Learning More About Mental Freedom

I had a really interesting situation with my mother-in-law over the weekend that I didn’t write about.  We were talking about my father-in-law and she said that she thought that my husband was so lucky to not had to wonder if he was loved by his father and how he really didn’t have a lot of unresolved issues.  It was awkward for me because I see things differently.

But of course I almost instinctually agreed with her.  I tried not to, but I didn’t want to pick a fight.  I was disappointed because I felt roped into protecting her from feeling bad, the same thing I did all the time with my family, but I also kind of knew that this was just a bad situation to be in.  We only had a few hours left of our visit, I could be so misunderstood if I didn’t explain myself well, and I sure didn’t want to upset the apple cart.  I thought about it later and I realized that if there was a good time in the future I could imagine myself revisiting the topic easily by saying something like – you know when we talked about this, well, I was uncomfortable disagreeing with you at the time but I think actually…

It would probably be INSANE to try to revisit this with my mother-in-law but I value being real so much that I would consider it if the right opportunity emerged.  I was sad that I couldn’t say what I think because it did kind of feel like she might enjoy having things be turned upside down a bit.  My sense is that she might be able to cope with a little bit more real-ness.

Talking to Andrea today, I realized that I am really glad that I did agree with her.  Andrea asked me what I would have liked to have said instead, and I realized that I just wished that the whole situation had never emerged!  It was enough for me to say to her that I thought she should ask my husband for what would help her rather than wait for him to offer.  We shared a real moment together.  That was good.  We probably don’t have enough relationship history for me to not have agreed with her on the first point.

To help me understand what happened in that interaction, Andrea told me about some research that’s been done around relationships where they have been able to predict what will happen when people give other people certain cues or make bids.  She says it’s like we’re pre-programmed to respond in predictably in certain ways with reassurance, agreement, etc.

Practice knowing yourself, psychotherapy, and/or really great parenting/education/cultural surroundings, can help a person have more mental freedom to actually make choices rather than just have those automatic responses to bids that other people make hoping to get a specific response.

So what was happening for me in that moment was that I could recognize that she wanted me to reassure her and I was instinctively responding to her in that way.  I was able to know that I didn’t agree, but I wasn’t entirely free to choose how I wanted to respond, including what what I did choose – to humor her.

I probably did the best thing in the end.   But it’s really interesting to have the chance to be aware that I can make choices.