New Life LIVE

Brian Perez: Look who's here again today. It's you. Whether you follow us on radio or podcast or social media or from studio to studio, we are so glad you are here. I'm Brian Perez. We do hope you're digging our new digs. We are. Licensed marriage and family therapist and author Mark Cameron is here today. So is parenting expert Dr. Jim Burns. He's the founder of Homeward and he's written a book or two himself. The latest available in the newlife.com store is called *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*.

Dr. Jim, adult children have been straying since the beginning of time, but why has it reached epidemic levels and is there a cure?

Dr. Jim Burns: Well, they have been straying. That's what's interesting. If you look at the Bible, you see deep pain. The story of the prodigal son. The list goes on and on. Elijah, Samuel, I mean, it is just amazing. But I think the difference is that today in record numbers we see our children who have been raised in the church, who maybe we even put them in Sunday school, they were in youth group, they were doing great and all of a sudden they just walk away. The culture has brought them into a direction. I think there are reasons for that, but I think it's at epidemic stages more than ever before.

Part of the cure is recognizing that we are not in control any longer and that our kids are in control. Because of that, I think it's so critical that we as parents of adult children realize that we're going to have to embrace a shift. The shift is they're in control and we're not. We're not defined by their actions and yeah, they're going to make some mistakes, but so did we. They may come back. They may come back to the Lord. They may come back to their values. They may get their life beaten up a little bit by doing that.

That is going to be the answer. When we're in a relationship with them, we have to be the safest people in the room and the calmest people in the room. We can't just put our anger on them. There's a phrase that we use in the recovery movement that says you can't want it more than they want it. Meaning you can't want sobriety more than they want sobriety. It's the same with our adult children. We have to be real careful. It takes discipline. Paul said to Timothy, "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness."

Take for example so many kids today are walking from faith. Now there's a generation of kids who are also jumping into it, so we've got parallel tracks going. But if they're walking from faith, we have to be the people who still are loving them and cheering them on, showing gentleness and kindness. That's what we've got to do.

If we're going to do that right, it's important for us to make sure that we have people around us. But we also have to allow these kids sometimes to doubt. Doubting is not bad. So if they come to you as an adult and they say to you, "I've got some doubts," let them doubt. God is bigger than we are. God's okay with doubts. I think that's an important issue as well. We can't panic. When we panic, we shun and we get angry and we say things we don't mean. It is time to settle in. This is a marathon, this is not a sprint.

Brian Perez: Great book. It's called *When Your Adult Child Strays*. I'm almost done reading it. It's a great book. You'll want to pick it up in the newlife.com store. Lots of Jim's books are available there, so check them out at newlife.com. No, don't check them out. That makes it sound like it's a library where we have a lending policy and you can send it back to us when you're done reading it. No, that's not it, because you'll want to keep a physical copy of it, reference it, underline it, and as things progress with the relationship with your adult child, you can pick it off the shelf and see, oh yeah, I need help in that department again, that chapter. So *When Your Adult Child Strays* is available in the newlife.com store. Carissa, you're up first when we come back.

Let's go right to the phones and speak with Carissa in Houston, Texas, listening on SiriusXM Channel 131. Hi there, Carissa. Welcome to New Life Live. You're on with Dr. Jim Burns and Mark Cameron.

Carissa: Hi guys, thank you all so much for having me. I just want to say y'all have been such a blessing in every single way possible. So thank you guys so much.

Brian Perez: Wow, thanks for saying that, Carissa. How can we help you today?

Carissa: Okay, so just a little bit of a touch base on things. The question basically is setting boundaries with my husband and making those stick and apply to them. Now, I have books. I have gotten Boundaries books from you guys and to be honest, I've noticed that I stay living in a fight or flight mode. My brain is not able to obtain the information that I'm trying to read, nor will my brain really just focus in on it.

It's kind of hard to take that route which I know can be very helpful. I do listen to the webinars and things like that and try to get advice which I get great advice, but it's applying it. We've been married for nine years. We just made nine years on our anniversary, which was May the 7th, which was National Prayer Day, I come to find out.

