Of Course Momma's Gonna Help Build the Wall

Some Context

Jake and Sarah met while she was working at the IGA (ain’t that a blast from the past?) in the late 1980s as a cashier, and Jake was working as a heating and refrigeration apprentice. He was installing refrigeration units in the back, and went on a snack run to the front of the store. He approached Sarah's register, grub in hand. After some light small-talk, the brazen Jake asked Sarah out on a date.

“Oh no, I’m sorry; I have a boyfriend.” Sarah was currently dating Kyle, a drug-dealing local metal guitarist. He never trimmed his fingernails for two reasons: it made guitar shredding easier, and it helped disguise a surreptitious coke nail. Jake, full of the bravado of youth, remained audacious. “What’s he got to do with you and me?”

What snack did Jake pick on this fateful afternoon? I’m afraid that has been lost to time (although they were most likely TastyKakes). Jake's question has been mythologized as the initial germination of what would eventually become a decades-spanning, loving marriage between two caring, gracious people: my parents. Then they got divorced.

Sarah had been ensnared in a trap many others found themselves in throughout the mid- 2000s: opioid addiction. Jake had also found himself in a position shared by many others: working 70 hours a week to support a wife and two kids amid the worst recession the United States had seen in decades. This equation was out of balance. A sickly Sarah, unknowingly addicted to prescription pills, remained at home while Jake worked double-time to supplement a lost second income. At this point in her addiction, Sarah was able to work. Each attempt to raise herself above the NEET lifestyle (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) was short-lived. A semester or two at a local community college here, a brief office job there, but nothing stuck.

As her prescriptions began to run low, her health suffered a devastating blow. She was diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a one-in-a-million disorder where she was struck with painful, debilitating seizure-like “episodes” multiple times a day. The prescriptions came back in force, and with them, addiction. Her diseases progressed to the point where she is no longer able to drive and is extremely sensitive to bright lights, loud noises, and crowds.

Sarah, ultimately a victim of systems larger than herself, had her personality warped by disease (of the pill variety as well as the neurological and autoimmune). Vibrant, caring, doe-eyed Sarah had lost her footing and slipped into a ravine of emotional vampirism, gaslighting, and narcissism. This is the version of Sarah I’ve spent most of my life calling Mom. She remains there at the bottom of that ravine today, sucking down cigarettes and Diet Coke until the cows come home.

Eventually Jake and Sarah separated in 2015. Their eldest daughter was in her third year at college, and their son was about to begin high school. Divorce papers were served, although they were tabled after some discussion as divorce was deemed unnecessary. Things were amicable; their son was thought old enough to handle such an emotional relational milestone such as divorce. Jake agreed to pay her rent and give money for groceries, so as far as alimony went they were good to go. Sarah remains a stipendiary invalid to this day. I spent every Saturday night and Sunday morning-afternoon-evening at my mom’s house, which was on the same block as my grandma, her mother. The house Sarah had actually moved into was her childhood home.

And boy, did I hate it.

Once I got my license, that was over. Thanks to therapy and a supportive family, I had recognized the toxicity in our relationship early enough to where by my teenage years, I had a pretty good grasp on the mental toll it had taken. My dad saw and recognized this too (hence the separation), but in a misguided “traditional Irish-Catholic” (as he would often proclaim) effort, he placed the sacred bond of family above all else and tried his best to facilitate the regrowth of the relationship between my mom and me. Since then, my relationship with her has been distant to the point of almost no-contact.

After my sister Alyssa’s wedding in October 2018, Sarah served Jake again (nobody is quite sure the reason as to why this timing was chosen), but the reason it didn’t progress was that Jake simply couldn’t afford it. I still lived under his roof and he was saving to put me through college.

In August 2020, the third and final nail was put in the coffin. Third time’s a charm! The breaking of the news went as smoothly as one could have asked for. The two of them called my sister and me (at the time, 26 and 19 years old respectively) together to announce the divorce. We had asked our questions, heard both sides, and reaffirmed to our parents that we loved them just the same. Jake was able to afford the alimony requested by Sarah (although more than what he was currently giving her), and they agreed on a monthly dollar amount without the use of lawyers. Both were as satisfied as they possibly could be with the death of their first and only marriages.

