Dr. Lindsay Gibson

You're right.

You could do that.

Or you could say to yourself, wait a

you know, by fiat, she's not the most important person in the relationship.

I can decide how much time I want to spend with her.

And in addition, that will probably make me enjoy the time I do spend with her much more than feeling obligated to come a certain number of times or for certain events.

So it's really important to sort of shake off that spell that emotionally immature people can cast on their children to make them feel guilty or ashamed or self-doubting because that's really an attempt to control the child

And for the parent to dominate them in order to meet their emotional needs, which is to be the most important person and have everybody interested in keeping you stable and reinforcing your self-esteem.

That is what the emotionally immature person does.

thinks that they need.

So for this person, for her to step back and just ask herself, how many times or under what conditions and for how long could I visit mom?

And come away feeling like I had fulfilled some kind of value for myself, you know, that I did something I feel good about as a daughter.

But I'm not feeling exhausted and I'm not feeling bitterly resentful because I'm having to upturn my life to meet this schedule that she's imposing on the relationship.

Yeah, and because you have some control, you have a sense of control over it, that you have made the choice to spend the time with them.

And that is so important, because how can you feel love for anybody who's controlling you or guilting you?

And, you know, we forget they're grownups too.

And so to have someone say no to you or to say, you know, I'm sorry, that's not going to work for me, but I could do this.

Would you want to do that instead?

We forget that that is the way that it has to be.

I mean, if you're going to continue a workable relationship, once you become an adult and on your own, it becomes a relationship between two adults.