I'm like, wow, what a coincidence because we need a lot of prayers. That day there was no acknowledgment of the anniversary. There was no happy anniversary, no nothing. To me, I have a 15-year-old daughter and me and her have to deal with it. She was talking to me this morning and she was like he's getting on her nerves, he's always just so mean and picking. There is never a time when she sees him being loving and affectionate unless he's wanting something.

It's just hard. We're not knowing how to really deal with it. She's like, "Okay, well we know what it is. So why is he not gone tonight?" I don't know. It's like I'm stuck as a mom. I know these are not the examples that I want my daughter to be seeing. Like we spoke about, she may not know what love is, but she knows what it's not. Over the years, it's like he gets worse. He gets meaner and it's just like all the time for no reason, just instant meanness. He is of a different culture. I try to be mindful and be like, okay, well I understand his differences, his father was absent and all that, but it is very debilitating.

Mark Cameron: Carissa, is this your daughter's father?

Carissa: It is not, no sir. We have no kids together. He was never able to have kids.

Mark Cameron: Okay. And how old's your daughter?

Carissa: She is 15. She's the youngest.

Mark Cameron: And how long you guys been married?

Carissa: We've been married nine years, together for 11.

Mark Cameron: Okay, so she was young when you got married. She was four years old and she clung to him. But as she got older and seen how he was, it's not like that at all. What boundaries have you tried?

Carissa: I have had him leave two different times. Both of those times he was being physically abusive. I have him leave and then of course he didn't do anything to try to do any different. It was just basically he just kind of made his way back on into the house. It was kind of like some time passed and she's not mad about things, so it's just going to be smoothed back over and then he's back in with us.

He's very narcissistic. me and her are both under psychiatric care. We are on medicines and everything because of this lifestyle. We've come to realize maybe he might be a psychopath. It is one of those things where I'm just trying to I don't want to be on one of those shows where they're like, "Yeah, this happened and these were the signs."

Mark Cameron: So he was physically abusive to you or your daughter or both?

Carissa: Only me ever.

Mark Cameron: Well, that is not good and I'm glad that you made him leave. Boundaries are really about us and not the other person. Sometimes people think boundaries are, "I'm going to set a boundary on you and you'll not do this again." Boundaries are really about what I am not willing to put up with. A boundary has two essential elements. It has a limit line, like what I'm not going to put up with, and then it has a consequence for crossing it.

This is the consequence that you take. You had him move out, but then when you say then he somehow made his way back into the house, well, it sounds like you allowed him back into the house. That's your work, working on the strength of the consequence and sticking to it, because somehow you're giving up that ground.

Carissa: Right, because I just go ahead and try to have hope that okay, well this time he's back it is going to be different. That's the trauma bonding in me, I guess. I thought about it yesterday and I was like the next time that it's a situation and he's being evil and ugly, I'm just going to get up and leave and go somewhere. Either for overnight or just for a little while because I've never done that. I'll just be like if I'm going to be around and you're not going to be treating us right, then I'm leaving. Or we're leaving.

Mark Cameron: Is it your house, Carissa?

Carissa: Everything.

Mark Cameron: Okay, so maybe he leaves again. Maybe you have someone help prop you up and be stronger about it here. You've got the right words, you've got the right terminology here, this trauma bond. What's happening is I'm hearing you say that when it comes down to the moment, your brain is in fight or flight and you're either freezing and you don't know what to do.

That part of the brain actually only learns through experience. You can't just tell yourself, "Oh, this is what I'm going to do," and then do it. Planning is good, but when we get into fight or flight, we either tend to freeze because the prefrontal cortex, the part that's responsible for this high-level executive functioning, just shuts down.

Carissa: That's how I feel like.

Mark Cameron: Right. What I do oftentimes with clients is I will practice with them because you need an experience. I will be the mean person. First of all, I'll have them be the mean person and then I will demonstrate the responses to give. Then I will be the mean person once I've shown them what type of responses to give. I will just continue practicing and practicing with the person so that their brain can form this experience so that it doesn't shut down in that moment.

