New Life LIVE

New Life: Welcome to the New Life Live podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

Brian Perez: We are so glad you are watching and listening to New Life Live. I'm Brian, in case we haven't met. On this show, we take calls and answer emails from people like you who are hurting and just need healing. Joining me in the studio are clinical psychologist Dr. Alice Benton and licensed marriage and family therapist Mark Cameron. So good to be on with you two again.

Dr. Alice Benton: Likewise.

Mark Cameron: Thank you.

Dr. Alice Benton: Recently at the end of a beautiful family party day, I told my family, "Everybody, please stop talking to me. I can't solve any more problems, and I can't comfort anyone else." Then I hid behind my book.

This happened because we all have limited resources: limited time, energy, ability to comfort, and ability to listen. My tank had emptied out that day. It was full of problem-solving for my kids and some gifts that they'd received, helping them learn how to use them. It's taken me a long time to learn how to monitor my limited resources, warn my family I'm coming to the end, and then learn how to refill my tank.

This has so much to do with the struggle of anxiety, depression, and relational discord as well because many of us don't learn how to monitor, warn, and then refill. Growing up, I believed that good Christian women acquiesced to pretty much any request that they were given. The right answer is, "Yes, I'd be glad to do whatever you're asking of me."

That can get a good Christian woman into a whole lot of trouble. It especially gets us spread too thin, worn out, angry, resentful, and then complying but with bitterness. I learned from the Boundaries book from Henry Cloud and John Townsend that it's actually okay, good, and necessary to admit when we're running low, back away, and refill our tank.

Jesus modeled this for us when he would leave the crowds, the multitudes, go off on his own and reconnect with his Father and refill his tank. My question for all of you is: how do you go about warning your family when you're getting low, and then how do you refill?

Part of my problem on this day I was talking about was that I had warned my family several times. I'm thinking I'm running out of energy, I need a little bit of quiet, but I didn't leave them. I didn't back away from them. I wanted to be present. I wanted to be a fun, lively mom until the very end of the day. It probably would have served us all better if I had stepped away, gone off by myself. My warning wouldn't have had such an edge to it and suddenly I was behind my book.

So, how do you warn your family? How do you monitor your own limited resources, and then how do you refill? For me, refilling involves getting quiet, taking a walk by myself, prayer, usually reading a novel that ends well, and taking a nap. When I'm able to do all these things, I better steward my limited resources. I love better.

Mark Cameron: I think this is really good advice, Alice. We all have limitations. Even Jesus had his limitations in his human body. The scripture talks about Jesus having to retreat to a quiet place, and that was likely because Jesus was an introvert. He ran out of energy, and he knew that he needed to retreat.

There were times, too, that the disciples didn't know where he was. He was gone because he knew when he needed to take that time and take that space and recover. When we can learn how to do that well, like you're saying here, that can often prevent explosions or disruptions that happen. It's emotionally intelligent for us to be able to do that and have our limitations and boundaries.

Brian Perez: I think the key is just to do it in a way that doesn't seem rude to other people where you just warn them ahead of time. I like the concept of that. It's like on your phone when your battery's running low. You notice that you're down to 5%, so you'd better plug it in. It's better than waiting until you're at zero.

Just kind of let them know, "Hey, I'm coming down to the end here." We're coming up to a break right now on New Life Live. We'll be back with your phone calls. Darlene, you'll be up first.

New Life: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Let's talk to Darlene in Cincinnati who listens to New Life Live on the New Life app. Hi there, Darlene. Thanks for downloading the app and thanks for calling in today.

Darlene: Hi. The question that I asked is: the last 20 years of my life has been a nightmare. You can ask me whatever you need to ask. It could take up an hour. I would like to be one of those Christians that I always admired that are serene and accept whatever is going on in their life.

I'm so angry all the time. I wake up every day, and I think and I pray that this be the day that the Lord lets me go home. I want to be with my family. They are all gone. My siblings, cousins, parents, they're all gone. It's just me. I have chronic health issues. I don't ever leave the house. I have no friends. I wish I was that kind of person that I used to admire, but I'm not.

