6. What About My Partner?

Struggling with a partner who parents differently than you do? You're not alone. In this vulnerable conversation, Teri and Catherine dive deep into one of the most challenging aspects of raising children: navigating different parenting approaches with a spouse or co-parent.

Drawing from their personal experiences as trauma-informed mothers and Conscious Parenting Coaches, they explore the profound tensions that arise when one parent feels they've done more inner work than the other. Both share raw accounts of their own family dynamics – from feeling like a "solo parent" despite having a partner physically present, to the frustration of wanting a spouse to take accountability for past parenting missteps.

The conversation takes a transformative turn when they discuss the concept of sovereignty – not just for our children, but for our partners as well. Can we truly accept that our co-parents have their own journey and timeline for growth? What happens when we stop trying to control how they parent and focus instead on our own conscious presence?

Teri and Catherine offer practical wisdom for communicating with partners without triggering defensiveness, including a "magic phrase" that creates space for honest sharing without implicit demands for change. They also tackle the delicate balance between allowing children to develop resilience through navigating different parenting styles versus recognizing when situations become genuinely harmful.

Whether you're feeling alone in your conscious parenting journey or simply searching for ways to bring more harmony to your family system, this episode provides both validation and practical tools to navigate one of parenting's most complex challenges. Listen, reflect, and remember: it only takes one conscious parent to make a profound difference in a child's life.

TERI
Website: https://teripotter.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teripotterpathways/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teripotterpathways

teri@teripotter.com

CATHERINE
Website: https://www.collaborative-insights.com/conscious-coaching
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collaborative_insights_coach/

catherine@collaborative-insights.com

Resources:

- Conscious Parenting (Dr. Shefali Tsabary)
- Compassionate Inquiry (Dr. Gabor Maté, Sat Dharam Kaur)

Here are a few international resources:

• United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) or text HOME to 741741
• United Kingdom: Samaritans: 116 123
• Canada: Crisis Services Canada: 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645
• Australia: Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14
• International Helplines: Please visit www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html for a full list of helplines worldwide.
• https://www.helpguide.org/find-help

Please remember, there is always support available, and reaching out can be the first step in finding help. You are not alone, and support is there for you and your family.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to On Navigating the Abyss. We are Terry and Catherine, two necessarily trauma-informed mums of young people who were both inspired to train as conscious parenting coaches. We're bringing this podcast as a way of sharing our ongoing learning, insights and clarity we've gleaned, along with some fresh perspectives with parents who might be on similar paths to us, so we really hope you join us.

Challenges with Co-Parenting Approaches

Speaker 2 0:33

Welcome everyone. In this conversation, terry and I are talking about dealing with partners that have different approaches to parenting, struggling with parental guilt, repair boundaries and just overall how we show up with our tools we've gathered. We hope you find it helpful. Hey, catherine, hi Terry, good to see you.

Speaker 2 0:51

Yeah, I think today we've discussed this and I think we're talking a little bit about the parents right Us, what we bring, what the other parent brings if there are two parents or two caregivers, of course what we bring to the party yeah, I'm just thinking, you know, in my situation and all I know a lot of the parents mostly mothers that I work with and a part of my group one of the big struggles is the co-parenting which we know that definitely impacts our kids healing journey and our own peace of mind. And so, yeah, yeah, I was reflecting a little bit this week. I was having some conversations with my husband and there's been, I think, for my daughter, a couple of things that he's contributed. I've contributed many things myself, of course, to her struggles, including, you know, particularly around expectations for her and who she needed to be and what defined success, largely because of you know. So my own conditioning and what I found made me feel valuable and useful in life, and I think he brought a lot of fear and anger from his own past, and so I'm at a point now, I think, where we've both contributed and done some of our work and I think, as often happens, I feel like I've done much more work than he has. I can relate, yeah, right, yeah, but he's still, you know, and he shows up, he goes to family therapy, he's there for my daughter, he loves her more than anything. He has shifted how he sees her. He has made every attempt, given where he is in his life and his journey and what he's capable of, to be supportive.