If he's physically abusive and mean and everything is in your name, you might want to ask him to leave, or maybe not even an ask, you have him leave and then he doesn't return until there's a demonstration, there's a proof that not only can he be regulated around you, but that he's working on the issue that is causing him to go to these great levels of dysregulation.

Carissa: See, the times that I have had him leave, he doesn't work on the issue at all. He uses me putting him out and trying to set boundaries to turn around and do everything to make it worse, if that makes sense.

Mark Cameron: This is where you need someone to help you be stronger. There's a passage in the Old Testament where the Israelites are fighting. I can't remember exactly where it is, but I think it's Joshua and someone else, it might even be Aaron, that holds up Moses' arms. When they hold his arms up, the battle is being won and when he lets his arms down, the battle starts to be lost.

It is just a metaphor for you that you need people in your life to help hold up your arms, hold you up so that you don't let the boundary fall again and let him back in. On another show I gave this advice and I often give this to people: I would have a six-month increment of a timeline of "this is what I want to see happen in six months." Then you measure the progress in that six months.

Carissa: I did that at the beginning of the year. And nothing.

Mark Cameron: Right. Then you have the person who is holding you up, your therapist or your pastor, whoever it is, help you make the decision after six months if this person continues to not be safe.

Guest (Male): Six months sounds like such a long time for something like this.

Mark Cameron: It is a long time, but people can demonstrate changed behavior in small periods of time. There is a difference between change and growth. Change is, "I'm going to change my behavior," but I can change it back again. Traffic lights change but they change back. When something grows, it transforms, it becomes something new. When a tree grows and becomes something new, it doesn't go back to becoming a sapling again. You really need a sustained period of time to see that somebody can do this in the long term and that growth is happening and it's not going to be what happened with Carissa like, "Oh, I think he's changed, I let him back into the house," and now we're back to square one again.

Dr. Jim Burns: Carissa, I appreciate so much that you read books and you're looking at webinars. One of the things you said and I smiled because I do this too, is you said, "I have the knowledge, I sometimes don't act upon it." I think what's missing here might be that you've set some boundaries, but then you don't follow through.

My suggestion is to get with a counselor. Maybe you said psychiatric care so I'm assuming that's a psychiatrist who's giving you medicine, but I'm saying a counselor like a psychologist or a coach or somebody and create in a positive way, this doesn't have to be horrible, but you create what we call in parenting a contract.

There are limits and consequences if they break it. Then have that person help you over the six-month period that Mark is talking about. Have that person help you hold to those limits. So if you are physically abusive within this time, you are out of the house. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I understand that's really hard because there was a love factor here. You've been married to him for nine years. There are other issues.

Again, you've got to give him he has to understand that there are consequences to his actions. Right now, I think it's a little bit like if we had an 11-year-old and we said "don't do this" but then if they did it, we didn't give them any consequence. I think he needs those consequences or you're pulling into another part of setting boundaries as a word called codependency.

With codependency, you're allowing him to break through your boundaries and I think you've got to set those boundaries hard. Have somebody else, when Mark gave the illustration of the battle and they lifted Moses' arms, that is a real good one because somebody needs to help you do that. I think there's a lot of people who can read and can go to the webinars but what they now need to do is act upon what they know to be true even though that's pain. It's painful for you because you've got to let him go, but it's also painful for him and sometimes they say when the pain of changing is greater than the pain of remaining the same, they will change. You are not really giving him that option too much.

Guest (Male): Carissa's daughter is 15 years old, just three years away from becoming an adult. With the situation the way it is at their home, it's almost like a prime target for straying where the daughter might say, "You know what? I'm out of here because this guy we need to get this guy out of the house." It just could be the kind of thing where years from now, we don't want that to happen of course and we thank you for calling us, Carissa, but we don't want Carissa calling us in a few years and saying, "My daughter wants nothing to do with me now."

Dr. Jim Burns: Well, she's got to make sure that she's protecting her daughter. At the same time, her daughter at that age is not going to necessarily like the stepdad all that much, especially if the stepdad's not treating Carissa very well.

