I have been married to my husband for 20 years and we have two daughters, the younger of which is now 16 years old, and she and her father don't get along.
They don't respect each other.
I think they love each other, but they don't understand each other and they don't seem to be working towards understanding each other.
I get stuck in these situations where the two of them are angry with each other, often at the dinner table, and fighting, and I don't know how to help.
And I'm hoping that you can help me find some words or some methods or some way to communicate with them.
When I try to talk to them about this, they both get angry with me and they don't seem to want to repair the situation.
And I feel very stuck in the middle and I'm hoping you can help me.
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Yes, that's about right.
And when they both get angry with you, that's a moment when they ally together.
Uh no um No, unfortunately.
That was too optimistic on my part.
I wish.
Give me, if you can, a frequent example, because I don't assume that every time it's different.
It's probably much of the same over and over.
It seems like there are two things that happen over and over again, two different things, depending on which one of them is the instigator of the conversations.
And usually it's because one or the other of them is already in a bad mood.
And we come together from our day at the dinner table and we One scenario is that my husband has been reading online about politics or stewing about something at work and he comes in already a little bit angry.
And he finds...
Something that he's unhappy about with our daughter.
Her room isn't clean.
She didn't do the dishes when she said she would.
Her grades aren't good, etc., etc.
And he will just start sort of laying into her about that.
First, not in a mean way, but just pointing it out.
And then she gets very defensive and then the two of them get angry with each other.
So that's one scenario.
And then, no, no, because you're part of that scenario too.
So I find that I have sort of a freeze response where I sit and watch it escalate.
And if I try to step in, it's usually in the defense of one or the other.
And I have a really hard time choosing how to do that, because I feel that my husband isn't being fair to my daughter.
Yet he has a point about that she hasn't cleaned her room or she hasn't done the dishes.
And if I come in defense of my daughter, it immediately turns to comments about my parenting or my not letting him parent.
And eventually he will say, I can't win, and he'll just leave the table.
So, yeah, I'm just looking for words.
That's one.
And what's the second one?
Yeah.
The second scenario will be that my daughter will have had a bad day and be sensitive about something.
And my husband is someone who likes to tell stories and push boundaries.
And he will make a comment that offends her.
And she will get over the top, out of all proportion, angry with him and say...
That he's.
She'll say something caustic like you're racist or you're you know you don't understand anything, or you know you always do this to me.
And then she'll start yelling and screaming at him and he will be greatly offended and usually leave or defend himself and then leave.
Right.
And do you ever talk about yourself?
Do you have a day?
Do you have a mood?
Are you an active protagonist in this triangle besides trying to be a peacemaker?
There are plenty of times that we have regular conversations at the table when everyone is in a good mood and everyone is willing to.
I guess my role when things are not going well is to try to change the subject or say something calming or give an anecdote about my day, usually too late when nobody wants to hear it.
They're already in there.
And when you talk with each of them alone, is it just a blame fest, each one blaming the other for being impossible?
Or is there any accountability whatsoever that each one can take?
I find when I talk to my daughter, she will take accountability, but there's always a but he's the adult.
He's my father.
He should understand this.
So she will say yes, I understand that was wrong, uncalled for, but you, you know there's always a but, but you have to admit that he was out of line, or but you have to.
You know this or that, or but you should be defending me because you're my mother and you aren't.
And then from my husband to, He'll go away and think about it.
And there was a time when he'd then come back and have a conversation with my daughter and they would talk it out and things would be okay in the end.
And a couple of years ago that ended when she turned 13 or 14.
He stopped trying and she doesn't go to him.
So when I go and try to talk about it, Often it will turn to comments on my parenting.
You're too easy on her.
You always take her side.
We should be a team.
Things like that.
Okay.
So tell me, just for me to get a bit more context.
What kind of family environment did you grow up in and what experience do you have with bickering and escalations and high reactivity at the dinner table?
And then the same question will apply to him.