That was until Sarah, unprompted, decided to lawyer up. She had altered the deal. Not only did she ask for more alimony, but also had her lawyer request Jake's tax returns as well as a total itemization of everything he had come to own since he had married Sarah in 1991, as she (or at least her lawyer) felt entitled to 50% of it all. Jake was no longer a small-time HVAC apprentice, but had come to purchase and rent out multiple properties, acquire thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of tools and construction equipment, own several cars and trucks, create and manage several companies, and purchase, rehab, and refurnish the house he currently lives in. All of this was now in jeopardy due to the shark hired by my dear old sickly mom. She also put in writing that he had “verbally, psychologically, and physically” abused her throughout the 30 years of their marriage. Was he a perfect husband? No. Was he a perfect father? No. Did he ever raise his voice or raise his hand to his wife? Not one time in 30 years. These were lies.

Lyss and I had talked things out with my dad, and he laid out the situation for us, from the first two divorce servings up to the itemization of his assets. The winding story made sense. It was a story of a wife feeling entitled to more than she deserved in the midst of a divorce. This was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry. He rested his head in his hands, supported by two forearms hardened into concrete by decades of tool-swinging. A real man’s man, robotically out of touch with his emotions, forced out through tears how some days he regrets ever meeting my mom. I can’t say I blame him.

We had asked him who, what, when, where, how, and why. We had covered our bases, but also felt it necessary to reach out to our mom for her side of the story. It’s only fair, right?

The Reticent Raconteur

It is August 2020. I’ve been in therapy for the past decade because of the relationship I had and currently have with my mom. I’ve kept this from her the entire time (not the therapy, but her being the reason for it), as I wasn’t sure how to broach the topic of her manipulation crossing my childhood wires (maybe even permanently) without her deflecting or trying to pass the buck or blame my dad or claim I’m misremembering or try to change the subject or make me feel guilty for my emotions or lie outright or twist my words or victimize herself or try to distract me with coddling or blame her illness (Stiff Person Syndrome, not addiction), or tell me I don’t and can’t and never will understand her struggles. I had gone there to sit down with my mom to explain some things just one-on-one, without anyone else. Just her and me.

Needless to say, this conversation weighed on me pretty heavily. I arrived there to confront her about the psychological toll my toxic relationship with her had taken, and was faced with all of those tactics and more.

It started out with the usual routine: “I love you, Ry. I’d never lie to you, not like your father. I’m your mom and I’ll always be honest with you!” Then came some new material. New, albeit not unexpected: “I don’t remember that happening, are you sure?” Now we were retreating back to familiar territory: “There are things you just don’t know about. Things that went on when you weren’t around.” Abruptly, I had become a kid again:

“You don’t want your father to yell at me, do you?”

I am no longer sitting on the floor; I am no longer wearing a mask, no longer six feet apart, no longer giving her dog a belly rub, no longer confronting her. It is no longer 2020. I am suddenly ten years old. We are in the garage of my childhood home. She is sitting on a step, chain smoking, and I am standing in front of her. We are face-to-face. I am inhaling her secondhand smoke and her secondhand contempt for my father. I don’t know any better, and trust that what I’m being told is the truth. Dad works a lot so I don’t see him much, so what Mom tells me goes on between them has to be true. I am comforting her after a spat they (allegedly) had that night. She claims he yelled and screamed at her until she had been driven to tears. But something doesn’t seem right. I address this.

“You know, that doesn’t really sound like Dad.”

Sarah takes a drag of the third cigarette of what would end up being six in that sitting. She is not looking at me. She gazes at the wall, but is really looking beyond, toward the horizon on the other side. Silence and cigarette smoke fills the room; I am within a visual and perceptual haze. I know better than to make these kinds of claims.

Sarah knows she’s been caught in a deceptive act. Maybe it was a lie, or a bending of the truth. It doesn’t really matter. She is on the defensive, holding her cards close, trying to get a good gauge of the opposition. It’s multilayered, however. Not only is she fishing for information, but she’s also buying time to think of how to twist whatever the claim is to benefit herself. I am not old nor perceptive enough to notice such furtive behavior. Like the broken record she has become, my mom offers the same accusatory response:

“Oh yeah? What’s he been telling you?”

Suddenly, I am no longer 10 years old, nor am I confronting my mom about my trauma. I am again on the floor, rubbing the belly of my mom’s anxious, but sweet dog. Her tail is wagging and she’s looking up at me with big brown bug-eyes, the telltale sign of a chihuahua mix. She is looking at me from upside-down, and I see her little teeth poking out from under her snout. My lungs are empty of cigarette smoke, and my chest is empty of contempt. A weak, gray sea foam of sadness and frustration laps against the shores of my heart. It is late-August 2020, maybe two weeks or so after my recent confrontation with Sarah. Lyss and her husband, Dan, got to my mom’s house first. I was the slowest car on the road that day. We have broached the subject of Sarah and Jake's divorce, and we're in the middle of the conversation. Lyss had made the same assertion I have been making for the past decade. What has been said about our dad doesn’t line up with any of our own personal experiences with him, or what he told us was true.