Mark Cameron: Well, it is true that if Carissa's daughter moves out and eventually she will, she may not want to come back to the house if Carissa's with an abusive person. Carissa said something, she said she may not know what love is, but she knows what love isn't. That may be true, but here's the problem. If I have a math problem and you show me the wrong way, I know that there is one wrong way, but I don't know the right way to solve it. Oftentimes people just repeat the patterns that they know and they get sucked back into them. There is a strong possibility that she'll repeat the patterns that she's seen modeled before her.

Dr. Jim Burns: Oh, that's good. Carissa, I heard you saying patterns. When Mark brings up patterns, there are some patterns in your life that may have to be changed in order to resolve this situation one way or the other.

Mark Cameron: I think you're right, Jim. I think for you, Carissa, it is codependency. It is acting and having somebody help you do the work.

Brian Perez: Thank you so much for calling us today, Carissa, on New Life Live. My name is Brian Perez, here with Dr. Jim Burns and Mark Cameron. Both of these guys have written books that are available in the newlife.com store. Jim's is called *When Your Adult Child Strays*, it's his latest book. Mark has written *Understanding Your Attachment Style*. Get those books from the newlife.com store. We'll be back in just a few minutes to talk more about what it is that you're going through. As I've said before, you guys set the topic of the show of the direction we're going in when you call in and talk to us on New Life Live.

Becky Brown: Hello, it's Becky Brown. I am so excited to launch our 99 for the one 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. It reminds us of the story in Luke 15 where the shepherd leaves the 99 to go rescue the one.

You know 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 one 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. Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE or newlife.com/99for1.

Brian Perez: New Life's Intensives are, well, intense. They're built on a clinical foundation and rooted in biblical truth. They are three-day events where you won't just listen on the radio, not that there's anything wrong with that, but you'll actually participate. Led by Christian counselors and licensed therapists, you'll engage in a therapeutic process designed for true breakthrough.

Whether you're seeking help for your marriage, your sexual integrity, or recovery after betrayal, New Life Intensives provide the tools and support to experience real and lasting change. You can visit newlife.com for the upcoming dates and locations. This is New Life Live. I'm Brian Perez here with Mark Cameron and Dr. Jim Burns. Our previous caller mentioned the word patterns. For you guys, that was kind of a clue. That's something that we hear all the time. How can we make sure that when we're starting a new relationship or maybe if you're already in one and you look back and you realize, "Wow, I thought I had married somebody else but this person is pretty much like my ex. How did that happen? I was trying to avoid that, and yet it happened."

Dr. Jim Burns: Right. Well, you have problems and you have patterns. Problems are a little bit easier because if I had a problem, I could go to Mark and we could have coffee and he could say, "Well, how are we going to resolve this problem?" If I have patterns, those are things that have been coming in my life over a long time period. If I am going to Mark with coffee and he's going to help me out with that, then he's going to have to help me understand what are my patterns, what are my triggers? For example, sometimes in the recovery movement we use the word HALT. That is a pattern if I'm hungry, angry, lonely or tired.

If I snap at my wife or if I do something and I went, "What is wrong with me here?" Or if I just spent 30 minutes scrolling, I look up and say, "Why did I do that?" Was I hungry, angry, lonely or tired? That's a part of a pattern. If I get insight on that, that really is helpful to me. Like if I was playing golf and I am slicing, I have to learn what do I do to not slice. You learn that. Well, you can learn what some of those patterns are. One of the things I did one time was I said to my small group, "What are some of the negativity patterns that you see that I have that I could be working on?"

I thought these guys were going to go, "Oh, you're perfect, you're great." Oh no, they said, "Well, when this happens, this happens." That was really helpful for me because they gave me insight. I think we want to get to learn what our patterns are. I know what Kathy's patterns are. That is easy. I live with her, right? But I'm talking about my patterns. Patterns are harder to break. Patterns need work. Patterns need to spend some time with a counselor. Patterns need to spend some time with God. We all have these. Sometimes it's because we grew up this way, other times it's because we literally just found that that's how we cope with stress. My dad coped with stress by drinking. I don't want to be that person, but I cope with stress sometimes in negative ways too. I've got to learn what those patterns are.

