Joshua Coleman > Quotes

“Rule: “My adult child should be able to balance out whatever mistakes I have made with all of the good that I have done as a parent.” Counter: “While I wish that my child could see all of the ways that I have been dedicated, I”
― Joshua Coleman, When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along

“Carl Jung wrote that nothing affects children more than the unlived lives of their parents.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Ten New Rules for Parent–Adult Child Relations RULE #1: Your adult child has more power than you to set the terms of your relationship because they’re more willing to walk away. Basic game theory: she who cares less has more power. RULE # 2: Your relationship with your adult child needs to occur in an environment of creating happiness and personal growth, not an environment of obligation, emotional debt, or duty. RULE # 3: You are not the only authority on how well you performed as a parent. Your adult child gets to have their own narrative and opinions about the past. RULE #4: Use of guilt trips or criticism will never get you what you want from your adult child, especially if you’re estranged. RULE #5: Learning to communicate in a way that is egalitarian, psychological, and self-aware is essential to a good relationship with your adult child. RULE #6: You were the parent when you were raising your child and you’re the parent until they die. You brought your child into this world. That means that if your child is unable to take the high road, you still have to if reconciliation is your goal. RULE #7: A large financial and emotional investment in your child does not entitle you to more contact or affection than that which is wanted by them, however unjust that may seem. RULE #8: Criticizing your child’s spouse, romantic partner, or therapist greatly increases your risk of estrangement. RULE #9: Criticizing your child’s sexuality or gender identity greatly increases your risk of estrangement. RULE #10: Just because you had a bad childhood and did a better job than your parents doesn’t mean that your adult child has to accept all of the ways that they felt hurt by you.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. Aeschylus”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“maintain that one of the reasons some adult children estrange themselves, or claim to have narcissistic parents, is that they experience their parents’ demand for intimacy as more than they can fulfill, and in some cases, more than they should be asked to bear.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Not everything happens for a reason. You didn’t get estranged because you were supposed to be taught some purposeful lesson in order to become stronger, wiser, whatever. God didn’t deliver this nightmare to teach you how to become better at suffering. You were probably pretty good at it before you became estranged. You became estranged because bad things happen to good people. And even if you made monstrously terrible decisions with your children, nothing makes you deserving of a life without them in it. If your kids are unable to see you as worthy of love, acceptance, and forgiveness, then you have to find redemption in that small crack in the continuum of catastrophe, as Walter Benjamin put it. And guard it with your life.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Unfortunately, some men are a little hard-of-hearing. This is why about a quarter of them are completely surprised when their wives file for divorce.9 If you’re talking to your husband about your feelings, you may have to make it very, very plain how unhappy you are with the current arrangement.”
― Joshua Coleman, The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework

“Avoid what marital researcher John Gottman refers to as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling, and contempt. Studies show that no marriage can survive a steady diet of those emotions.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Men are overly sensitive to being told what to do. If they are persuaded to understand that they’re making you happy by doing more, they’ll be a lot more interested than if they’re doing it because they’re being told.”
― Joshua Coleman, The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework

“The path out of hell is through misery,” writes University of Washington psychologist and researcher Marsha Linehan, the founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. “By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell.” The path out of hell is through misery. Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean? It means that you have to start by “radically accepting” where you are right now. Radical acceptance means that you don’t fight what you’re feeling in this moment.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“However, it is also true that sometimes people are transformed by their marriages in negative and hostile ways. I think this occurs as an attempt to resolve what Leon Festinger in 1957 referred to as cognitive dissonance. Festinger writes that we’re all powerfully driven to experience ourselves as consistent in our thought processes. As a result, if we become aware of an inconsistency in our beliefs, we’ll change one or more of the beliefs to make them more internally consistent. How might the theory of cognitive dissonance explain why Sam changed from being a kind and considerate family member to being critical and angry? Here’s how the shift in personality might work: Belief: My parents and sisters are good people who deserve my love and respect. Belief: Maria hates my family and thinks they brainwashed me into thinking that they were good to me when they really weren’t. Since Sam loves both his family and Maria, he’s in a quandary. If he remains committed to Maria, he’ll produce endless fights by disagreeing with her or pushing her into being more involved with his family; she has already said that she doesn’t like them and doesn’t feel comfortable being in their presence. He will also feel guilt toward Maria if he remains in contact with them, as she’s made it clear that he needs to choose her over him and being close to them is therefore a betrayal of her. Since Sam has to come home to Maria each night, his path of least cognitive dissonance is to accept her version of his parents as the correct one.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Since my child is choosing not to spend time with me, it is healthy for me to think about how I want to spend my time without him or her in my life. Putting my child out of my mind is useful for my happiness and serenity. When I punish myself for the past, I perpetuate the myth that I deserve to suffer. I have suffered enough and as of today I choose to feel good about myself as a parent and as a person.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“If you are to gain power in your household, you need to come face-to-face with the ways in which you may subtly or overtly idealize men or their power. You need to gain the comfort to face a man down and to strongly assert your wishes and needs for change. As Mahony writes, “Is there any way to expunge the glittery aura of male status? Only by changing one's feelings. Women who can’t will scurry like a scullery maid or live with guilt.”
― Joshua Coleman, The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework

