When we go through those really bad patches with our teenagers it's almost impossible to give as much as usual to our other, important relationships. It might be a spouse or defacto partner or close friends and family. But it's almost always people we enjoy spending time with, whose opinions we value and who support us when we need it. In other words, the ones we need when things go bad.
It's often impossible to ask for what we need from them. "I need you to take up the slack for a while. I need you to keep asking me to meet you even though I almost always say no and sometimes will say yes and then cancel last minute. I need you to keep calling to chat even though you've called me the last 5 times and I often don't pick up and never call back. I need you to keep listening to me talk about this issue, even though my issue has dominated our talks for some time now. I need you to listen without judgement, not push your opinions on me and to never, EVER get frustrated at me or my child because this issue is taking so long. I need you to keep this relationship alive because it's important to me and I need you in my life but right now my child is taking everything I have. Basically, I need you and I need you to not need me in return.Ok?"
We don't feel worthy. We feel selfish. So instead we either try and keep the relationship as usual, until we are so exhausted we have to cease contact, or we get so resentful we explode at them. Or we duck and dive. Screening calls and sending off apologetic texts giving elaborate reasons as to why we've bailed, again. Hoping that they haven't noticed how many times we've done this now.
The greatest irony is that most people, when asked to dig deep for a friend/partner/relative that they care deeply about, will do exactly that. Especially when they have an insight into the reason why.
So how do we ask our loved ones for what we need when we're giving everything we have to support our teenagers?
I know @jdbza @Roundell12 @taokat and @dazzlejazz are all managing really big situations at the moment, I'd love to hear how you guys are going in this area.
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