Why do I stay in the middle?

Some accuse me of taking sides (I try not to). I want people to understand why taking a side is generally not useful in my goal of trying to help people reconcile. 

Doc David

Transcript

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People will often tell me I need to take a side when it comes to family estrangement. Here are the reasons that I don't take a side. You are listening to Ed Drinking, your answers to life, relationships, and daily living. Hey, first of all, thank you for listening. I appreciate you taking the time to either download this or listen on your way to work or whatever you're doing. I appreciate that. So on social media, I will make videos about estranged parents and about estranged adult children. And inevitably, when I do that, uh someone that doesn't know my content will come in and say, You're taking a side. Of course you are. You're one of those unethical therapists, etc. I've heard different variations of this. And then I will say typically how it goes, like, I don't take sides. And then I will have some people who know me who have followed my content for a period of time. Um they will post under me or under this other person that says I'm taking a side. Like, actually, he doesn't take a side, he works to not take a side, et cetera, et cetera. And I do, I literally do believe that not taking a side in um parental child estrangement is the best way to um help a parent and an adult child reconcile their relationship. And so I wanted today today, today, I wanted to talk about some of the reasons why I think um it's important to stay more or less in the middle. Now I get that um some of my contact content doesn't seem like that, but that would be for another podcast, I suppose, on why I make the content that I make. Um and it's not to pick on a side, it's it's about behavior, but we can talk about that later. Um, but I think it's I think staying in in the middle or maintaining some kind of neutrality um is really um crucial when it when the goal is to help people reconcile. Um and here's a couple of reasons why I think it's essential to stay in the middle. Now, again, you obviously can disagree with me, and I think there's gonna be some times that staying in the middle is just not doable. Um, you know, obviously, if there's some kind of domestic violence taking place, I would never condone domestic violence. Um, if parental alienation is happening, I'm not gonna condone parental alienation. So obviously it's not a hard and fast rule, but it's it's my default. My default is that I want to try to um maintain some kind of neutrality in the middle. And I, and you know, I've even thought about this, and there's no way to prove it, so you're just gonna have to trust me when I say this. Um, there are some haters that I have online. I just was in a TikTok live today where I was saying, I am an acquired taste. I don't know what that taste is. I was thinking sour grape. Is that the taste that I might would I taste like? I have no idea. But people in the live did agree with me. They said, when I first saw your content, I was like, what is this guy talking about? And then they watched more of it and then they got used to it and like, oh, he's not so bad. And I don't have to agree with everybody on everything, right? Um, but I think that um I can't prove this, but there's people, detractors of mine that are online that either block me or they consistently um come into my comments and they say rude things, or they say rude things on other people's comp uh videos about me. And I legitimately, like if if one of those um estranged parent content creators came to me, DM'd me privately, and said, Um, I need help. I have an opportunity to reconcile with my kid. Will you help me? I absolutely would help them. Because I don't get caught up in the name calling, I don't get caught up in the demeaning, in the defamation, I don't get caught up in that because that's none of my concern. Sure, it irritates me occasionally, but ultimately, if a if a person came to me wanting help, I would help them, even if um they had posted negative things about me on social media. And um, I can't prove that, but I'm telling you that I honestly feel that way. And I could name some names of people, but I won't. Um, but if you know any of if you follow me at all and you follow the estrangement world, you'll know some of the creators that absolutely loathe me. And I would help those people because I want recon I want people to be happy in their relationships. I want parents to be able to reconcile with their kids. I want kids to be able to reconcile with parents. So let's get back to why I think that staying in the middle is an essential thing. One, I think it it builds trust and safety. Um, people are more likely to share their true feelings um and concerns if they know that the therapist, mediator, coach, or whatever, whoever they're interacting with, is unbiased and won't play favorites. And I I like to think that I tend to be unbiased in these instances and not play favorites because again, my goal is to help a relationship reconcile. It's not to curry favor with one person over the other person. My singular goal is to help people reconcile their relationships. And so I say this consistently because I want people to trust that if they were to ever work with me, they can trust that that's what I'm going to be doing. Um and I think that again, a lot of my detractors will take one video that I make and then say, oh, this means that you're against whatever side I'm you know opposing in that video. And that's just not true. So it builds trust and safety. Um, I also think that a third party that stays in the middle helps reduce the emotional escalation that can take place between people. Um, because if I can stay balanced, like if I'm working with two people that are on opposite ends of a spectrum or have been hurt and need to have that hurt um be accountable, have accountability around whatever the hurt was. Um, I think that uh a person in the middle staying balanced becomes really helpful to two volatile people on both sides. Um it can diffuse tension. And usually if you take the side, it just validates the anger and escalates the divide and it creates more problems than anything else. So I view it as reducing the emotional escalation um between