Your daughters, I know, because... They're living it.
But yeah, what was it like in each of your own homes growing up?
Because some of this we have learned.
We have actually watched other people do.
We have had other people do to us.
We have had people do to each other.
And there is the manifest rules of how you argue, how you fight, how low you go, how off topic you can be, how little accountability you take.
And then there is also the underlying issues of loyalty betrayal, lack of support rejection, the dynamics that lay underneath this.
You should be with me.
You know, everybody is actually wanting you to be their fawner.
Fawn for me.
Please me.
So what's been your experience and what do you know about his?
And obviously you didn't have it with your other child.
So you also know that This is a triangle.
It's contextual.
It doesn't say specific things about who you are or who he is or who she is, because this is a dynamic.
This is relationally created by people.
But they can do other things because they have had other relationships with their other children.
That's always very good to know.
Right.
That's true.
So my husband and I come from very different family situations.
I grew up in the Midwest with a family that did not fight in front of each other.
If we had a disagreement?
Of course we did occasionally, but often disagreements would happen one-on-one behind a closed door.
So if my parents had arguments, an issue with something that was going on, they would go into their room and talk about it and then come out with a decision.
I feel like I had a fairly... calm, happy upbringing.
When I think about it, I feel like I was loved and that they were also very academic.
So everything was intellectualized in my household and it wasn't played out in emotion as much.
My husband, his mother, was probably undiagnosed bipolar and an alcoholic and And they had a lot of sort of turmoil in their family growing up.
And I think maybe there were a lot higher emotions on a daily basis at his house than there were at mine.
For sure.
Of the whole range or conflictual emotions?
I think the whole range.
I think he had a difficult teenage life time.
You know he didn't get along with his parents for a time when he was a teenager.
His mother passed away recently and she was capable of huge love and huge.
Everything was over the top with her, and but also, you know um a lot of the other side of that coin too, Was his rebelliousness towards his parents as a teenager, somewhat similar to that of your daughter.
Well, not in the way that it looks.
I think the two of them are very similar personality-wise.
He reacted to the chaos in his household by staying away from home a lot.
He got a job early on so that he had his own money.
He was in some ways taking care of his family at that age and kind of doing what he wanted.
And my daughter just has chosen very different ways to express herself and hobbies, and she's my first.
Maybe this is typical, maybe it's not, but my older daughter sort of has similar interests to my husband and I, and my younger daughter has gone as far away from things that we understand as possible.
She um, we both work with our hands and uh, love to camp and be outdoors and she, um wants to become a nail tech and she does acrylic nails for her friends.
And she's very rooted in the city we live in and has a big group of friends.
I don't know.
She's just chosen things that.
Um, it's been a stretch for me to understand why she's chosen the things she has.
She's amazing and brilliant.
Are you curious about it?
Yes, always.
More curious than reactive.
Yeah.
By the way, nails and acrylic is hands, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Yes.
It is work with the hands.
Yeah, it is.
It's still a trade that way.
Different from dirt and camping and knots, but it is no less handy.
It's true.
And how... much are they able to be reflective about what happens?
I notice that this is something that happens between us.
Whenever he does this, I do that.
Whenever she does this, I do that.
What really gets to me is I understand that this is my challenge.
Is there any reflective experience ability or is it all pure reaction?
In the moment, it's pure reaction.
And I think there is a little bit of reflection.
I think my husband thinks about it, but I don't get to hear what he's thinking about it usually.
And you want help for you or you think that you could be even more effective with them, And you want actually to magically make these two people put a stop to their spat.
I want your magic, Esther.
I guess I'm unhappy with my own reaction in the moment because I feel like they both walk away feeling happy like I've betrayed them.
And it would be amazing if they were to get along better or if there was something I could do when I saw the argument coming or say you know, that could diffuse that.
We have to take a brief break.
So stay with us and let's see where this goes.