Mark Cameron: Darlene, we can hear the brokenness here. Can you just give us just a brief overview of the major events that have happened in the last 20 years? It sounds like you've got a lot of loss.

Darlene: I have a lot of loss in my life. All my family. My husband had narcissistic personality disorder. You guys know what that is. That's what that looked like. I have some really serious chronic health issues that aren't going to kill me, they just make me miserable. I've had extraordinarily bad experiences with healthcare providers. Some bad things happened while I was under medical care.

Mark Cameron: Do you have any support, Darlene? Do you have any community, people around you, friends, or other family?

Darlene: No. I'm so undependable. People used to call and say let's go do whatever, but the day comes and it's just such a horrible bad day and I'm throwing up. I was constant cancelling, and eventually people give up and they stop calling.

Dr. Alice Benton: Darlene, what keeps you going? I believe you that you have daily morbid thoughts that desire that God would just take you. You have very little reason, from what you've told us so far, to keep living. What keeps you going and keeps you desiring serenity and acceptance?

Darlene: I'm not sure how to answer that. I'm trying to get my affairs in order and do everything that I can do to make it easier on the kids that I have here. I have two and we have great relationships, but they live really far away and they have their own lives. I don't want my nightmare to be a burden to anybody. I am getting rid of as much stuff as I can and trying to get things tidied up, and hopefully when I do enough of that, God will let me go home.

Dr. Alice Benton: How did you learn to be so cautious about being a burden to people? Where did you learn that that was such a bad thing?

Darlene: I had family members that actually absolutely sucked the life out of me: needing, needing, needing, manipulating, stealing, whatever you could think of. I don't want that for my kids.

Dr. Alice Benton: You've had about all the bad experiences a human being can have, and I think you have no reason to trust people anymore. You don't trust yourself in relationship because you can't rely on your body to show up for relationship. Do you have a desire to get well?

Darlene: Mentally, yes. Physically, my body is a chronic thing that just is going to get worse and worse. Unfortunately, it's not going to kill me, it's just going to keep getting worse. Then because of that one, I have another issue on my vagus nerve. It's cause severe nausea and vomiting. They can't find it, so they just said sorry about your luck, here take some pills, which don't do any good.

Dr. Alice Benton: You're facing a life of absolute misery. That's all you have to look forward to. What do you want from us?

Darlene: I would like to not be so angry all the time.

Mark Cameron: Do you have a therapist, Darlene, someone who you speak with?

Darlene: That's another area I've had some really unfortunate experiences in, like really bad. I'm not really open to that. The good ones have all gone to self-pay and that's just not doable for me right now.

Mark Cameron: Well, here's the challenge here. It sounds like you're depressed here, Darlene. When we're depressed, we have this negative mindset. I hear what you're saying about good therapists. They can demand a higher paying clientele, but good therapists come from somewhere, and so there's a bunch of good therapists, I'm certain, who are training and who are going through programs who could be a support to you.

I do like that you have a desire to get well, and so I think having that in therapy, we call that the instillation of hope. Having some kind of hope is really good and it's the foundation to be able to make progress. So, I'm going to challenge you in a couple of different ways. One, I'm going to see if you'll allow us to put you in touch with a therapist. We've got a whole network, so there's several people who you can try. Give that a try.

The other challenge, I think, for you is if you're not in with a psychiatrist, to see a psychiatrist about your depression and to see if there's any type of help there, any medication that might help be able to just relieve that low mood that you have.

The third thing that I'm going to challenge you to do is to get involved in a group. You need community. You need people out there. You need just to be able to process through all the pain and the hurt that you've been going through. There are groups out there that are designed for that, for people to come in and have open share and to talk about the situation that they're in and find support. You might be able to find that through your local church or generally doing a Google search might be able to find you a place too.

Dr. Alice Benton: Darlene, you're in such a tough position because you may know the answer to what you're going through is people, but people have also been the problem and they've been what has hurt you so much. So, you have to decide: are you willing to risk letting other new people into your life for the possibility of healing, or will you choose the pain you're at least familiar with, which is being isolated and being angry?

