment, all of those things, journal and get that out of you. That's the first and most important part of this process. And the more specific you can be in your emotions, The more descriptive you can be. And you feel anger and you feel disappointment and you feel shame and you feel guilt. Make sure to write out all these emotions in your journaling. The second shift, and this is really, really important. You've got to change the story in your head because I promise you, you are probably catastrophizing. You're saying, well, if I let this go on, they'll end up divorced or they'll end up in debt or they'll end up here or there. And that's a really hard thing to stop, but it's really important that you do. And you have to acknowledge to yourself that, hey, this is their path. For whatever reason, this is the path that they're meant to be on. This is their learning curve. This is what they need to do. They need to do this to learn more about themselves. This is a very important learning curve for them. It's also important to remember that your role has shifted. You can't give advice because if you give advice, that's going to lead to judgment. They're going to feel judged and criticized and shamed when you do that. So again, you cannot do that, but here's what you can do. You have to say to yourself, This isn't who I would have chosen for them, but it is their choice. And I have to figure out how to love them through it. Because my role shifted and I'm not managing outcomes anymore. I'm just providing stability. And that shift alone can calm you more than you expect. Here's the third and final step of the process. You need to set boundaries without ultimatum. Boundaries are not about control. They're about self-respect. What you need to figure out is what you will and will not tolerate and make a list of those. So if something you won't tolerate is their disrespect or their controlling behavior or bailing them out financially, be clear on that. And if you decide to speak up, do it one time. And here's exactly what you say: It seems like you're really happy with them, and I wouldn't be your parent if I didn't have some concerns. How can we make sure that you're taking care of yourself? Say that once, calm and measured. You're not trying to convince them. You planted the seed. So what do you do when the consequences actually come up? You have to not rescue them. So the phrases that I want you to remember are 3: "It sounds like," "It seems like," "It looks like." So when something comes up, you can say, "It sounds like that's a really tough situation to deal with. How are you handling that?" or what's your plan? See, what you do is you label what's going on first with it sounds like, it seems like, it looks like— one of those phrases. And then what you do is you ask an open-ended question with what or how. By doing this, you are not giving advice. Those questions will What and how questions promote ownership. They're the only ones who can solve this problem. You let them know before that you had some concerns. You planted that seed, and now here comes the consequences. So use those phrases— it sounds like, it seems like, it looks like— and then follow up with a what or how question, and then let them talk. The only person that they're going to take advice from is themselves, and they have to come up with that. So what did we learn? We learned that you have to process your emotions, you have to respect their autonomy, and you have to let them figure this out for themselves. And you're showing them that even when all this craziness happens You're still there. You're still steady. You're still consistent, and you are not giving advice. So I'm curious, did this resonate for you? Was this helpful? Let me know in the comments, and I'll see you in the next video.