Speaker 2 2:37

Yeah, right, and I think probably that's the case of a lot of dads, right, it's undeniable that they love their child absolutely, and so right now it's it's interesting because our focus as a couple is keeping her, just frankly, keeping her going, keeping her alive, keeping her moving forward in her life, which I know you can relate to, definitely, yeah, it's the priority. Yeah, and you know, I I think I struggle too with in my mind, this idea of accountability as part of repair with her. My perspective, right, is that I have tried to really acknowledge my role in the trauma I've caused or pain I've created in her life and tried to acknowledge that from, you know, being, as she calls, an almond mom and not wanting her to eat five bags of chips, or telling the school that she couldn't buy Oreo cookies we lived in Mexico when she was in primary school but she couldn't eat Oreo cookies and she couldn't buy them at the school store and all these things which she said contribute to her eating disorder, right, and my expectations around her reading and her school performance and all the things that gave me a sense of value and a sense of worth. I, of course, wanted that for her, which was misguided. I want to interject.

Speaker 1 4:05

I'm not going to say anything, except I relate to all of worth. I of course wanted that for her, which was misguided. I want to interject.

Speaker 2 4:08

I'm not going to say anything except relate to all of this.

Speaker 1 4:10

I don't want you to be doing this on your own, and then I'll let you carry on.

Speaker 2 4:14

Yeah, yeah, and so I've tried, you know, and I have tried to talk to her about it and I've said I, I've acknowledged it and and I think sometimes, because I acknowledge I don't feel the guilt anymore, I've discharged the guilt and the shame and all of that I mean not completely, but a lot of it and I feel it's okay to acknowledge I made mistakes and I made some terrible mistakes and I'm human and I'm still a good person and a good mother. But it's taken a while to come to that point.

Acknowledgment and Parental Guilt

Speaker 1 4:40

I don't know if you've Of course I understand exactly where you're coming from. For so long there was just this sense of needing to beat myself up, you know. There was just kind of this self-judgment that just would come upon me. And until such a point as I learned and it had to be pointed out to me that this isn't helping anybody, actually and truthfully, were you doing the very best with the tools that you had at the time? Everybody was exactly where they needed to be for us to learn what we needed to learn along the way, right? So, yeah, totally relate, you got me yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 5:11

And so when I deal with her father, you know I and his anger presented in things like there was a feeling of walking on eggshells in the house. You know there's times when she had adolescence and she was, you know, really rebelling and there was things said and things which she talks about being really damaging.

Speaker 1 5:32

Right saying those things. That's wonderful and it speaks volumes about your connection. Now.

Speaker 2 5:37

Yeah, and she'll say the things that damaged her. And I feel like I guess part of me wants him and he hasn't denied things, but you know, he hasn't wanted to acknowledge them or to process them or to, I think, ask forgiveness. I feel, in a way that I have because in his mind and I think often, you know, and this is part of the patriarchy right, I think for him he's either a good man or a bad man and for him to acknowledge that he did damage and to really ask for forgiveness means that he's a bad man in his mind. And so I struggle with this right. I struggle with that because I want and this is the problem I want them to repair and I want to feel like I have a partner that's on the path with me.

Speaker 2 6:29

Yeah, and that's not saying this is just who I am. I can't do more, you know, and part of it I don't know how, you know it's just wanting to not push back and you know, but part of me wants more. And then what you know and it's not my lane to be in, I know that it's not my job to expect anyone to change, yeah, but with your child involved, with your partner, it's hard it is. And then add your child, a high-risk child, and it's so hard to stay in your lane.

Speaker 1 7:00

It's really hard. You would know we're talking about this even before we jumped on camera, about how much this is all about letting go, and I hear you. There's a couple of things that spring to my mind and I travel the together. We are a unit of three and he has the most phenomenal tunnel vision to do with his work and how he shows up and it makes him borderline genius. It's incredible, right, that's incredible the the work he produces and how he shows up in the world and, at the same, that single-mindedness lends itself to a certain style of hands-off parenting.

When Parents Have Different Boundaries

Speaker 1 7:49

For sure, like you know, I sometimes have regarded myself as solo parent, more often than I'd like to mention, and, yeah, I'm hearing you, you know, saying, you know that it's not my lane. So the word that kept coming up and we've talked about it many times, is sovereignty. Again, it's a word that was, you know, introduced to me by Shefali and when she talks about the sovereignty of the child, of the young person. But then I was thinking about it when you were talking about, in our own right as mothers, our own sovereign, sovereign journey, um, what truly can we control? What are we supposed to control? Well, we know the answers, right. We know we've got to stay in our lane. We know that the only thing that we can truly control is ourselves.

Speaker 1 8:38

And yet we have the possibility of two people parenting consciously. You know, getting on this journey and doing the best that we can. There could be two of us doing that and they just aren't there. Just isn't Terrible English, and you know. And what about that? It's hard. And then I hear once again Dr Shefali saying it only takes one conscious parent. It only needs one conscious parent. Well, only takes one conscious parent. It only needs one conscious parent. Well, that's not saying I only need one conscious parent in this family. It's saying it only takes so that young person, that child is going to be in the world having an experience of mom and having an experience of dad, or mom and mom, or dad and dad, or whoever?

