Replies to '12/23 "Get a Backbone!"'

Dear Dr Phil, 

I would like to thank you for your show on "getting a backbone"! I recently took a stand with my family and decided that I wouldn't be walked on anymore. My parents have always been controlling and felt that they had to think for me, because I couldn't do it on my own. When I was 26, I became engaged, and my fiance at the time asked my parents for help in proposing. Everything was going great, until it came to the wedding. My parents wanted to control who came, where the event took place, etc. My fiance and I paid for everything.  

When my now husband was relocated to another town, my parents resented that I was the first one to move away and they felt that I would be unhappy in the new town. As far as they were concerned, I was only financially stable and happy because of him. 

I fell ill in June, 05 and my husband and I made the decisions for my medical care. My mother wanted for me to seek a 2nd opinion since she felt that I couldn't (nor my husband) make the right decisions. She scheduled an appointment for me at a doctor near her, and she decided she would go to the doctor's appointment with us!!! I was appalled by the decision. 

It was that week that i decided that my family was not going to intrude on me and make decisions for me. I had a heart to heart talk with my mom, and explained to her that I was 28 years old, and it is time that she let me fly on my own. I am married now, and my husband and I have a life down here in our new town. I told her that I still love and respect her opinion (she is a nurse), but I was an adult now and felt that I needed to make my own decisions.  

That was the best conversations I have ever had with my Mom. I realized that day that I was empowered to make decisions on my own, and she supports me now. It is amazing.  

Thank you Dr. Phil for helping others like me who are/were afraid to take a stand. 

Sincerely, 

Standing Up in the Midwest