the relationship. I think it promotes fairness because I think a lot of times what I the stories I hear about um couples in particular, when couples come working, work with me and they say, We had this one counselor, and and I'll say, Well, why did you leave that counselor? And they say, Well, he was she was a woman, and I thought she took my wife's side, or the wife will say, Um, he took my husband's side, and I didn't like that. And so, again, I mean, I think staying in the middle and being active about it and talking about it consistently, and then showing it practically um in your behavior, it promotes a fairness so that um the conflicts that are showing up aren't like these battles. I gotta win, I gotta win this battle because I don't feel like my side is being heard. Um, being in the middle ensures that there's a balance again between parties and that if you can trust the person in the middle that when if you have an issue to share, you can trust that this person that is in the middle is going to hear you out fairly. Whereas some therapists and some other people aren't able to do that because they have their own biases and things like that. Um, I think a middle party person also helps guide a process that can be really confusing to a parent and a child because there's years of hurt, let's say, and they don't know where to start, they don't know how to um go through this. And I'm doing this with a family right now, and uh the route that I kind of look at it as a route, the route that I started to travel with these parents and their estranged daughter was very different than what the parents wanted to do. Um, and so I I asked them just to trust the process because I think you have to do you have to trust the process. Like I have been trained to do this, and there's a route that I want to take that I think is best. And a lot of times people have a hard time trusting that process because they that's why they're usually in the place that they're at, because they think they know what's best. And usually what they think no, whether it's the parent or the estranged child, what they thought was best has just created more damage ultimately. So I think if you do take sides, and again, if that's what you choose to do, that's your issue to to figure out and to navigate and to articulate. Um all I need to articulate is kind of my perspective on trying to not take a side in the estranged parent-child battles that take on. But again, you'll find content creators that seem to very clearly take a side. Um and what's interesting is is the the bigger bigger ones that I've seen in the estrangement space, they don't they don't come out and say I'm taking a side. Like I'm coming out and saying to you, the listener, that I'm not taking a side. Um, I don't think it's useful. But I don't hear the estranged content creators um that are the helpers. Uh I don't see them say that I'm taking the parent side. I just see it as evidenced by the videos they make. You'll see a video that's obviously throwing the estranged parent under the bus consistently. That that's the video they make consistently. And estranged parents see that and they get that, and then you'll see the other side. Um, but it's funny, those those content creators never say, like, I'm taking aside. They just do it with their videos, I guess. Um, but the risk of taking aside is that you just you risk becoming another target in the conflict, um and uh and that the people will just move on from you ultimately. Um you show your biases if it causes role confusion, it risks the relationships, you won't be trusted. Um and and I think people can feel it. Like there's an unspoken, you vibe it from people. Um and so that's why trust becomes like a really essential component of reconciliate the reconciliation process. Um the um the other thing is like you become a you create this triangle, like triangulation, that would be another podcast that we can talk about in the future. Um if you don't, if you get out of the middle, you take a side, which then is a bad thing. Because ultimately, there is a triangle happening with you and these two other parties, but you are not emotionally, and when I say you, me, I am not emotionally invested to the point where I'm gonna pick a side. I'm just invested in reconciliation. And so again, that's why I think it becomes important to keep your biases at the door, to create an um atmosphere of trust between you and the people that are um coming to you for help. So that's a little bit of why um I I mean I I could go into like a deeper nuance of it. And I think I often think when I when I think about reconciliation, I think about what what in my upbringing created this idea that I want to stay in the middle for people. And I can't particularly point to anything in my upbringing, but I can point to this idea that um peacefulness is just a better way to exist in the world, in my opinion. And so I want everyone to have peace from the small little mom-dad child relationship to countries. I just want everyone to have peace because ultimately I think if peacefulness reigns, life is just so much better. It's it's a much easier um path for people to go forward on, is through peace. And I mean, from a country perspective, I mean, you look at what war does to countries, and it's just it's horrific. And I I think I wrote a book called Relationship Reconnected that is all about communicate, communicating in a way that creates peacefulness. Um and so shameless plug for myself, relationship reconnected. You can get it on Amazon. Um, but ultimately I try to think, okay, where can I have some impact? And I think the impact that I've chosen to kind of focus in on is relationships, parenting relationships with their kids that are um estranged or awry in some way. So that's a little bit about my perspective on why I don't take sides, and I firmly believe that, and I will consistently say that that I don't take sides. Um, generally speaking, I obviously, like I said before, there's gonna be times that I do take sides, but it's gonna have to be pretty hor something pretty horrendous where I will take a side. Um, but generally most of the time I will not. I would love any questions, comments you have. Feel free to leave them or email me them. But um, if you don't have any, thank you for listening and have a great evening.