Underneath anger, Darlene, there's almost always hurt, fear, and or sadness. God's solution to those emotions are, in part, yes, a medical aspect. Medication may help, but it's telling the stories of what you've been through. It's lamenting all these losses, and it's even being able to talk about your daily physical complaints. It's actually learning how to be a healthy burden to people. You had life-sucking burdens in your life, those people that drained you. I don't think you're that kind of a person because you're so cautious not to burden people.

But God tells us we're each supposed to carry our own load, but we're supposed to help shoulder each other's burdens, the things that are too much for just one person. So, you're at a crossroads. Will you risk letting people in, and would you risk being a burden that's also a blessing to other people? It's a very tough choice.

Brian Perez: It's so sad when, in Darlene's case, and by the way, everyone listening and watching, if you could keep Darlene in your prayers. She is so afraid of meeting new people because they might be needy and manipulative, but it's all taught her how not to be needy and manipulative to the point where she doesn't want to reach out to anyone.

Mark Cameron: And that's probably from Darlene's experiences with her mom. She mentioned that her mom had narcissistic personality disorder and that's so disruptive to a child's development. It's almost impossible to reach adulthood in a healthy way when you have a parent who has a personality disorder because you look to them for your needs. You look for them to reflect back to you who you are, and when a person can't do that, it really leaves a lot of trauma and scarring.

Dr. Alice Benton: Darlene, when I finally came to believe that I needed people in my life because I'm a loner, I tried out multiple groups, over five groups to find the right fit. I tried multiple therapists and it took me a while to find the right fit. I had a client once who told me that she had seen 17 different therapists to find her right fit. So, if you choose to risk, please don't stop until you find the right fit. It's out there and God will lead you to it, but you're going to hit some bumps in the road before you get to it.

Brian Perez: In the same way that you would go to a different mechanic if you went to a mechanic who couldn't figure out what was wrong with your car. You wouldn't just say, "Oh well, I'm never going to drive again. Car's just going to sit there in the garage." No, you would go find one that could help you and figure out what's wrong.

Darlene, thank you for calling in today to New Life Live. We're going to send you a copy of Mark's book, Understanding Your Attachment Style, just for calling into the program today. Now we're going to talk to Sharon in Washington, D.C. Welcome to New Life Live, Sharon.

Sharon: Hello and thank you for taking my call. This ministry is amazing. I talked to you all in 2013, 2016, and throughout making some decisions in my life, so I am so grateful for this safe space. Thank you for saying that. This life can be full and I am so grateful.

But here I am again. I went through a lot in my first marriage. It was 22 years and my ex-husband had several affairs. I got free from that and in 2018, I met a man. I didn't do my due diligence. He is a good man, but he has some anger issues. As I look at patterns of mood swings and different things, I can tell that I'm back in an emotionally destructive marriage.

So, we've been married for six years and I'm not a victim because honestly, before I walked down the aisle, I knew God in my heart told me to wait. But I didn't, and I thought okay, two people who love God can work this out. I do believe he loves God, but more than that, we have to be willing to do the work of being transformed in our heart and that's where we differ.

Here I am and I don't want to be divorced. I think maybe sometimes when I say that, maybe deep down there is a fear of being alone. I don't know, I'd have to kind of dig through that. But I hated divorce. I hated the impact on my life, my children's life. I don't want to be divorced, but I do know I need to do something to make some changes where I am.

Brian Perez: Well, you've given us a lot to think about through the break here. When we come back, we will continue our conversation with you, Sharon. Thank you so much for calling in today to New Life Live. It doesn't matter how many times you call us, we can help you. Whether you're a new listener, a longtime listener, don't be afraid to call. We are here. You can also call our main number. It's 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Look at our website, newlife.com. So many resources there. Follow us on social media. We'll be back with Sharon and we've also got Veronica, Tom, Betty. Hang on.

New Life: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Sharon, are you still with us?

Sharon: Yes, I am.

Brian Perez: Oh good. All right, Alice.

Dr. Alice Benton: Sharon, you don't want a divorce, but you don't know what to do. When you ask your husband if he's willing to get couples therapy with you, what does he say?

Sharon: Yes, we have been to maybe five couples therapists.

Dr. Alice Benton: And are you still going?