Mark Cameron: Well, patterns often create problems. As human beings, we are patterned. The brain works by mental shortcuts. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of adult brain's processing is subconscious. It means our brain just assesses and it goes into the pattern, it goes into the shortcut. You can't work on something that you're not aware of. The beginning of growth is awareness.

If you can become aware of a pattern, you can learn it, you can understand it, then you can learn to predict it. Once you can learn to predict it and see it happening, you can learn to interrupt it. We all have patterns and what I tend to focus on is attachment patterns. People have certain ways of bonding that are learned from their family experiences growing up and that is the greatest predictor of how your relationships are going to go with people. If you can understand your attachment patterns and how they come from wounds and then also know what secure attachment looks like, now you have a pathway of how do I grow from here to there.

Dr. Jim Burns: I was thinking about that with your book on attachment. It really is a lot about patterns. Or as you would say, patterns. Your British accent. I love how you say patterns.

Mark Cameron: My wife still hasn't got it. Those two things I said to my wife in the last couple of days and she didn't understand me after 13 years of marriage. We're supposed to be speaking both English.

Brian Perez: Yeah, and that's why the audiobook, I'm sure, of your book *Understanding Your Attachment Style*, you can hear him read it himself. He might not understand me, but then if you can, you can understand your attachment style. If you listen to the audiobook and you try something and it doesn't work, it could be that you misheard what he said. Call in and talk to Mark when he's here in the studio.

Great book, *Understanding Your Attachment Style*, available there in the newlife.com store. Jim's books are there too as well at newlife.com. Patterns, something very when it comes to, like you said, Jim, getting with that group of friends and telling them, "Hey, be honest. Where are my shortcomings? Where are these things that I might need to work on that I'm blind to?"

Dr. Jim Burns: Yeah, blind spots. I said that to my friends. I used the word blind spots. "What are my blind spots?" They laughed. They said, "Don't you know?" and I go, "No, I'm blind spots. They're blind spots." Exactly. That can be very helpful to us. That's when I read Mark's book and I started applying it practically in terms of Kathy's and my relationship, I went, "Oh, I didn't even realize I did that or I had that." That's because we need that kind of insight to understand our patterns. Or patterns, yes. That's it.

Brian Perez: You are listening to New Life Live. My name is Brian Perez, here with Mark Cameron and Dr. Jim Burns. If you've got a question for us, go to newlife.com/radio to find out how to get it to us. You can leave us a voicemail or send us an email. Again, go to newlife.com/radio. Here is one of those questions that was submitted online. It is from Tim, who wants to know, how do I help my wife stop enabling her adult alcoholic son?

Tim says, "My wife and I are both on our second marriage and we've been married for seven years. We're both Christian. My wife's first marriage ended primarily due to her ex-husband's alcoholism. Unfortunately, one of her two adult sons is an extremely heavy alcoholic as well, and classic enabling is taking place by my wife. She's been confronted by me, her other responsible son and daughter-in-law, but my wife is quite resistant.

"She had the strength and wherewithal to do the right thing when she was married to an alcoholic for 20 years. She sees and can identify enabling behavior in other people and situations but not her own. Needless to say, this is causing great strain in the marriage and with her other son's family. Neither son lives in our home. Please help. What would you guys suggest for Tim?"

Dr. Jim Burns: Well, there is a difference between enabling and helping. I'm sure that she believes she's helping when in fact she probably is enabling and she may be even enabling toward dependency on her. There are a lot of moms and dads who do that and we don't mean the intent is always good. I would first and foremost suggest that if she did this with her husband, she needs to go back and think about it with her son, and go to an Al-Anon meeting and get the tools back.