“We’re here for your side of the story. What Dad said is not important.” My sister, God bless her, was fortunate enough to have been too old for my mom’s manipulative crap during my childhood. It’s harder to brainwash a 17-year-old old than it is a 10-year-old. Lyss and Sarah stand their ground.

Sarah's claim is that Jake “reneged” on the plan, claiming that he wasn’t comfortable with the dollar amount of alimony they agreed on; he “went back on his word and wanted to give me less.” This is in direct contrast with what we know, and what makes sense. According to Jake, she is the one who went back on the deal, demanding more money. He has been accepting of most requests, and just wants to wipe his hands of the situation and move on with his life. He has a marriage to grieve, and the last thing he wants is to “nickel and dime” his about-to-be-ex-wife over alimony. I press her on this. I am no longer a victim. I am not as malleable, not as amenable as I once was.

“So what you’re saying is that Dad is the one who changed his mind, and he’s the reason you went and got a lawyer. Right?”

“Yes, exactly. I was comfortable with our deal until he went back on it and forced my hand.”

“Well that’s not what he said.” I don’t remember if I said this or if Lyss or Dan did. We are of one mind.

“What he said is not true. I’m your mom, why would I lie to you? Have I ever lied to you?”

The Acrid Corpse

There are three theories/models of communication that will be applied in this paper. They are Pearce & Cronen’s Coordinated Management of Meaning, Altman’s Social Penetration Theory, and Watzlawick’s Interactional Model in order to analyze this communicative event.

The facet of Pearce and Cronen’s theory that is best represented within my experience is the interaction between stories lived and stories told. Jake's stories-told usually line up pretty well with his stories-lived. He’s a good storyteller, and has been known to embellish stories here and there, but when it comes to serious relational manners like this, he’s always been clear and transparent with what happened and how he perceived it. There’s a certain level of blurring between any given story-lived and story-told, but any discrepancy out of Jake is unintentional.

Sarah, on the other hand, is all over the place in regard to her stories-lived and stories-told. Her motivations for telling stories are usually not to offer true information or retell events in the way in which they really happened. Her stories-told are all told with the intent to manipulate, mislead, distract, or deflect from the topic at hand.

Here we are presented with two distinctly different retellings of the same event. Sarah says Jake altered the deal, Jake says Sarah altered the deal. What is the truth? Why do I believe Jake more than Sarah?

One telling thing about Jake’s stories-told is that they don’t have any ulterior motive behind them. It is clear that he says what he does to relay information, not to elicit a desired emotional or psychological response. These are the facts, do with them what you will. When Jake is attempting to co-construct his and your reality through a story-told, he prioritizes the recapturing of events as they happened more than he prioritizes shaping the story to reflect him in a positive light. He admits his faults, and really does try his best to view the interaction from multiple perspectives. His constructed truth is designed to be as close as possible to that real truth, which is prioritized above all.

Sarah's stories told are nothing like this. The reality she portrays to her unwilling audience is one where she is the victim; nothing is her fault; the world is out to get her. “It’s me and you against the world,” she would tell me when I was a child. As a kid, I heard companionship in those words. These days, I hear something else. Her stories-told are amalgamations of some true events and some completely fabricated ones, spliced together to leave her communicative partners with a custom-made recounting of events.

Even if you have no idea what version of events is true, it only takes hearing both stories to tell which one is more plausible, and which story-told is closer to the truth. On one hand, you have the story of Jake: a man served divorce papers three times, only on the third time is he able to afford the requested alimony. He’s been paying what is essentially alimony for years already, so the decision to make things official is not too large of a jump for him. He agrees with Sarah on a fixed monthly stipend, more than what he already gives her. They part, and then his wife decides that the money she requested still isn’t enough. She changes her mind on the day that they were supposed to go in front of the judge to work things out. Jake was on his way to pick her up when he got the call from her that she had changed her mind. He is shocked. He admits to getting angry and demands an explanation. All Sarah offered him was that she felt like the number they agreed on was too low. They argue over the phone, and do not go in front of a judge. Sarah lawyers up and has her lawyer try to gauge how much money Jake is worth, so that she can get as close to 50% of it as she can, in addition to the new alimony amount she has requested.