Sharon: We are not in with an official couple, but there is an older couple that go to another church that he befriended. But I feel like for them, and they've been married 50 years, marriage, no matter what you go through, you stay married.

Mark Cameron: This sounds like mentoring rather than couples therapy. So, that's different.

Dr. Alice Benton: Why did you stop therapy?

Sharon: Every single therapist that when he was challenged, he said, "No more of that."

Dr. Alice Benton: And so is he no longer willing?

Sharon: He is fine with where we are with this mentor couple who believe no matter what, you keep your marriage together. Even when I'm trying to explain something to them like, "I get that, but criticism and this nastiness and this cyclical... I mean, I see the pattern. We really cannot have seven straight days of peace."

Dr. Alice Benton: And when he gets angry, does it get pretty ugly, loud, verbally abusive, even physically aggressive?

Sharon: Not physically, but two years ago I left home for two weeks at the suggestion of our former pastor, who said, "I really don't like this. This is not a biblical marriage like how a husband and a wife ought to respond to each other." He was verbally abusive in front of some people working on our home and even they were like, "Oh my God, what's going on here?"

I left, I probably should have left longer. I think for me, just wanting to be a good wife and wanting to... I'm at the point now where, honestly, I don't believe he's ever going to say, "You're a phenomenal wife."

Mark Cameron: So Sharon, I'm going to push back a little bit on something that you said earlier on. You said you don't want to be a victim, but you are a victim. Anybody can be a victim. It's not necessarily a negative label. If somebody breaks into my car, I'm a victim of car crime. It just happened to me. Now, you don't have to remain a victim. You can move to becoming a survivor.

The difference between a victim and a survivor is a victim is powerless, whereas a survivor is empowered. It sounds like you know that you're staying because there is a fear there, and I believe you and I think that's true. There's probably a fear of being alone, maybe abandonment, and maybe some of those other things.

The difficult thing about fears is they keep us stuck. The only way to overcome fear is actually to face the fear, and that's what becomes so difficult because it's so uncomfortable and fear makes us want to freeze. When we get to a point where we're just so stuck like this, we need support. We need that person to kind of help us, push us a little bit over the line.

It may be at the point where you need to stop couples therapy and seek your own therapy, individual therapy where somebody can challenge you and help support you and help hold you up. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get a divorce, but you do need boundaries. Boundary is a communication to others what behaviors that we won't accept anymore. It's really more about us than it is about them. It's standing up for us rather than standing up against them.

Often times, you generally hear we tell people to do a scaffolded separation where that could be sleeping in another room, then that could eventually be moving out or asking them to move out. Really all of that is just opportunities for the other person to see the results of where their behavior is leading and hopefully they do a u-turn, which is what repentance is.

Sadly, if they don't get to that way, I do agree with what that former pastor said, and I wonder if he's a former pastor because your husband didn't like it and so he left the church. Exactly. You can see that whoever challenges him, he's going to move away from. But really this is most likely going to end up with you. What are you willing to do? What are you willing to put up with? When we don't have internal motivation, often times we need external motivation. When we're not willing to go ahead and do something, we need the pain of what the situation produces, what the circumstance produces. It's our consequences. That's where you'll see is he willing to change or is he going to stick with how he is regardless.

Dr. Alice Benton: So Sharon, I'd also have you evaluate: how do you respond in the moments that he's getting increasingly critical and nasty? Because some of us, me included, have a style... My default style is I just want to please. I just want to get you to have a smile back on your face again. I'll do whatever it takes.

That doesn't work well in the long run. It might fix it in the short term. So, being able to be assertive in the face of anger and getting to the place of saying, "When you mistreat me, I will walk away," and then actually doing that, but doing it calmly, doing it respectfully on your side. That helps build the strength to make the decision of: can this marriage work out? Does he want to change? Or, in all the boundaries that Mark is suggesting, does he not care to change? And so you have to decide how much to limit your exposure to him, sadly.

Mark Cameron: I was just going to say quickly, if you're in marriage mentoring and they're keeping you in a negative cycle, I think that's unhelpful.

Brian Perez: Yeah, for sure. Sharon, thank you for calling us today here on New Life Live. We've got many more phone calls to get to before the hour ends. If you're on hold right now, we'll get to you as many as we can on New Life Live.