The fact is it's harder sometimes to in terms of enabling, it is harder to do it sometimes with our own kids than it is with our spouse. She needs those tools. Her new spouse can say all he wants, the son who's sober can say all he wants, but frankly, she's got to have the skills to say, "Wait, that is me," and hear other moms who are struggling with the same thing. I suggest she go to that. Maybe she gets some counseling with it too. Any good counselor who can deal with any kind of addiction is going to help her move from enabling to being loving and kind, but she is going to have to do tough love. Tough love means allowing the circumstances of their poor choices to happen. You can't do that if you're enabling your son.

Mark Cameron: Well, that is the part that's hard. We can have all of the knowledge in the world, but being able to apply the knowledge is what is difficult. It is in that tension where we grow. Growth only happens under tension and the nature of growth is pain and discomfort. I wonder, Tim, if your wife feels a level of guilt with staying in the marriage maybe for so long and now her son has now adopted these same behaviors as her ex-husband.

Enabling stems from codependency and we do justify our behaviors, Jim, because that is how we continue doing them. It is only when we stop justifying them that it creates something in us called cognitive dissonance, which is the mechanism of how we grow. Cognitions are thoughts and dissonance is a discrepancy. When our actions are going against our thoughts or against our values, we've got to do two things to reconcile that. We either change our thoughts and we justify them or we change our actions. It is only when we can realize how we're justifying our actions that it creates that discrepancy for us to say, "I've got to do the difficult work and I've got to look inside of me to say is it guilt? Is it shame? Is it anxiety that's keeping me stuck in this pattern, but ultimately it's keeping the other person stuck?" When we rescue someone without giving them the opportunity to recover, even if that recovery results in failure at first, we rob them of the opportunity to grow.

Dr. Jim Burns: I agree with that. You know at New Life we have some quizzes. Sometimes those quizzes are really helpful. I like quizzes, so I'm going to give you a quiz I wrote for my book, *When Your Adult Child Strays*. I'm not going to give the whole quiz, but I think if Tim's wife was listening to this, she probably does this. This is a codependent quiz thing I made up.

One of the questions: do you often do things for your adult child that you really don't want to do just but you do it just to make them happy? She probably does that. She's going, "Oh my gosh, that is me." We all do this kind of stuff. Do you tend to sacrifice and neglect your own needs and desires for your adult child? Those are the kinds of things that we do in codependency. That is not healthy to them.

We suffer and we sacrifice. Do you have excessive concern about your adult child's habits and behaviors? Well, yeah, she would. She is going to answer that. Well, if she's putting all of her time and energy into things like that, there are nine, I think I gave three. The problem becomes she's not going to help the situation. She's going to help the situation when she woman's up and is not the person who's living a codependent lifestyle with him and not enabling him. She is not listening to her husband, she is not listening to her sober child, but she has got to figure that out and get the help. The great news is there is help. I would say she's going to get it through counseling and through something like Al-Anon.

Brian Perez: Good conversation on New Life Live. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. We've got another question that was submitted online that we will get to here on New Life Live. If you've got a question for us, go to newlife.com/radio to find out how to get it to us. I found out during the break that if a truck was coming down the street, Mark would not push me out of the way and get run over by that truck. That kind of hurt me. No, I'm joking.

Dr. Jim Burns: Brian, I would.

Brian Perez: Thank you, Jim. Thank you. I love you more than Mark.

Mark Cameron: But the analogy was not if you could get yourself out of the way. That would be foolishness to do that because you can move yourself out of the way. What am I laying my life down for?

Brian Perez: Good point. Do you think Christians have a harder time with enabling because we're trying to be kind, we're trying to be nice to people? We're afraid that we'll lose our witness if we tell somebody, "No, you can't do this or I'm not going to do this for you anymore." It's like, "Well, Mom, that is not very Christian of you." Do you think Christians have a harder time with it?

Dr. Jim Burns: I think Christians can have a harder time because of the love and kindness things that we want to project. If you look at the life of Jesus, Jesus led with love, he showed kindness, but talk about somebody who set boundaries as well. He did that well. Tough love is showing love and kindness, and that is what Christians need to do in a situation like this.

