Chapter 14 - I Had to Stop Being Mission Control
My own therapy surprised me.
I expected to discuss:
fear,
anger,
Ethan.
Instead my therapist kept asking about:
control.
I hated that.
Because after an accident caused partly by someone ignoring safety, telling the safety-focused parent to examine control feels:
insulting.
But she was careful.
“Your systems saved your family many times.”
“Then why change?”
“I didn’t say abandon them.”
She continued.
“What happens when another adult refuses the system?”
“I compensate.”
“How?”
“I check.”
“Correct.”
“Remind.”
“Redo.”
“Move things.”
“Lock things.”
“And then?”
“I resent them.”
Exactly.
I had turned competence into:
substitution.
If Ethan forgot:
I remembered.
If he was careless:
I corrected.
If he resisted:
I created another system.
This allowed us to avoid:
consequences
and:
honest evaluation of partnership.
The magnet cabinet demonstrated the limit.
I could not design a lock strong enough to compensate for a co-parent who believed the lock itself was insulting.
Eventually the issue was not:
hardware.
It was:
agreement.
So I changed too.
Not by becoming:
less careful.
By refusing to quietly absorb:
someone else’s responsibilities.
If Ethan owned:
school pickup,
he owned it.
I did not remind him five times.
If he forgot:
he handled the consequence.
If we disagreed about safety:
we resolved it explicitly.
No:
quiet workaround.
No:
Mom locks it later.
Sometimes conflict increased.
Short term.
Trust improved.
May you like
Long term.
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