Becky Brown: Hello, it's Becky Brown. I am so excited to launch our 99 for the 1 partner initiative. Every day we hear from people all over the world who are looking for hope. They've been lost in a relationship struggle, addiction, anxiety, depression, all kinds of ways, and it reminds us of the story in Luke 15 where the shepherd, they leave the 99 to go rescue the one. We've seen God work in the lives of so many people over the years here at New Life and we want to invite you to be part of what God is doing. 99 for the 1 is our partner program that you can give to the ministry on a monthly basis to make sure that we continue to reach out to the lost.

New Life: Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, 1-800-639-5433, or newlife.com/99for1. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: If you are feeling stuck in a broken relationship or addiction, grief, anxiety, you are not alone. Connecting with a life recovery group allows you to discover practical tools and biblical truth from the 12 steps of life recovery that are designed to help you heal, grow, and thrive. Recovery isn't just about what you're giving up, it's about who you're becoming and knowing that your past does not have to define you. Visit newlife.com to learn more about Christian recovery groups. Back to the phones now. Here is Veronica in Chicago. Hey, Veronica, thanks for calling in today.

Veronica: Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you very much for taking my call. I'm calling because my son is having an adulterous relationship with another woman on his job. They're both attorneys. The other person that he's having the affair with and himself. They spend a lot of time together, but my daughter-in-law seems to be in denial.

Now, it's affecting my grandchildren because I believe my son is narcissistic because he's always very hard on my granddaughter. She's a teenager and he wants her to do all A's in school and he did the same thing with my grandson. It's just getting to the point my granddaughter needs to be seen by a psychiatrist.

So, my question is: what should I tell my daughter-in-law to do as far as the relationship? Because she found a letter from the adulterous partner that said, "This is from God. We're supposed to be together." It was written in the Bible. She wrote in the Bible, "Oh this is from God, we're supposed to be together," and all this. That really devastated my daughter-in-law when she found the letter on the Bible. She wrote on the Bible page and she gave the man, my son, the Bible.

So, my question is: what should I say to my daughter-in-law? Should I say that she should leave? He doesn't seem to want to leave, but then he doesn't seem to want to have any intimacy with her.

Brian Perez: So, is this woman using scripture to justify the affair? Is that what you're saying?

Veronica: It seems like she says according to my daughter-in-law that she saw it in the Bible. She wrote on the Bible page, "This is from God and I'm your princess and I love you so much," whatever. It was like really over the top, I thought. This has been going on for a while. I haven't confronted my son about it because it's supposedly a secret.

Dr. Alice Benton: It's so disturbing when scripture is brought in to justify sin. It's not the first time I've heard it being used to justify an affair. How startling and upsetting for your daughter-in-law. What is she asking of you, Veronica?

Veronica: She just wants to get my opinion or just maybe use me as a sounding board, but at the same time I want to give her advice for my granddaughter and my grandson. My grandson's older now, he's still kind of in college, but my granddaughter's very vulnerable. I want to give her advice on how she should... Should she confront him about what she found or should she continue to believe that he still wants to make the marriage work? She seems to call me up and talk to me about these things.

Mark Cameron: Yeah, sounds like she's stuck in a freeze state and it sounds like your son is a very controlling person. If your granddaughter is needing the help of a psychiatrist because he demands that she gets all A's, it sounds like she's highly anxious. It sounds like your daughter-in-law doesn't know how to step in and protect her daughter in that situation, doesn't know how to protect herself because she doesn't know how to stand up and say no to this affair that's going on.

I don't believe that God calls us to that type of marriage because I don't believe that that is a biblical marriage. Often times, people stay out of the three F's: faith, family, and finances. That's often why women will stay in a relationship like this. But she's looking for help and she needs help. I'm glad that you want to support her. She may need more professional ongoing help. He's an attorney. I don't know if he controls the money, too. Does she have the resources to be able to go see a therapist without his knowledge?

Veronica: Yes, she does have the resources.