Speaker 1 9:21

it is that's involved in raising that child. They're going to have an experience of them all and that's their journey yes that's their story.

Speaker 1 9:28

Yeah, so for me to and I mean all the things, even though I know I did tell my child just to grow up a few days ago. You know there's things that this is not. This is not about always getting things right in inverted commas but doing my level best and doing the work and showing up the best way that I can, you know, repairing and working on myself. And then, yeah, my child will go to my husband and then have an experience of him and I've often come back and say, oh my god, mom, I can't believe it when he does this.

Speaker 2 9:57

Dad's just or you know, talked to me and didn't listen made me feel this big and what do you say, terry, when? When she says that?

Speaker 1 10:05

yeah, I'm glad you're right. They say that sorry.

Speaker 2 10:06

What do?

Speaker 1 10:07

you say, when they say that just a few days ago this happened and I and I just said oh well, I wonder, was that with dad to make him feel like that? You know, I wonder, I wonder. Well, he said something. It doesn't sound like dad to say the words you just said. I won't repeat them. I think you might have misheard him, but I don't know. And then later on I'm in the kitchen and dad's there and and my daughter's there and I said have you two figured things out? That's how I handled it. So what do you reckon to that?

Speaker 2 10:33

yeah, I think that's right and I like both what you. You didn't question her perception, but you asked a curious question I wonder what's up with dad? And then you clearly said when you're in the kitchen, have you two figured it out right? Which I love, because what I've found is that I mean two things. One is that you know we've talked before how we think you know the universe puts in our path what we need, and because I was so involved, when you say soul parenting, I completely relate to that and not trusting him to do it right and needing to do it myself, and also feeling being very comfortable in the role of rescuing people. It was, you know, perfect storm.

Speaker 2 11:17

But then you know she, she wanted to go to New York and dad's in New York, yeah, right. And so now they're there and they have to work it out. Right, they have to work it out, and, and I can't, yeah, I've told them. I said I think this is an opportunity I've said carefully because you know an opportunity for you to strengthen your relationship with your daughter, because I know if I and I know if I was there, it wouldn't happen Right, and so it's been good for me to learn to. I have to attach because I'm, you know whatever, thousands of miles away and you know, I've been thinking too around. You know what you said, around you just need one conscious parent. But the world is not conscious, right? The world is not behaving consciously, quite clearly, yeah, more and more every day. And so it's actually okay for them to have to experience that yeah, from someone they love, because that is life.

Speaker 1 12:12

And that's where you're learning some resilience, you would hope as well. So, where I might go in and soften everything and, coming from a background of helicoptering and disempowering and doing all of the things from a place of absolute love, thinking I need to protect my child, to suddenly recognizing they're a young adult in the making and, oh my god, I'm not sure how much they even know how to do and disempowering them to that degree then to suddenly be able to go.

Speaker 1 12:42

Oh, they're having a disagreement with their father and you know well that's kind of good, that's a kind of good wrestling ground, if you like, because they have been very sheltered. They have throughout their life been very sheltered, and I do feel it's necessary.

Speaker 2 12:58

So yeah, the world is tough, the world is tough and I sometimes can be tough with her or say my truth, which I think is hard for her to hear, not wanting to hear which which he can do as well, but I think, for whatever reason, his boundaries are much clearer than mine right, yes, right.

Speaker 2 13:17

And so if she starts mouthing off like she will, he just like, looks at her and like clearly with his, you know, don't cross, don't cross this line with me, I don't want to hear it, you know. And he's, he's right too, and so it's good. It's good because with me she knows that I sometimes will. Just, you know, I struggled more with that because I know where it's coming from and sometimes, you know, I, we don't have that relationship where she's I don't know. But it's not initially fear, but it's just a different dynamic that's really so.

Speaker 1 13:50

Mine's slightly different.

Speaker 1 13:52

My husband I'm sure he won't mind me saying this because he does, he's fully aware of it, but he definitely he does show up with a significant amount of passive aggression.

