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Life is so full of complexities. Unhealthy dynamics between interpersonal relationships can be exhausting. Whether navigating relationships with your peers, adult children, or family members, each can take its toll on your emotional health.

With your peers or family these complexities can take many different forms. Immoral or unacceptable behavioral choices can be observed. Dissatisfying, unhealthy friendships can evolve in a toxic way. Negative emotional interactions can happen. How we choose to address these complexities can cause each of us to experience scaring distress or freedom from a heavy burden depending on how the situation is handled. Each of us has a choice for what we are willing to tolerate in our interpersonal relationships.

With adult children, we pour ourselves entirely into our children’s lives then are left feeling drained and emotionally bereft when they spread their wings taking flight over that cliff off into the unknown. WE PRAY! We provide wise counsel. Our life experience allows us to see deeper into situations than their inexperience allows. Sometimes we can see our children making poor decisions, but solid parents try to steady the course to allow them to fail (to learn how to be smarter with the next decision.) THEY must choose RIGHT FROM WRONG themselves. Hard concept! Even harder concept to parent. AGAIN WE PRAY!

As parents we provide our children with a solid moral foundation to draw from when making behavioral decisions. The hope is that this solid moral foundation nags at their conscience and follows them through life as a continual basis for their choices. Parents pray that this solid moral foundation doesn’t become undermined by the people they allow in closer to them/influencers that they tend to listen to as they fly the coop while seeking greater independence. “Bad company ruins good morals.” 1Corinthians 15:33

Meanwhile, their growing life confidence encourages that they know more than we do. THEY CANNOT HEAR US. Thus, this gap or crack starts to form a crevice in the interpersonal relationship. Such a conflicting time in our parenting lives. We love them so much, but need to take a step back (in faith and continual prayer) for them to realize this fact before the gap or crack grows to a “Grand Canyon” in the relationship. Try loving them right where they are situationally located – it’s REALLY HARD (as pushing your agenda pushes them away.)

Have you also experience this gambit of emotions that roll over us parents in waves of worrying distress and alternately in peaks of joy at the goals being achieved by our children? Is this disquiet in our hearts simultaneous with abundant nurturing love normal emotions? So many highs and lows all at the same time, right?

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LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES

SO WHAT DOES GOD’S WORD SAY ABOUT IT?

Unhealthy dynamics between interpersonal relationships can take on many different complexities. God’s word says, “We will hurt others, and others will hurt us. But if you can forgive a fault, love can be restored. However, dwelling on wrongs and refusing to let them go causes angry division and painful separation.” Proverbs 17:9

So we are called to forgive wrongs done to us. This is a very hard topic. FORGIVENESS is essential. We all fall short and make mistakes. No one is perfect. The only one of perfection in the bible was Jesus. He was the sinless lamb of God.

However, the Bible offers sage advice to help us navigate staying away from toxic relationships. “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.” Prov. 13:20

Don’t set yourself up to ultimately fail by working hard at an unhealthy friendship or interpersonal relationship. 1 Corinthians 15:33 clearly says “bad company corrupts good character.” Based on this passage of Scripture, I believe it is okay to cut anything toxic out of your life, including people. Cut out the bad company. Cut those who would cause you to stumble, fall into sin, or affect your faith. People can lift you up, or people can drag you down. Ultimately, you get to choose who you are spending your time with.

It’s more complicated and complex when the distress or unhealthy dynamic is coming from your adult children or parents. God instructs in Ephesians 6:1-3 “Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. ‘Honor your father and mother.’ This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, ‘Things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.'”

It is a parent’s responsibility regardless of whether it’s easy to instruct. It’s really hard to be the wet blanket to our adult children when we feel called to correct them on a moral issue. In love, Jesus’ love, we remind them what the Bible says. I continually tell my boys, “No one loves you like your Momma!” This is based in Proverbs 139:13-16 it tells us that while God created us, he did so in our mother’s womb. Mothers are special. They create life and make sacrifices for their children every day. A mother’s love for her own children is unconditional and never-ending. THAT’S why we MUST say it, especially if it is heavy on our hearts!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”.
—Albert Einstein

LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES

THE UPSET

HOW DID THIS UPSET HAPPEN?

The term UPSET implies the disturbance of normal or habitual functioning by disappointment, distress, or grief. UPSET is the wrong word, but it is a very real emotion and function of our feelings! Our normal or habitual functioning, our routines, have been disrupted, distressed or grieved by their departure of our homes and by extension from our daily lives.

Can you relate to this concept in any of your relationships from PEERS to FAMILY MEMBERS, or with YOUR CHILDREN when they were spreading their wings?