I have a friend who wrote a book called *No More Mr. Nice Guy*. I love that. He said, "No more Christian Mr. Nice Guy." He feels that it's because so many of us who are Christians think we have to be nice. You can be strong. You can be healthy and not be angry. I think we get a misunderstanding of what it means to be Christian if we simply think that we're just always supposed to be nice and kind. Yeah, we are to lead with love and be kind. Kindness matters. However, it's important for us to also build up some of those boundaries because that is going to help the person in the long run. This mom is not going to help her son become sober by enabling him to continue to live with this kind of behavior.

Mark Cameron: It comes back to that concept of cognitive dissonance. I think Christians can convince themselves to continue enabling because it isquote-unquote the most loving, sacrificial thing to do, but we are then enabling. Love is an action, it's an attitude and when you look at Jesus and the rich young ruler, he allowed the rich young ruler to walk away. He didn't chase after him. Jesus did that with other people too. Love doesn't mean rescuing someone. It means offering support, coming alongside someone, not going out in front of them and clearing the way. Then somebody doesn't learn to grow. They don't learn to function by themselves. They don't learn resilience. How can they then lead other people?

Brian Perez: I think another aspect of it is the term sacrificial love. We think that if we lay down our lives for our friends, as mentioned in the Bible, that that is what we've got to do in every situation to make sure that people are okay. You have to ask yourself, is this a situation that I've got to lay my life down for or is this a situation this person can resolve for themselves with hard work?

Good conversation on New Life Live. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. We've got another question that was submitted online that we will get to here on New Life Live. If you've got a question for us, go to newlife.com/radio to find out how to get it to us. Talk to you next time. We know not everyone is able to join us when we are here live in the studio, and that is why we are putting up clips on TikTok. You can find us at New Life Ministries. Share a clip with someone who needs encouragement today.

This is New Life Live. I'm Brian Perez here with Mark Cameron and Dr. Jim Burns. Here is another question that was submitted online. This one is from Anna and she is in New Jersey, wants to know what can I do to have a closer relationship with my adult daughter again?

The background: "I was an only parent to my daughter while she was growing up. I didn't marry until she was in college. I used to have a close relationship with my daughter. She is now 45. The past few years she has become more and more distant and at times not acknowledging me at all. I watched her kids, my grandsons, almost every weekend when they were young. They are now 13 and 11. I still have them over from time to time. Whenever she needs me, I'm there, but I feel a disconnect and I don't know how to approach her. Lately I've asked to spend time with just her and she always comes up with an excuse or doesn't answer my texts. I'm scared that I'll say the wrong thing. I need to know if I did or said anything to her to make her act this way. It is very hurtful and I don't know what to do. I used to excuse it in the past as she was a busy mom, she worked as a nurse a lot, but now she only works a couple of days a week. I see I have been in denial. What can I do?"

Dr. Jim Burns: I love that question because I think there are a lot of parents who had a deeper relationship with their adult child. With Anna, her daughter is 45 and now it's not as close and there could be several things. She wants to get to the bottom of it. Is there an issue? It may just be honestly that her daughter has drifted away just because of life. Anna is going to have to figure out then how to bring it back.

If I was Anna, I like the idea of Anna getting some time with her and it might even be, hey, the kids are taken care of because her kids are still fairly young. If the kids are taken care of and all that is worked out, how about we go on a retail therapy moment and spend an hour over at the shopping center and then go get a cup of coffee. I am going to buy you a new outfit for your upcoming birthday, whatever it might be. Find an occasion so that they can do now Anna has a 45-year-old. It's much more an adult to adult relationship.

What does the daughter like to do and then tiptoe back into the relationship. Now sometime in there, if they're having a serious moment, Anna should say, "Hey, I feel like we've just drifted away." Anna shouldn't start with, "Here's what the presenting problem is." I think she starts by just building back into the relationship and it may honestly be a reason that's not has deep depth or it could be. To get to the place of having a closer more intimate relationship, you may have to go around and do some retail therapy, get some coffee, take care of the kids, have a sidebar conversation.