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I have a bunch of thoughts that come, but I do want to ask has any of you ever said let's go see a family therapist?
Yes.
And?
So...
Just so I know how much my field has helped you or not.
Yeah, well, I'm worried because we're opening a whole new conversation.
But so my daughter was really sick.
She's better now.
But for the last few years she was anorexic and went through treatment programs and we Basically I refed her at home and she's doing much better now.
But as part of that process, she saw a therapist, I saw a therapist, and there were meetings that we were supposed to all do together.
And my husband does not like therapy and my daughter does not like therapy.
Right difficult to get us all into a room together and then it often sort of would blow up in the room and they would leave feeling unsafe.
So it means my husband is not open to to.
Family therapy was part of the treatment programs.
At first it was part of the treatment programs and then we had hired somebody to help us outside of the program as well.
And was it ever helpful?
Was there anything?
You would say this thing, we didn't pursue it or we didn't stick to it, but it actually was a very good idea.
I don't think we ever got far enough that we had a plan to an action.
I felt like it was helpful to talk about the things openly, even when it was not appropriate.
In the healthiest way.
And so I felt like it was helpful, but I don't think either of the other two of them felt that way.
And may I ask why you continue to have dinner, the three of you together?
It is sort of a core value of mine.
And I live in hope you know that, just in the way that my daughter has gotten better from her illness, I was hoping that their relationship would heal.
I know that those things don't necessarily happen just on their own, but I was hoping just by being together every day in whatever way we can be there, there's more of a chance that everybody's going to get along.
And is that proving right?
I think very slowly it may be.
But when they so it's the the anger comes less frequently.
But when it happens, it feels just as intense like that.
Whatever's underneath the surface is still just definitely hasn't healed.
I just feel like they're learning.
Maybe it's that my daughter's getting older, or you know, I feel like they're learning to be in a room together without fighting.
Who do you think has the most latitude and flexibility for change?
They're so similar.
I know.
Because this kind of dynamic that you described, escalations like that are always symmetric.
When you have two people who do fight-fight... they are typically similar.
If you have one fight and one flight, you get the difference.
If you had two flights, it's similar.
So when you have two escalating people who go at each other but it is not uncommon to just say they're so similar.
But I still will ask, which one has, in your mind, more flexibility?
Even if it's a 3%.
I think, think my daughter has more flexibility, but there's part of me that feels like she's the kid, like she shouldn't have to be the one to heal the problem.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, but that's because you think the problem is him, whereas the relationship is not him or her.
The relationship is the space in between.
And that space in between, as my friend and colleague Hedy Schleifer says, is currently polluted.
And so the relationship is that space.
And each person is responsible to tend to that space so that it doesn't get polluted.
That makes sense.
And so when you are more flexible, it's not because...
You should be dealing with the problem and the problem is the father.
It's that you have what we call enlightened self-interest.
It's in her interest to have this space not be so polluted to have this arguments, these spats, not be so in her belly to the point where she can't put anything else in because it takes up all the space.
That's just one metaphor.
This is not what anorexia is, but this is one dynamic that is happening.
So if i said to her Are you curious about certain things you could potentially do that could change the dynamic between you and your dad?
What would she say?
I think she'd be open to that.
Okay.
And then if I said, I understand you're very creative.
You're doing nails and you're a painter, basically.
You're a painter on people's hands.
And you adorn people's bodies.
And that is very meticulous and very fine.
It's fine motor.
So you have precision.
And that precision is not just in your hands.
That precision is part of the personality that you have.
And from that place, I would like to suggest to you certain things that are rather counterintuitive, but they have the power to turn the whole dynamic around.
Because a dance between two people is a bunch of successive moves.
If you change one move, all the others must adapt.
That's really how intricately interwoven pieces of an escalation are.
If there's one thing you don't do that you typically do or say it creates a space for a whole different thing.
Okay.
But the same thing will apply to you.
You're asking actually for me to help you do what you've already been doing, which you know doesn't really work.