On the other hand, we have the story of Sarah: an invalid wife who has been urging divorce for years, only for her to finally get it. She claims that the motivation behind the divorce is that “it’s just time.” They have been separated long enough, so they might as well just bite the bullet and make it official. She does not mention the other two divorce servings. She sits with her to-be ex-husband and agrees on an amount of money she feels entitled to after 30 years of marriage. The two go their own ways, and days later Sarah receives a phone call out of the blue from Jake, claiming that he “just doesn’t want to give” her the money they agreed on. Jake has gone out of his way to express his hesitancy at contacting lawyers, as it’s clear that they tend to complicate things and get in the way of amicable agreement. Sarah, who agreed with this, is now forced to find a lawyer. She does so, and the lawyer she has hired has sent Jake a request of itemization, as well as a formal order to not contact Sarah Shaw in any way, and to use the lawyer as a middleman between them. According to Sarah, this was done without her knowledge or approval.

Certain discrepancies in Sarah's story become apparent when one examines what can be proven to be true. It is true that they did not go to see the judge on the day that they were supposed to. The only story-told that addresses this is Jake's. Jake received a letter from Sarah's lawyer that she was CC'd on, proving that she was well aware of her lawyer’s actions. The only story-told that addresses this is Jake's. There are just too many gaps in Sarah's story for it to be believable.

Another theory of communication which is applicable here is Altman’s Social Penetration Theory. The reason why Jake's claims are so believable, and why I empathize with him so much, is because he opened up and allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of me. According to Altman, this facilitates the growth of a relationship. Simple enough.

However, Jake's vulnerability and tenderness is extremely out of character for him. The man is a rock, an island. A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. In front of me is this rock breaking open to reveal the enchanting, unique inner core of dazzling emeralds, which dance and sparkle at every angle (if my dad ever finds out that I described him as a dazzling sparkly emerald geode, he’d probably disown me). In a rare glimpse into the heart of my tin-man father, I am able to connect with him on a fundamental human level: grief. I don’t need to have gone through a divorce to understand the strife he’s going through. While on a completely different scale, I know what it is like to be unwanted and unloved in spite of all the selfless good you’ve done over the course of a relationship. I even know what it’s like to be used by a significant other for money. Because he let his shield down and allowed himself to feel, I was able to connect with him on a completely new level. The range of emotions that man has gone through over the years has been narrow. Maybe it was because he was feeling particularly weak due to the heavy emotional lifting the divorce had been causing him, but whatever force drove him to be candid and empathic taught me a lesson in what it means to be a man, a partner, a father, and a human. If my iron-skinned dad can break down every once in a while, anyone can. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sarah, on the other hand, is unable to expose her onion core to anyone. Not her husband of 30 years, nor her two children. But she pretends to. She expresses fears and hopes of hers that have little, if any, rooting in reality. She claims to be afraid of Jake, and that all she wants is for the divorce situation to blow over. But truthfully, she is at the root of why these problems are happening. Does Altman’s theory hold up even if the layers exposed are not honest? How can we tell when false penetration is happening? How can one distinguish between real and “fake” emotion?

In my first meeting with my mom before I went over with Lyss and Dan, I addressed the ways in which her struggles with substance abuse have impacted me. I tried my best to avoid finger-pointing, as it would not have achieved anything useful. Even before I had learned about Altman and his onions, I knew that sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. And give, I did.

I hoped that she would take the olive branch and take the opportunity to connect with her exasperated son. It was a last-ditch effort on my part to try to connect with my emotionally unavailable mother, and it did not take. She thanked me for my candidness, but did not bridge the gap into her own core. I told her that I think she has a problem with opioids, and like most who have a hard time with substances, she did not take it well. She did not blow up or explode, but she made it clear that she did not have a problem. There was no meaningful self-reflection on her part, and it was obvious. I understood the reluctance to face the truth, and could empathize with that firsthand. I offered this to her also, and it too was rejected. She deflected and lied and refused and denied and did everything I expected her to. Although my expectations were low, there was a small part of me that still had hope that maybe the right set of words could be spoken to break her out of the shackles of substance dependence, like a magic spell. Whether such a spell exists or not is of little importance, because obviously whatever incantations I used were not the right ones.

When my dad told me that he wishes that he never met my mom, the message was not that she was problematic and that she’s the problem. That is not what he meant. It’s not just what is said, but the way in which one says it. There was a life-spanning sadness, an acceptance of the past, and a resignation to his future when allowing himself for penetration. In his admission, he accepts partial responsibility for what has happened. If he had never met my mom, if he decided not to go on a snack run on that fateful day, he would have never had the opportunity to make the mistakes that he did over his 30 years of marriage. To him, Sarah is not a devil-woman, or some maniacal manipulator, she’s the woman he fell in love with. He looks upon the end of his relationship with his wife with mourning, not with celebration. Jake allows himself to feel sad. Sarah is either unable, or refuses to allow herself to feel sadness, and instead victimizes herself in order to stave off the soul-crushing reality of self-accountability.