It Only Takes One Conscious Parent

Speaker 1 14:04

You know, if things aren't going his way like, oh boy, we all know about it, or there's just a stony silence. And of course, for a very long time this triggered me to the max because growing up I had a father who was silent and it was quite deliberate and unkind, his silence, and I used to say you can cut the atmosphere with a knife in our, my growing up household. So there was a lot of trauma, revisited for a long time in our, in our marriage. But then what I witness now is him kind of giving my daughter a response, or even a non-response, because he's just so sort of focused on what he's doing, or my child's interpretation of that gets all thwarted. And you know, for a long time there was a part of me just going, oh my God, oh my God, you know I need to just make this better. A part of me just going, oh my God, oh my God. You know I need to just make this better.

Speaker 2 14:56

Oh, you know once again that codependent part of me that was just, and your total, complete discomfort in those moments was what you wanted to relieve at all costs.

Speaker 1 15:02

I needed to make that better, and so I would take my husband to task. I would take my husband to task, I'd sit him down and do all the things and the course of friction, and I'm much more comfortable with it these days in the sense of like, oh, you know what, you know. It's not because I hated it, because my mom always used to say when I was growing up well, you know what your dad's like, and it wasn't acceptable. What my dad was doing was cruel, it was abhorrent. It was a lot of things that he did that were just not OK. And my mom was going well, you know what he's like, almost as if you can't help it. He's a bit disabled, like that, you know that was not.

Speaker 2 15:37

you know, you just have to put up with it and there's just work around it and nothing you can do. Yeah, yeah. Which is not. Is is not a is is the wrong message as well. That's not healthy.

Speaker 1 15:47

So for me to actually take those words on took a lot, but when I was able to separate myself from my past experiences and actually look at what was truly going on in our household, there was this gentle kind man who's quite distractible and very single-minded, little passive-aggressive because, you know, he doesn't. He's not so great at speaking his feelings, and I've got a daughter who's quite sensitive, very sensitive, but, you know, not getting what she needs from him, and it's okay. It's okay because once my husband has it pointed out to him that here's your child's understanding of what just happened, you know he would be mortified. Oh god, you know. Okay, yeah, let me do something about that. I can't always do that in the moment, but that might be something we reflect upon at bedtime or something, and then, you know, the next day just check in with our daughter and then it would be you know, and by that point, my daughter's so over it already she's.

Speaker 1 16:45

There's nothing to repair, it's just, yeah, like you know. So I can say well, you know what your dad's like you know, which still would leave it open for her to tell me anything that wasn't okay, I hope I think you know a couple things.

Speaker 2 16:59

I think you know we're talking this. We have a family therapist. We were talking a little bit about this as well the last session, but, yeah, you know, I think that you waiting, I mean there's still a need to reflect back, yeah, what you're seeing in terms of you know, I think there's a value to sharing that information at a time when the person can hear it yeah, you know, it sounds like your husband is. There is an openness to that there's an openness.

Speaker 1 17:25

But it's interesting because in the past I would have been trying to deal with that in the moment, exactly what you say, and it was a whole load of charge going on and I in everybody, everybody's a little dysregulated, and then I'm trying to bring in some hey, you can't talk to each other like that, you know some kind of non-wisdom, but just some, me trying to impart some instruction almost.

Speaker 1 17:44

But now what I notice is when I can bring it, when I do bring it it's just a natural, organic kind of conversation, without the emotion attached, but really just dealing in facts. Hey, by the way, you know, yesterday I don't know exactly what happened there was an altercation in the kitchen Eden just mentioned to me she thought you said this and she was pretty upset. And then you go oh, I didn't say that, you know, and then it would be okay. You know, it's just facts. Here you go, have that on the plate. I've got no opinion about it. There's no judgment. I'm not telling you what to do, but it's like here, this happened.

Speaker 2 18:19

That was what you know just so you're aware, right, and I think, in my case, I don't think my husband wants me to know when he is listening to my suggestions. I mean I have to really disguise them as suggestions, because it's a real resistance, because he's taking it as a critique of who he is and how he's parenting, and it's hard, he struggles to get past that and that's just the reality.

Communicating Without Judgment

Speaker 1 18:44

It's hard, yeah you know, it just brought up something that, just you know, I learned very recently and I know I've shared this with you already, so forgive me repeating myself but, just because we're recording this, the idea that when we've got something that we really feel uncomfortable with, that we really feel needs to be shared.