And you want to do a better job at what doesn't work.
So I'm asking the wrong question.
No, it's not the wrong question.
It's that it's very difficult for us to give up.
When something doesn't work, we don't instantly say, I need to try something else.
We first say, I need to try harder.
We all have, for some reason, we all often are inclined to that.
And we're going to try harder at the very thing that we already know isn't working.
So I have to resist the temptation of doing that with you.
You know, there's a lot of different situations.
First of all is to say you know, after a day that is very bad, the next day you just say I think we're better off today not eating together.
Why would we do that?
I'll eat half an hour with you and then I'll eat a half an hour with the other.
And I think we'll all have a nice time and then see what happens.
Okay.
See if they say great idea or if they say, no, no, no, no, we must be at the table together.
And then you say well, then you should have dinner together, because I'm going to go and have dinner with a friend.
Yes.
This is a bad show.
It's a bad TV program and I'm not interested.
Yeah.
You know, it's like I am not interested.
I don't see why I should be subjected to this a regular basis.
Not angry, just simply do your thing, but don't involve me.
Okay?
Rather than putting yourself at the heart of the matter and thinking that you're the only one who can stop this madness, step out of it.
See what happens.
I listen, we just you're gonna just collect information.
Yeah, I'm not saying this is the answer to anything, but you have to in some way find 10 new moves.
Okay.
So you're the only one who's here, so I'm going to talk about your moves.
Maybe at some point you put good music.
You say, I think we should all listen to music, soothing the nervous system.
Mm-hmm. food for the soul.
Let's listen to music.
What would you like to listen to?
What would you like to listen to?
Each of us pick a piece of music.
We should be better off at listening than at speaking because speaking, we don't do a great job.
But I think what this house could really learn is a different quality of listening.
We could listen to poetry.
We, since that puts him in a bad mood, or I was just listening necessarily to spoken word, unless it's artistic spoken word.
That's another one.
But break the configuration.
Shuffle.
This is rigid.
This is predictable.
This is narrow.
And everybody seems to be falling into the trap every time.
I mean, one could write the script.
He says this, she says that, that makes him do this, that makes her do that.
Then he walks away.
Then she's all, look at this.
You can't even talk to him.
Look at what he does.
He can't handle anything.
I mean, it's, and by the way, it's not original.
That script goes in many, many homes.
Sure.
And instead of saying, you know, what can I do to make you people love each other?
You just say you won't be the first dad and daughter who don't get along in your adolescence.
In fact, you know that very well.
You had the same relationship with your parents.
And then you can joke with her and you can say you know, by the time his mother died she was capable of deep love.
I mean you may have to wait 50 years, which means you bring some humor into this because you get scared.
You get really, really scared and you think, I have to rescue these people from their shadow.
Maybe that's not true.
I don't know enough to make a declaration about this.
But sometimes I think it's worth checking out.
Okay.
But I know that when we have that fear or that maybe she will plunge again into the anorexia or that you will have recidivism.
So you're holding this very fragile equilibrium, making sure that nothing bad happens.
And it actually doesn't really rest on you.
Sounds good.
I don't want it to rest on me.
But it does feel like that.
Your body tells me I carry this.
You know, it's like they hurl all kinds of things at each other and I'm the only one who realizes what they just said.
Now that you can say too.
You're saying horrible stuff at each other and you punch each other as if you were cardboard.
And while you are not feeling anything because you're busy being angry, I feel every word hitting my belly and I feel everything punch in my gut because I'm actually the one experiencing what you're doing.
You know, if it was physical, somebody would say, aye, that hurts.
But because it's words, one doesn't even notice it.
One just says, let me punch you back.
The next thing one day, if you really need to go and amp this a little bit, is you videotape them.
You don't say a word.
You get up, you take your phone and you just tape them.
They would hate that.
They would hate that.
But something that would be somebody saying, I'm your witness.