Lastly, we arrive at Watzlawick and his Interactional Model of communication. A line in one of your lectures struck a strong chord with me. You said, “the further away from treating you like the adult you are, the more problematic that relationship will be.” I agree with this wholeheartedly, although I would like to amend the statement. The further away you are from being treated like the age you are, the more problematic the relationship will be. It is problematic to be treated like a child as an adult, just as it is problematic to be treated like an adult as a child. While having plenty of experience with both ends of this spectrum, the latter rings truer to my experience throughout my life.

This basic graph illustrates the relationship between how old you are treated and how problematic that

can be. The greater the difference between your actual age and how old you are treated, the more problematic the relationship will be. If you are an adult whose parent(s) coddle(s) you, that is problematic. If you are a child who is forced to “grow up fast,” or “self-parent,” it can be just as problematic. Let’s amend this further:

The younger you are, the closer to the left graph your relationships are. A 10-year-old treated like a five-year-old is not as problematic as if that 10-year-old was given adult responsibilities. As you get older, the graph shifts to the right. A teenager treated like an adult, who may be responsible for looking out for their siblings is not as problematic to a relationship as if that teenager was coddled and protected and treated like a child, hidden from adult responsibilities and problems.

My own life shows this. As a child, I was responsible for taking care of my sick mom. My responsibilities included fetching her medication, sometimes putting the pills in her mouth and pouring water in to wash them down. I would walk her to and from the bathroom. I would clean the house in all the ways that she couldn’t. Because my dad worked so much, and because my mom was so emotionally unavailable, I was forced to parent myself and teach myself lessons that others should have taught me. I was treated like an adult too young. Left graph.

As I got older, my mom would coddle and shower me with childish compliments (“you’re so handsome!” or “Oh, you’re just the awesomest kid around.” or “Oh Ry, you’re so smart!”) instead of having conversations with me about what was going on in my life. Every time there was mention of a girl I was interested in, I’d be pummeled with a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” from my mom instead of asking me about the girl, or how we know each other, or if I think there’s a chance or not, or any other normal question one would have for a child old enough to date. Right graph.

Coddling and babying like this is done in order to remind me of what our roles are in relation to each other. Put succinctly by Watzlawick, “when a relational element is being emphasized, it is frequently symptomatic of a relationship which is under question.” The relationship I have with my mom is so strongly under question, and has been for so long, that nearly everything we say to each other is metacommunication. And it sucks. It’s a desperate effort to regain some authority that is clearly lacking in the relationship. The roles are being challenged, and a way to combat this challenge is to double down and remind me of my role as her child, and that I’ll always be baby to her.

With such a parental role comes selective informing. A child is on a strict need-to-know basis when it comes to developments in the relationship between its parents. As this child gets older, more information is allowed to trickle down to it, as it is treated not as an inferior, but increasingly toward an equal. My mom does not do this, and hides details she thinks either I don’t need to know, or that would soil our relationship further. My dad does not do this. He does his best to present the facts as-is, and allows me to shape my own understanding of him and the situations he finds himself in. Shaping the way I view him is not important when he tells his stories. He is confident enough in his own character to know that if I’m a critical thinking individual, I’ll be able to see his goodness despite the circumstances. And I have. Even when we disagree, I can see that his position comes from one of love and compassion. When my mom and I disagree, the reason is usually her own self-interest getting in the way of treating me like the adult I am.

This has been a difficult paper to write. But it was worth the effort. There are lessons I’ve learned throughout my various communications classes that I will take with me for the rest of my life. One of these being Watzlawick’s axiom of “one can not not communicate.”

There are messages of all kinds being transmitted in any and all communicative events. It just takes a keen eye to discover them and think about what they could mean.

I frequently daydream about going back in time to meet and talk with myself when I was ten years old. I am fascinated with ideas about how I would communicate back then. What were my beliefs? How would I express them? This paper has been an effort in trying to put into words the things I’d like my younger self to be aware of. This is the reason why you always feel a little weird when Mom starts rambling about Dad. This is the reason why you feel so guilty about enjoying the time you spend with Dad. It’s all here. I wonder what 30-year-old Ryan would want to say to me now.

Hey there, ten-year-old Ryan. When it comes to looking back on my tumultuous past (your tumultuous future), you would think I’d have more to say. Somehow 16 pages are not enough. Perhaps no amount of pages would be enough. Families are strange, and the only way to truly understand the way yours interacts is to do that: interact. Love them until they don’t reciprocate. Know your boundaries. Set them and adhere to them. You are worth being loved.