Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Today’s podcast episode is going to be a little different little unique in the sense that as somebody’s dealing with people’s problems, and somebody’s doing it for a long amount of time, sometimes it crosses my mind that, yeah, I’ve seen it all. It’s kind of an ego position. I’ve seen it all. Yeah, you know, human problems, are more or less identical. And yeah, if you stay in any profession for a long amount of time, you pretty much know it all. And right, when I’m about to make that conclusion, in my mind, I have encountered events and situations that have completely stopped me and challenged me to think differently. And this recent consultation with this individual is something like that. So I want to share the backstory, I want to share this because there are chances that you are in this, or maybe somebody who you know, is in this, and I’m sure this will help.
So this is the story of two brothers and one mother. And the younger brother reached out to me with a unique situation that he’s going through in his 40s. And he had a situation where he thinks that he does a lot for his parents, both his mom and dad. And for some reason, the mother supports the elder brother. In every conversation, in every discussion, the elder brother gets the credit. And the elder brother’s wife gets the credit. And despite him and his wife, taking care of both the parents, Mom and Dad, and the moment that lives with the younger brother, this individual, the younger brother, who reached out to me was emotionally very down and really beaten up because this has been going on for a long amount of time.
Now, every time a family conflict happens like this, the problems kind of go a step down, and he’s concerned about reaching out because his children now are also resenting this behavior. So I was speaking to him. And midway in the conversation, I said, Is it okay, if I talk to your parents, because I was at that point, he was calling in with his personal problem. But then he didn’t even say that to me. And he started saying that he is down. And he is having fights with his family. And that our disagreements, and as I started going, questioning him deeper, at some point, he revealed that one of the causes is the lack of attribution from the mom towards everything that as a family he does, or the white as a couple they do for her. And instead, she attributes everything to the elder brother and his wife. I hope you get the scenario now. When this came up, I said, I’m going to talk to the mom to the parents, which I did. So typical, let me give you a brief understanding of why this happens, why there is this conflict, the sibling conflict, where you see we call the sibling resentment, when, you know, one resents the other. It happens primarily because of the parenting styles, and also because the parents did not do the conflict resolution properly between the siblings. And the parents lack conflict resolution skills. And the parents have raised the children through a certain cultural, heavyweight. So in that culture, that’s how children are raised. So they don’t really, you know, it’s by default, it just happened that way. Because the conflicts were never resolved. And the individual treatments are different, or each kid was treated individually differently. There is no fairness because there is no fairness. One of the siblings, usually complains, and then it seems the other gets the benefit. Usually, that’s how this plays out. That was my thinking. Maybe that has happened. So when I got on a call with the parents, it took a while for me for them to open up because it was odd something like this happening without their knowledge. So allowed the son to prepare them. And then I got on a call with them. Now on the call, I found out something that I was not aware of.
First of all, I got them to an agreement frame that listens to your son’s feelings this way. Is it true? Interestingly, the mom said, Yes, I understand. And I understand why he is resenting. And he occasionally is angry at me. And I see that anger. But Srini, this anger, I can take. But I cannot overcome the pain and the suffering My elder son went through many, many years ago, so I’m trying to compensate for that along the way, as I’m trying to compensate for that it’s okay for me to take the Sanger. And I was totally shocked by her answer. And here is how she explained this. And this is a very important part, I want you to listen to this, because, again, as I said, maybe somebody who you know, might be going through this, and if it is this going to help, if not, I understand. years ago, Srini, I was I had trouble in my relationships. And as I was having disagreements with my husband, and I was taking a lot that was being put over me by his family, I did not give enough attention to my eldest son, he was growing up. And because of that, he was trying to solve the conflict between me and my husband and the other family members. As a result of that, he was in tremendous pain, the younger one was very young. As we were trying to resolve this, I ignored my son, my husband ignored my son. And he took a lot of beating, he took a lot of suffering. And eventually, when things started settling, in a way, if you asked me, we used our son, my eldest son, as a therapist, and today, 25 years later, 30 years later, we continue to do that. And the reason why I am too, you know, more compassionate towards him is that I want to undo everything that we did, unknowingly to him, when he was not supposed to be going through that. And we did a poor job by the kind of doing this in the open. So he took the beating because he was older. And today, the reason why I’m little, you know, compassionate towards him and his wife, obviously, my son, but my daughter-in-law, because I don’t want him to mimic or kind of take on everything that happened in our lives. And that getting spilled over into his personal life.
So if I keep them happy and treat them right, then maybe this won’t happen the same way. Whatever happened to me and to my husband, that won’t happen to him and his family. And when I do this, you know, I said, Listen, you understand the pattern here. But you’re trying to overcompensate for something that happened to you many years ago, in the process, you’re taking away that which is being done to you, even this is irrelevant, you need to come up with a balance. So at that point, I got the younger son on the call, and explained, fought this happen. And this is a pattern through which both the parents have lived a majority of their life and explained to the younger one that this pattern is not going to change, it’s very difficult to change the pattern and primarily, may involve a lot of intervention. And it’s very difficult to overnight change the association that the subconscious filiation in the mind of the parents towards the eldest son, primal, the mother towards the eldest son, it is very difficult to disassociate that affiliation. So one way to overcome that is to have an honest conversation between the three, we couldn’t get the eldest son on a call. But then the problem has to dissolve the eldest son’s side also, which is maybe the eldest son is taking advantage of these conversations and thinks that he has a bigger position in this now, in the relationship. Ideally, nobody has a bigger, better positioning in the relationship if everybody is struggling, and I was trying to convey to the elder son that the struggle also belongs to you, not only to the mom and the younger brother.
The reason why I’m sharing this today is that this is something that you might be going through, as I said, maybe somebody who you know might be going through. If it is, then I want you to do me a favor. Write a comment if you’re watching this on YouTube. If you are listening to this as a podcast, write a review. And if you resolve this problem in your life, how did you resolve it before without shutting yourself down, because this was something the younger brother told me. So I’m about to shut myself down, cut off everyone, and be done with all this. And but I thought I would reach out to you and talk to you because I’ve heard you talk about this on your radio shows. As of today, after, this was about four weeks ago, three weeks ago, as of today, they’re still together, they’re still talking. And they’re still in sync with each other. It takes time to kind of, you know, now that the conversation is in the public. It’s open, everybody’s talking.
So there is progress, but then it takes a while to heal. What did you do to overcome a challenge like this? Or do you know anybody who overcome it? Who did overcome this challenge or a similar channel like this? And what did they do? Share it because if you’re watching this on YouTube, there are other people who might be listening to this. And they may benefit from this also. And that’s all for now. Hopefully, today’s podcast episode is helpful. It’s a completely different story altogether, a different approach and different, you know, narrative that I was trying to present today, hoping that this helps. That’s all for now. Wherever you are, be safe, and I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Stay tuned.