Mark Cameron: That may be the best way, I think, to direct her. Over to a professional person who can kind of reflect back to her what she's putting up with, help her understand her past experiences that have shaped her and conditioned her to put up with this behavior, but also somebody who can start to slowly empower her. It's usually a slow journey with somebody who's in such a freeze state because they're so fearful. A therapist really needs to be tender with that person and prepare for the long game of supporting them through it and stick with them and not get frustrated at them when they don't want to leave.

Veronica: I told her that the Bible says if the unbeliever does not want to leave, that you have to let them stay. I think that could be why she's letting him... It's a ball of confusion.

Mark Cameron: But divorce is different than living with someone who's abusive, because this is abusive. We can hold boundaries, as I said to the previous caller. We can scaffold what we do to show someone what the consequences of their actions are leading to. We ultimately have no control over whether they're going to choose healing and recovery or not. But at least if we get to the point where we do decide this is so toxic, I can't stay in this relationship because it's so abusive, we know that there's been these opportunities along the way that that person has had that they could have done a u-turn and they've chosen not to. At that point, if we do eventually decide to leave, we can be confident in ourselves that they probably weren't going to change regardless of what we did, even if we had stayed.

Dr. Alice Benton: So, the additional steps, Veronica, that I think your daughter-in-law should consider are to ask her husband, "Do you want to reconcile? Do we want to try to save this marriage? I do." I would be braced for him to say no he doesn't, or if he says yes, that it may not be true.

Then to take a stance of: "Well, it's not working for me that you have this close relationship with your coworker. I found this Bible, I found this letter, and this won't work for me if you continue in this relationship in this way." So, if we choose to reconcile, your contact with your coworker has to change. Braced that he probably will choose the coworker over her, but getting this out to the surface brings reality to the situation to help your daughter-in-law decide, "What do I want to do with this now?"

Mark Cameron: The more it stays hidden and under the surface, the more he will continue to live in this destructive behavior and abusive behavior.

Brian Perez: Veronica, thank you for calling in today here to New Life Live. We've helped several people today and we're going to help more and it's all done because of your financial support. We have daily radio broadcasts that speak truth and healing into hurting hearts, transformative workshops that guide people through deep healing, connection to counseling and support for people that are ready to break free from pain and shame, and biblically-based resources that offer clarity, encouragement, and direction. You can give online at newlife.com or by calling 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Here is Tom in Saugus, Massachusetts. Hi there, Tom. How can we help you today?

Tom: Hi. I wanted to mention that me and my friend both have demons, and we try to play Demon Hunter and stuff like video games. Before I met him, I never knew I had demons or Satan.

Brian Perez: Where did you meet this guy?

Tom: At church.

Dr. Alice Benton: Tom, as you have come to this possible realization, what have you done about it, and then what do you want from us?

Tom: I'm seeing a therapist because I asked for material about emotions and triggers and different things that I have in my metabolic system.

Dr. Alice Benton: So, you already are seeing a therapist who is spiritually informed and knows about spiritual warfare?

Tom: He's not a Christian, if that's what you mean. He works with people with relationship issues and trauma and he does EMDR.

Dr. Alice Benton: I'm so glad you took this step of getting help and you met a friend at church, so you're also getting involved spiritually. Tom, I do believe in spiritual warfare and I know that we can invite the demonic into our lives. Sometimes we do it not even fully aware, like the demon hunters game that you have played, that we can play with spirituality and spiritual warfare not knowing and realizing that those forces are real, they exist, and they can become attached to us.

I would ask you to add on to this therapist you're seeing already a person who's informed in spiritual warfare and deliverance. So, that might be a deliverance minister, it may be a Christian therapist who is just educated in this way. Because the steps to take to clear out demonic attachment have to do with confessing sins, has to do with forgiving other people, and treating anger you might be holding on to.

The Bible says that if we let the sun go down on our anger, it can leave a foothold for the enemy, meaning the enemy can become attached to us. We can also just make an open invitation to the spiritual realm to contact us, not knowing it can lead to demonic attachment. So, there are very specific ways and the Bible lays this out: how to counter demonic attachment. So, there's a lot of hope for you. As terrifying as this is, there's a lot of hope for you. But you also have to consider, Tom, that having hallucinations and having a psychiatric issue can be separate from or in combination with demonic activity. And so making sure you have a psychiatric evaluation, determining whether or not you also need to be on medication, can be part of the solution.