It may be I know a woman who said same situation as Anna in the sense of single mom. What they do every Sunday night they get together, she brings the food and they go to her house, the kids are taken care of, they go watch television and then she sits and talks with her daughter. I think there are a lot of ways to jump back into the relationship without making it dramatic and traumatic for her. She has noticed that. Maybe her daughter or she could even say to her daughter sometime, not first opening, but, "I just sense that we've drifted a bit anyway. Is there anything I've done that I could do better?" The daughter may say, "Absolutely," or the daughter may say, "No, I've just been busy and I'm distracted."

Mark Cameron: I think what Jim is saying is a great approach for Anna because Anna is saying that when she tries to engage her daughter, her daughter may be a little bit evasive. If you start with, "I really need to have a serious conversation with you," then she may avoid that even stronger. I am a strong proponent of directly addressing the problem and I think Anna, you've got great self-awareness in the sense of recognizing that you have been in denial and that fear has been driving the bus for you not to address it.

Going along just a couple of extra tips with what Jim is saying: start with affirming the relationship. Start with letting her know, "I really love you and I care about you and I am feeling a sense of loss of not being as close to you, and my goal is to be closer to you because I love and care for you so much." Then also just listening. If she is willing to say, "Yes, these are my hurts," the key thing is not to go into defense mode or explain mode. "Well, that is not really the way it happened," or, "This is the way that I see it." You just take it, you absorb it and at the end you say, "Thanks for sharing that with me. Can I think about that and us have a follow-up conversation regarding this?"

Dr. Jim Burns: That is the key. We tend to then get defensive right away and now it's turned into a "well, you're wrong and I'm right" kind of thing. In fact, when a parent says to an adult child, "Thank you for sharing that, I'm really not ready to talk about it yet," I love how you just said that. "But I do want to ponder this and I'd like to have another conversation about it. Thank you. I am sorry because I think I've done something to offend you and I need to understand that because I love you more than life itself. I want this to work." That changes things sometimes. It's not going to be the "I'm right and you're wrong" thing.

Brian Perez: It is easy for us to talk about it here on New Life Live, but people listening might say, "No, you don't understand, I need to tell them why." Why is that not the thing to do because they need to get it off their chest. Maybe they feel that my daughter in this case or my son maybe heard wrong information and I need to get to the bottom of this.

Dr. Jim Burns: I get that. But I think you can jump to it too. Maybe you have that conversation with your spouse, your close friend, your pastor, your counselor first and then you don't have as much of a need to say it to them. We do that. I am not saying we suppress everything, but I am saying there is a time and a place to do that well and sometimes that is down the road a bit. I think we make the big mistake with I don't care if it's our adult child who is estranged or if our adult child is going in a different direction in values. We have things to say, sure, but I think the best thing to do is just not say it and kind of vomit on them our concerns and then expect them to go, "That is so helpful, thank you." It is not going to happen.

Mark Cameron: There is a difference between being right and doing good. You can be right and not do good. It is not that we shouldn't speak the truth, but are you the person to speak the truth? Is this the moment to be speaking the truth? Change really occurs in relationship. We need to build a relationship, we need to make these deposits first. I like also what Jim added in there, just saying sorry. Two people who are close to me who are completely disconnected from one another recently have told me, "You're not a good apologizer." I've had to take that on board and say, "What can I do better even when I have a reason why I did what I did and I don't think I did something wrong. Can I just say to someone I am sorry that what I did hurt you or that my words hurt you?" That is not necessarily meaning that I am admitting that I did something wrong. I am acknowledging that they were hurt by what their perception is.

Dr. Jim Burns: In that way you're showing compassion and you're showing empathy.

Brian Perez: It was one of your blind spots. Now you know. Now you've got to do something about it. That is why he was walking up and down the halls earlier apologizing to everybody. We were like, "For what?" "It's all cool." Anyway, thanks so much for joining us today on New Life Live. Today's episode is going to be available a little later on as a podcast if you missed any part of it or want to hear it again. For Jim Burns and Mark Cameron, I'm Brian Perez. Talk to you next time.