I just want you to see what this looks like.
And then you send it to them alone separately and you just say I thought you may want to know what this is like.
Yeah.
They may not like it, but it may be effective.
You don't have to say anything.
You just film it and then you go to the side and you just film it.
And then you send it to them and you just say you know, sometimes we don't really see ourselves from the outside in.
This is what this looks like.
We are in the midst of our session.
There is still so much to talk about.
So stay with us.
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What happens when your other daughter enters the picture?
Oh, so she is a mediator.
She has always, she's taken that role.
I mean, I don't mean professionally.
I just mean that like she takes on that role very nicely.
And When she left for college there was part of me that was like I am worried that this family is going to fall apart when she's not here.
And I realized that that's a horrible thing to think, because all of that weight of those feelings are on my older child.
She shouldn't have to play that role and take on that responsibility anymore.
And is she the mediator between her sister and her dad, or is she actually the mediator between her mom and her dad?
Between her sister and her dad, I would say.
That is the official picture.
I know that.
But how much does your younger daughter actually express things that you don't say but do think?
A lot, for sure.
Yes.
So the mediation is actually?
I mean, what you're saying is that your daughters are in between your relationship between you and him.
Yeah, that's true.
Which, if you wanted that to shift, you go to him and you say our daughters have spent a lot of time being between you and I.
That's the bold move.
Yeah.
I think that's what I have to do.
That feels real.
Tell me more.
I think my husband and I we've sort of allowed our relationship to become two separate relationships that happen to touch deeply.
We get along really well.
And he is very independent and likes to do his own thing.
And I'm independent and like to do my own thing.
And so there are large periods of time where he comes home from work, he goes out to the shop.
You know his man cave in the back.
And I sort of take care of things in the house, and then we touch at dinnertime and then we don't really talk.
He goes to bed before I do or vice versa.
And we just don't get deep about things anymore.
It's almost like we have a friendship and we live together.
You know we also have a good sexual relationship, but that's not the same as emotionally connecting the way we don't.
So all of those emotions you're making me feel like maybe the truth of it is that all of those emotions are then played out through our kids instead of each other.
Yes, that is what I am saying.
I don't like that.
And that you actually connect through them, even if it's negative, and that you come close when you argue about them.
And that they have a job, which is to make sure to bring attention on to them, so that you don't have to have the.
So it deflects it from the two of you, but at the same time it brings you to at least discuss something that you jointly share.
And it is one of the few things at this moment that you jointly share.
So what would happen, you think, if you put all of this on paper, to him, on paper or in a letter, and you just said I've been thinking.
And you seem to be a thinking group of people, and he's thoughtful as well.
And what would happen if you say here's what I imagine is a different reading of what's been going on here.
And if we really want to help our kids, it's you and I who need to come back together.
I like that.
I can do that.
Do you think he would be receptive too?
I do.
I think that would be a good way to approach it.
It's actually been a way that we have done things in the past.
When we, you know, feel very emotional about something or there's a complicated problem between us, one of us will write it down and send it yeah, And then potentially even go and camp together and spend a few days alone and make it a deal that you don't talk about her, that you will find other ways to connect with each other that don't involve talking about her.
And she's the glue.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
And she may resist not being the glue.
Just so you know, kids get used to being the glue.
And so they sometimes, potentially on purpose, put themselves in the center because they don't really trust that their parents will find a way to each other if they don't bring them there.
So you may need to reassure her that you can find a way to each other and she can go and be an adolescent.
That's very insightful.
I hadn't thought about it that way before.
I like it.
And then, if your daughter stepped out of the middle, what takes its place?
What would happen, for example, if you went to the shop when he's in the shop and just sat there and whatever?
What if you had dinner with her first and then you went and brought dinner in his shop and you just ate a picnic together in the shop?
I mean, it's about changing the social, the emotional and the physical configurations.
It's not in that order, but it involves all levels because you've made a beautiful distinction.