Brian Perez: Tom, thanks for calling in today to New Life Live. Now we're going to go to Kate in Sterling, Colorado. Welcome to the program, Kate.

Kate: Thank you for taking my call. I have two daughters and the oldest one is 57, and she is very bitter towards me because I had a bad divorce. I lost custody of the girls because I had no family, no money. I left, I got two jobs, took the money and was going to go back and try to get custody of them, and the courts got me for abandonment. So, I am trying to repair our relationship. Their father's no longer living, but very protective of him. I don't know how to deal with it because every time I talk to her, she's got to cut me down and I'm just tired of it. She's not Christian. I believe my youngest daughter is Christian but very influenced by my older daughter.

Mark Cameron: Kate, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. I think something that I would encourage you to do is to try a listener-speaker role. There's a tool called the comfort circle that Milan and Kay Yerkovich outline in their book, How We Love. The book is mostly for couples, but they also have a book called How We Love Our Kids, and the comfort circle can be used in all family relationships.

What the comfort circle is, is it's a clear structure where one person is the listener and the other person is the speaker. I think probably in your circumstance here, you would need to be the listener first and allow your daughter to be the speaker. There's a lot of hurt that she has, a lot of abandonment. I think when we can give opportunity for somebody to speak and we're not defending or we're not dismissing, often times people become less aggressive or less offensive because they know that they're being heard.

If you can pair that also with a list of emotions and you can ask her, when she shares her experience with you, "Can you tell me how you felt in that moment too?" Because even when we don't agree with someone's perspective or assessment of a situation, we can connect with their emotions and understand and validate and empathize with those. Do you find that you tend to be more defensive?

Kate: No, I invite conversation. She just blasts out at me. She's got so much anger in her. I've been there for both my daughters throughout their life. Every time they've come to me, I've either given them money or helped them in one way or another. But they feel like I abandoned them, and she... I think her loyalty's to her dad because he was with her, even though he was not a good person. He's no longer alive, but she's protective of him.

Dr. Alice Benton: Kate, it's very healing that you've been willing to listen to your daughter and invite her to talk about her hurt with you. It's also okay to decide how to limit that. And so you might point out, "I don't think that if there's yelling or swearing or raised voices, I don't think that that helps either of us. So, if that starts to take place, I think we both have a right to leave that conversation, or to give a warning and say, 'Can we calm this down a little bit, this is getting too heated? But I want to talk again later when we're both calm.'" That will help protect your heart while also still leaving the door open to be able to hear your daughter's hurt.

She may not be able to do it at a calm enough level right now for you to be able to listen to. And so also inviting her in for a family therapy session where you have a moderator who can help keep things calm enough, respectful enough to be able to get through this, that may be a way through.

I am going to challenge you. I think that you deny that you abandoned them because you never intended to. You were working on your plan to get back to them. But accepting that the results of the way you worked your plan was abandonment for them. That acceptance, that that was their experience without pointing out, "Yeah, but this is what I was doing, yeah, but I've always been there for you..." Pointing out the good things you did, they are true, but that actually is defensiveness and it probably leaves your daughters thinking you deny that you abandoned them, when that was the result they experienced even though it wasn't your intention.

Mark Cameron: I think also, Kate, just learning to be cautious that because their dad was there for them, I know that you don't see him as a good person in certain ways, but he was there, he did show up, and so learning to recognize that part and to realize that they probably will be defensive and protective of him because he was the parent who didn't leave.

Brian Perez: Kate, thank you for calling in today. We've got some great resources in the newlife.com store, like Mark mentioned, How We Love, How We Love Our Kids, Boundaries, so many different ones that you can explore there. Thank you all for listening and for watching us today here on New Life Live. Make sure to bookmark our website, newlife.com. Check back regularly for details on all the ways that we're here to walk with you toward your new life. You'll find dates and locations of upcoming workshops and webinars and New Life courses. You'll discover many other resources to move you a step further in your healing journey. Thanks for watching and listening. Bye-bye.

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