Speaker 1 19:05

One thing that I was taught very recently about how to share that, which which just absolutely changed the way I do things now, um, which is just to be able to say, okay, there's, you know, something's coming up for me and I want you to know that this is not, this is all mine, I don't need you to do anything, I don't need you to change anything. But I had an experience recently, like when you did this, I felt all of these things and I can say all the things and it's all mine, I don't need you to do anything, I'm owning it, but it you know, I needed to just share that with you, that that was what happened for me when this situation presented. And then I'm not needing to ask him to do anything or to change anything, but you know he has his own process and he has his own sensibilities about it, because, in the same way we can't teach our kids right? We can't teach we certainly can't do that or a partner's anything, right? We're all adults, so nobody wants to be taught, right? But then they're loving parents. They adore their kids in their own way, they have their own way of showing up, but then there's a process that they need to go through upon receiving that information and it's all theirs. What do you feel about that?

Speaker 1 20:17

That?

Speaker 2 20:18

Yeah, I like. I mean I like it. I think, I think it's worth trying and I've tried versions of that. I think sometimes, no matter what, he takes it as a critique right, he thinks it's like a disguise.

Speaker 2 20:30

Yeah, yeah, I thought that you know. But I think it's really important to share that kind of the charge behind is is your own stuff, is your own, your own fear, your own expectations, your own whatever, and share that and I think it assists, like with our kids, in developing their own process. So I absolutely agree with that magic sentence.

Speaker 1 20:50

Yes, he was, I don't need you to do or change anything. And then it's still a part of me when I say I love that. Yeah, I do. I really really do need you to change something. There's a part of me that will still show I love that. But in experimenting with this, what I learned was once I'd said it, that just disappeared from me. Once I'd said those words, here's how it makes me feel. Then that charge just got released and I was like, oh, there's one particular thing I can tell you about that.

Speaker 1 21:20

My husband really, really annoyed me with something. I was, oh, raging inside. I was so mad and I sat with it for five minutes and I was seizing inside, I was so. So I'm not saying that's where you're at, but you know, I was in a moment. Oh, yes, everything, okay, well, we're in human, um, and I had all of this inside of me and I breathed, and I breathed, and I breathed, and I'd only very recently learned this, had this teaching, so I thought I'd just try it, and I just tried it and I said this isn't yours, this is mine and I don't need you to do anything.

Speaker 1 21:56

Those are the key words yeah, and I said I love that when you, when you did blah, blah, blah, I felt like you disrespected me. I felt like you disregarded our child. I felt like you. I said all of the things I was still able to say, all of the things. I felt this. Now, this isn't yours, this is I know, this is my process, but I need you to know and I don't need you to do anything about it. And that was it, and you already said. He said oh, thank you for telling me that, because I felt like I'd just gone, but I got all of that anger out of me. But what was really interesting was I got his feedback about that, him receiving that, and he he really did not take any of it personally and he realized that next time we're in that situation he'll probably do it a bit differently or he'll address things.

Speaker 2 22:49

Yeah, I love that, I love that and I love that. I particularly love the sentence around I don't need you to do anything, yeah differently.

Speaker 2 22:57

I think that's for you and for them. I think, too, it's important to just to also highlight that sometimes there is a need to take action and sometimes you know because I have, I'm sure you do too I've had clients that are. It is, of course, not our position to say at all what they need to do, or but there's probably a value in them stepping back and assessing the degree of harm being caused by staying in the relationship or staying having the child in vicinity of the parent. Right, yeah, right, and you know and this is something that she always says like, our first duty as a parent is, you know, to protect our kids, to step in when, when they are, as they are, vulnerable beings yeah, need to be protected, and to really assess that, because sometimes we can justify and you know a lot of things and sometimes there is a need just to step out and step back.

Speaker 1 23:56

And that's a really.

Speaker 2 23:57

So just to.

Setting Boundaries for Safety

Speaker 1 23:58

Yeah, I mean just discerning what those red flags are. Now it's interesting, isn't it? Because I don't believe those red flags are personal. I think they're not different for every household. You know, at the end of the day, it's a threat to physical safety. Yeah, if there's violence, if there's if there's violence, if there's abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse we've got to discern and in those moments, if you're a parent in a situation like that, yeah, what's coming up for you? Right? Where's your fear in all of that? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid for your child or are you afraid for all of the feelings that you've got going on? That might pertain to some other experiences you had in your childhood, as to why you're staying put. Right, that's a huge topic, right, but yeah, it's important to just for us to just lay that one down just to kind of highlight that.

Speaker 2 24:53

yeah well, terry, thank you for your processing with me and your experiences and wisdom I really appreciate it, my lovely, my you too.

Speaker 1 25:02

I get so much from you and every one of our conversations. You're amazing. Yeah Well, thank you If anybody's listening. Thank you, okay, here's the legal stuff. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. We are not licensed therapists and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. See you next time.