We can be very sexual and we are intimate there, but there is a level of connection between the two of you, level of emotional threading that is important, kind of has leaked out of the relationship and we are brought together in our worry or our arguments with our daughter.
If i asked your older daughter why did she become a mediator, what would she say?
Because her sister wasn't always a teenager, so this goes back longer.
Yeah um, I don't know if I can answer that honestly.
I mean, I can give you my opinion about what I see.
That's all we have.
But I think that my husband has been struggling for a while and unhappy.
And I think I'm trying to reframe it now with the information that you've given me.
But I think I tended to get annoyed with him.
Because it looked to me like a lot of him centering himself.
And I was struggling to take care of my younger daughter or struggling with other things.
And so I think she felt like she needed to step in and take care of him and keep him as part of the family.
Make sure he felt like somebody understood him.
And so they have a strong alliance together?
They do.
They do.
Yeah, I would say that.
So she would lift him up so that he wouldn't get too down, too depressed, too passive?
I think so.
In small ways, you know, but I think that that's sort of what she would do.
She was also trying to keep the peace, you know, when we were all together.
So she would make sure that he had someone listening to him, when maybe the other two of us were rolling our eyes or just not engaged.
And worse.
I wouldn't say that the things that she says necessarily represent me, but she definitely is not afraid to call him out in ways that I don't don't think are necessary, but maybe they are necessary and she's doing it for me.
I don't know.
So if I hear what you say is, instead of trying to be the conciliatory, it may be that I need to take on me that which is mine.
So that it doesn't filter onto her.
Because part of why her intensity is so high is because she's expressing both her feelings and mine.
She's doing the job of two.
Yes.
I think I've been trying to keep the peace at all costs and it's been causing the opposite.
No, you're not keeping any peace at all.
Every time somebody talks to you about how they feel, you're trying to defend the other.
Yeah.
So that's a triangulation.
It doesn't work.
No.
I say I'm so angry at them and you say, but you need to understand them.
I need you to understand why I'm angry at them.
And you can understand them where they're angry at me.
But if every time you take the position of the absent third, you're fostering the split.
Yeah.
And especially with her.
She will then end up expressing the spoken and unspoken intensity of both people's feelings yours and hers.
So I need to be more present with my piece of the conversation.
Yeah.
I mean, if you roll your eyes, you have more than just that.
It's true.
Your older daughter is able to be compassionate with him and you are annoyed.
Sometimes, yes.
Yes, of course, not always.
And there's more to the story than just this.
We're doing a little, you know, micro surgery here, but it's all triangular is what I'm saying.
And there is what people are picking up on their feelings, but also on the unspoken and disavowed feelings of the other, which they then bring into their own psyche.
And in the end, each of the three of you feels very alone.
Your husband feels alone, because he feels that all of them, except for his older daughter but the other two are in collusion, that you don't support him, that you always defend her.
She knows that you always defend him, but on some level, she knows that she's also speaking for you.
The older one wonders can I have a life away from the family because she, like you, worries that they're going to fall apart without my skillful mediation.
And you think you're trying to make these people be nicer with each other and have more grace.
When in fact, they are each thinking that it's the other person who is doing it all to them.
Yeah.
So, how do you start extricating yourself?
I think writing the letter that you suggested, I'm excited about that idea.
We already do some creative movement around dinnertime.
But I think, just reframing in my mind that it's not my job to make the two of them be friends and to refine that connection with my husband so that we can model for my daughter but also for ourselves, have that emotional connection and maybe we'll be more on the same page anyway about a lot of these things that become an issue.
Is that a good place to start?
I think so.
I think so.
Thank you for helping me untangle all of that.
This was an Esther calling a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world.
If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther, it could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call.
Send her a voice message and Esther might just call you.
Send your question to producer at estherperel.com.
Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise.
We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut.
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller and Julianne.
Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider.
And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker.
We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.
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