In this episode, Neil responds to a mom wanting to know how to support her adult daughter who is in an emotionally abusive marriage.

Do you sometimes find yourself wanting to help your adult child or someone you love set better limits with or leave their partner? We’ll talk about this and a whole lot more in this week’s podcast, My Daughter’s Husband Doesn’t Support Her.

This question was slightly edited. Their name has been changed to protect confidentiality.

And here’s our question from Georgia:

My daughter‘s dream of her life was to be a mother. She has been with a man for nine years, they are now married and they have never been on any type of contraception and have not gotten pregnant. I feel her husband is very controlling and emotionally abuses her. He blames her for their inability to get pregnant and says they can’t afford any treatments or alternatives to support pregnancy. How do I help my daughter see that she’s compromising on her happiness and that she will eventually resent her husband for not supporting her?

Thanks for your question Georgia.

It’s really tough to see your adult child making serious life compromises. There is nothing more important to parents of adult children than to see them settled and moving forward in happy healthy ways. In fact, that is a major predictor of happiness for senior adults. So seeing your daughter in a long term unhealthy relationship that isn’t taking her towards her life goals is understandably painful to you.

Your question is how to help her realize that she’s making a mistake by not pursuing her life goal of being a mother.

Georgia, while it makes sense that you would want that for your daughter, the most important thing you can do is keep a strong relationship with her regardless of whether or not she stands up to her husband and insists on what she wants, chooses to get divorced, or stays in her marriage the way it is. Those are her decisions and if you take a strong stand on what she should do, you run the risk of alienating her or making her feel uncomfortable and judged around you.

If you want to discuss your concerns with her, you could approach it from a position of supportive curiosity such as:
I know that the most important thing to you has been to start a family. This must be weighing heavily on you. How do you see your options at this point? Is this something you’re willing to give up on? If you do, how might you feel about it later? Whatever decisions you make for yourself, rest assured that I’ll be here to love, support, and enjoy you.

Also Georgia, if it’s clear that your daughter is struggling with her situation, you could simply ask her, Sweetheart, what’s the best way for me to support you right now.

To go a little deeper here Georgia, we could ask the question, why is your daughter in a relationship with a guy who is, according to you, controlling and blaming and not willing to take active steps to support your daughter’s desire to have a family? One reason could be that she never developed the self-esteem to be in a relationship with someone who truly respects her. After all, if we don’t love and respect us, we can’t expect others to love and respect us.

Another explanation is what’s often referred to as frog in the pot syndrome. That’s when a relationship starts out well and a partner is supportive and loving, and little by little, their controlling and abusive qualities emerge. It’s called the frog in the pot syndrome because the story goes that if you put a frog in a pot of hot water, it will quickly jump out. But if you put it in a pot of cold water and turn the heat on, the frog will get used to the water as it heats and will stay in it and get cooked.

Regardless of which of these or maybe a combination of these scenarios applies to your daughter, hopefully she’ll grow and learn to stand up for herself.

But I’ll repeat my advice that the most important thing is that you stay absolutely supportive and let her know that while you’re concerned for her, that we all do things for our own reasons, and you’ll support her no matter what. Then Georgia, have fun with her, enjoy her, and don’t stay overfocused on what’s wrong in her life. That way if your daughter doesn’t become a mother, or if she doesn’t have the most satisfying marriage, at least she’ll have a great relationship with her mother, and that’s huge.

So listener, when we find ourselves in a situation where we really want to help someone make better personal decisions, or get out of an abusive relationship, maybe the best thing we can do is love them and enjoy them, just the way they are. Otherwise we run the risk of alienating them and making them feel judged.

Thanks for tuning in today listener, and thanks to Georgia for her question. And please take care of yourself, you need it, you deserve it, you’re worth it.
Bye for now.

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