How did you feel after one of these interactions? How about with your young adult as they flew the coop?

I remember a vacation to the ocean where we spent a whole afternoon building a massive sand castle village near the ocean shore. We patiently, lovingly taught our boys how to make the perfect mixture of sand and water to form the castles, towers, and village to their utter enjoyment all afternoon.

It was a long, hot, process full of giggles and joy watching them have fun working together and with us alternately. That evening the tide came in and we watched from our room balcony above as the sand castle was washed away. It was completely gone with no trace of the massive village the next morning. The village was gone, but the lessons of how to build another village and the fun that was shared to accomplish the goal remained.

Construction commenced the next day on a better, bigger, and well placed village further away from the ocean edge on this re-build. Isn’t this one of the messages of life? The circle of imparting knowledge, wisdom, and loving care that we all can tuck into our hearts. Nothing is forever, the only constant is change. It’s what we do within this time of change that matters and the shared love that we take with us to the next experience.

Each interaction with those we have interpersonal relationships with with teach us lessons if we choose to learn the lessons.

“Adolescence is perhaps nature’s way of preparing parents to welcome the empty nest.”
—Karen Savage and Patricia Adams

LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES

NEXT STEPS NATURALLY HAPPEN

“Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to come back, and reasons to stay.”
—The Dalai Lama

Great parenting leads to great children spreading their wings! BE ENCOURAGING! NURTURE THESE STEPS!

It is perfectly acceptable to revisit the Montessori training you learned when they were in pre-school. You know the technique! The child asks you another in the line of the millionth question… instead of answering the query to display your extensive intelligence, you respond to the child by rephrasing the question back to them. Challenge them to think for themselves in ALL phases of life, especially now! Yes, you challenge them to investigate the answer for themselves instead of providing the answer.

Always, pose the question back to them. “I wonder why….? This technique transitions you into a cultivator of consultation and guidance to lead them to the correct answer or advice without giving them the answer. When they land on the answer that you led them towards, they embrace the answer because they landed on it without you telling them what to do! Congratulations you are now their consultant…not the domineering parent who is ALWAYS right (in their eyes.) CHEERS TO YOU FOR PARENTING THESE INCREDIBLE HUMAN BEINGS! WHEW! Yes, kick your feet up with a bottle of wine after they leave again! 🙂

THE PROMISE OF HOPE IS ALWAYS PRESENT

“A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.”
—Elizabeth Gaskell

LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES

REALIZATION

“The biggest change for me as a mom was realizing I needed to put someone else before me. Now the hardest part about the empty nest is learning to put myself first.”
—Kim Alexis

Whether an interpersonal relationship that fails with a peer, family member, or adult child, one constant in each scenario is predictable: CHANGE.

Change is necessary. Change is a constant part of life. Change will never cease to happen. So…Evolve. Create new routines. Block time for yourself. Find a hobby or a volunteer organization to fill that void in your time schedule that you now observe. Be the consultant, listen well without interrupting. Offer advice only after leading a sentence with, “Well, what do you think…”

Encourage financial independence within their budget initially and grow this concept to full financial independence after they land that first REAL job. Children need to have “skin” in the game to understand the value of how we responsibly spend our money. Life is not a free ride provided by others. GARDEN! Take time to smell the roses! Figure out what makes you happy. Remember before you had children…yes way back…what did you do with your free time then? What were your selfish pursuits?

LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES

ADVICE

BE SELFISH! Figure out what YOU want for your life. Reinvent yourself for the second half of this life on earth after children are grown and gone! It is okay to take some time to figure out what you’d like to do independent from your children. HAVE AN ADVENTURE! FLIP A HOUSE! WRITE A BOOK! VOLUNTEER AT A HOSPITAL! You decide what this reinvention looks like, but for heaven’s sake enjoy your choices!

“It’s not only children who grow. Parents do, too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.”
—Joyce Maynard

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Leave me a reply below with your personal experiences and how you chose to respond. Have you experienced similar dysfunctional interpersonal relationships? I challenge you to perform a random act of kindness and report it below! REPLY BELOW!

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Inspirationally Yours,

Barbara

BIO: https://www.inspirationaltraveladventures.com/about-us/

ABOUT ME:

A 1993 graduate of Michigan State University, Barbara earned a BS in Social Science Pre-Law. She is a Business Manager/HR Director. Her passion is travel, discovering new places, experiences, cuisine, cultures while enjoying temperate climates. Barbara is a newly transitioning empty-nester who became a travel blogger. She’s a great photographer, talented writer, and has a great family to highlight in her adventures.

WEBSITE: www.inspirationaltraveladventures.com