“Handling Abusive or Disrespectful Behavior Decide what you want to say before the interaction. What are your goals? Are there particular points that you want to make sure you make? Write out the two or three most important things you want to say. If you’re particularly nervous, practice saying them out loud. Have an exit plan. How will you get off the phone or away from the interaction if it starts to head south? Consider prefacing the conversation with some ground rules if prior interactions have gone poorly. Say something like “I know these conversations haven’t gone very well when we’ve had them in the past, so let’s both make a good effort to keep it calm and reasonable, okay? Maybe you should tell me what you’d like to get out of the conversation and I’ll tell you what I’d like to get. How does that sound?” Express good intentions. “I really do want to understand what you’re saying. I would like to have a closer relationship with you.” Or “I’m sure these interactions haven’t felt very good to you in the past, either.” Start by expressing a belief in the child’s good intentions even if you don’t like how he or she is saying it. “I think that you’re telling me something that you really want me to understand. Something that you think is very important.” Describe your perception of your child’s dilemma that is causing them to talk to you in a disrespectful manner. “You must feel like I’m not going to understand unless you beat me over the head with it.” Describe your dilemma. “While I want to understand what you’re saying, it’s hard to focus on it when you’re yelling at me or calling me names. I’m sure you can understand that.” Ask for different behavior. “Do you think you could try to tell that to me in a calmer way so I can focus on what you’re telling me? It’s actually hard for me to hear what you want me to hear when you talk to me like that.” Give an example of appropriate behavior. “You can tell me you’re furious with me or even tell me that you hate my guts if you like, but you can’t scream at me and you can’t call me names.” Stay calm. Take deep breaths. Count to ten. Set limits. “If you can’t talk to me in a more respectful tone, I’m getting off the phone.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“If your child actually dies, everyone will feel sorry for you. If your child stops talking to you, everyone will judge you. At least that’s what it feels like.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“In other words, if I say that you abused, neglected, bullied, or traumatized me, then you did. As Haslam writes, evaluations about whether emotional abuse, trauma, or neglect occurred are today based on the child’s perception of that behavior, even if that behavior would look benign to an outside observer or exist independently of the parent’s intentions or emotions. It’s what I feel that matters.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Social expectations about what men and women do play out in the housework realm. For example, a single man who lives alone and is a slob is commonplace. Anna Quindlen's statement that most men live like “bears with furniture”24 is an affectionate testimony to this. People aren’t surprised when single men are slobs, yet few blame a messy house on a husband once men get married. A woman who lives alone and keeps her apartment like a pigsty is more likely to be viewed in a critical way by both men and women. In fact, women do even more housework when they marry and men do even less.”
― Joshua Coleman, The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework

“Studies show that the most effective parents are authoritative.110 Authoritative parents are defined as being affectionate and loving with their children, but strong in their ability to set limits and make demands. Authoritative parents are contrasted with authoritarians, who are highly controlling and show little affection or tenderness toward their children. They’re also contrasted with permissive parents, who are loving and affectionate but unable to set appropriate limits. Both authoritarian and permissive parents are less likely to raise well-adjusted children than authoritatives.”
― Joshua Coleman, The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework

“Right now, you’re reading this because you’re desperate, you’re angry, you’re guilt-ridden, worried, ashamed, scared, and scarred. These are powerful messages from your mind: There’s something here you should be attending to and not judging.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“The dynamic, however necessary, may have misshaped her subjective world in the same way that a miracle drug may leave someone with lifelong vulnerabilities.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“But even here”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“feeling like that anymore. It sucks. I’m through with him treating me like that person. I feel a lot less stressed since I’ve cut off contact with him.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“adult children with reasonable complaints who end contact because the relationship felt too hurtful and disruptive.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“just don’t know what to do at this point. I haven’t talked to her now for a year and I really don’t want to talk to her. It makes me feel like a terrible person—but I’m just much happier without her in my life. Does that make me a bad person?”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“It’s more like this: you’re saying that you didn’t know when you were raising him that you hurt him. And now you do. Now you wish you’d communicated differently. You don’t have to say that you’re a bad person or a bad father. Just that your behavior had an effect on him that wasn’t your desire.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“know only this: that when my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she’d been”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Am I really a good father if I’m raising two of my kids and scarcely raising the other? And even though the arrangement was decided in court”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“It’s also helpful to get into the granularity of your emotions. Is it just sadness? Or is it actually despair, grief, misery, agony, rejection, insecurity, sorrow, or defeat? Is it just anger? Or is it actually resentment, rage, irritation, jealousy, annoyance, or bitterness? Why should you get more specific? Psychology professor, and author of How Emotions Are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett found that higher emotional granularity was associated with lowered needs for medication, fewer hospitalization days for illnesses, and greater flexibility regulating emotions. Getting into the specifics of what you’re feeling helps you hear the message one part of your mind is trying to deliver to another part. It can guide you to determine the course of action in response to that emotion. It can help you to feel less ruled or controlled by your feelings because you’ll know more specifically what you’re feeling.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“Is the best advice we can offer an adult child “Just walk away and protect yourself? Focus on your own needs—your spouse”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

“There’s a saying that depression is anger turned inward. I think depression is more complex than that, but there is a pearl of wisdom there for estranged parents.”
― Joshua Coleman, Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict