aag

Aag,

Isn’t this every child’s wish? That mum and/or dad will give unconditional support to them and the decisions they make, even if those decisions may be wrong (but teach them something in the long run), or if they aren’t the decisions they (the parents) would necessarily make themselves?

I hope when the time comes, that you will do what’s best, and not do as your parents did to you, in violating your trust (by asking them to not try and find this site).

Lucy

Being concerned is one thing. Meddling in the life of an adult who doesn’t want your help (and, furthermore, whose actions do not affect your quality of life) is entirely another thing. It can be difficult to keep the first from turning into the second. One must try, though.

It’s hard to tell from what you’ve revealed, but it strikes me that this may be as much worry for themselves as it is about you.

Maybe they’re embarrassed by the life you live and are afraid that someone else will find out about it and mortify them.

Or it could be concern for themselves and for you.

Lucy and C#5 are right. You have to live your life. You have to look yourself in the mirror. You have to be who you want to be, because not being that would be a betrayal of yourself and to them if they love you as they say.

They will feel how they will feel. That’s their choice and not much you can do will change it. Just love them as they are and maybe, one day, they’ll learn to do the same with you. It isn’t necessary for everyone to like it, only accept or not accept it on their own terms.

Eh, but what do I know, I’m only omnipotent.

They say that you are never really an adult until your parents die. Until then you are always someone’s son or daughter - and there is always someone looking out for you.

I’m sure they will adjust slowly over time - they are currently dealing with shock as well as everything else, and trying to come to terms with their assumptions being completely re-set.

You cannot change them. You can only learn from them. Learn how not to be, learn what not to do. Their love may be misguided but it’s still love, just keep it where YOU want it.

Hi AAG,

Why are they pursuing reading your blog in the first place?

All sounds pretty dysfunctional to me.

XOXOXO

Chuck

They need some sort of jolt to bring the realities of their actions home to them.

Maybe you should threaten that unless they learn to curtail their obsessive behaviour you’ll give serious consideration to move home far enough away from them that you’ll be beyond reach of their interference - well, physical contact anyway.

Tell ‘em it’s either that or the haddock ;o)

It’s a natural response to want to protect the ones you love. The key is discerning what is best for them. What we think is best and what really is best is not always the same thing.

But they love me, they say. They love me so much it hurts. They love me so very much that they are compelled to look after me, to save me from any negative consequences of my actions.

The term for this type of intervention is toxic help. While the person offering the help appears to be doing the right thing, the loving thing by assisting the loved one, the so-called help is really emotional currency in a power transaction. The person offering the toxic help is essentially purchasing the right to run another person’s life and devalue him/her with impunity.

And it is so easy to fall into this trap:
My parents have done so much to help me through this divorce. How can I be mad at them?

I saw this firsthand when my cousin became disabled, unemployed and required coronary bypass surgery. There was one relative who used every request for help as an opportunity to tell the disabled cousin just how dumb he really was and how his health problems were really his own fault. Vicious. The effect of this help on the disabled cousin’s self-esteem and physical health was devastating.

You are a grown woman, like you said WAYYY past the age of adulthood. You aren’t hurting anyone, your children are well cared for. They are just meddling in your life and don’t like what they see. Times have changed and we are more open now. They need to get a hobby and quit worrying about you. If one doesn’t like what they see, turn the other way.

the minute you go through your kid’s private stuff you succumb to being a horrible hypocrite. stave off the route - there are better (non-destructive) ways to keep a secure family.

This is a very timely entry for me. My grandchildren, who live with me, are having finals at school this week. One of them is a very responsible soul and I know she will do well no matter what. The other is much more impulsive and much less self-disciplined…like his mother.

When his mother was in school, I stood over her like a prison guard to make sure she finished every assignment, which she often failed to turn in. I would not allow her to fail. At every opportunity I bailed her out.

Now that I’m raising her children. (Yes, I’m still bailing her out.) I refuse to stand over them or make sure they get passing grades. I have determined that if he doesn’t pass, it is entirely his mess. He made it, he can clean it up. Taking the long view, really, since he won’t be attending an Ivy League college, his grades are less important than him passing enough classes to graduate. However, he will not get his driver’s license till all his grades are C and above. That’s the carrot…I’m not wielding a stick.

I tried it one way, now I’m trying it another. You can’t make anyone do what they don’t want to do. My sister-in-law is absolutely horrified that I’m not addressing the issue of his school performance. Not mine to address. Maybe some of you are horrified too. Oddly, my daughter rants at me from time to time for not adressing her son’s school performance. I’ll admit she’s got balls.

He’s seventeen and will be a senior next year. I had to stop treating him like a 6-year-old. I feared that if I didn’t, he would stay a 6-year-old.

I think there’s a lesson in here someplace for Girlie’s parents. Then again, maybe not.

N.

Sometimes I think I need an intervention. I am hooked on men, feelings, etc.

Ok, AAG, this one hit close to home. My kid doesn’t have a place to live this summer (and subsequently in the fall), and I am worried sick. I am looking through ads and offering to drive her to apts in town while she is crashing at friends’ apts. The kid will be fine while I have a nervous breakdown. It feeds into my insecurities, not hers. And there’s the whole co-dependency thing of which you speak. Damn, this was too close to home.

Ironically I am watching Intervention - it is a show of shipwrecked folks but then that is how life is for many folks. I am a parent of a 30 year old daughter who has been raging with the alcohol and drugs for years. I understand the invasions of privacy now, even though I horribly objected to it and had it stomped on in my own life growing up (for no good reason but for me it was sex and not drugs/alcohol). I understand the need in that sometimes knowledge (and truth) is the only way you will get the truth from that person. You can’t treat them like kids but you also can’t sit oblivious and have the big “sucker” sign posted on your forehead.

Am I proud of invading her privacy - hell no. But you know what, if I hadn’t I would never have had any of the truth and she would have continued lying to me in her self destructiveness. I would rather have my kid hating me for invading her privacy then dead and for some folks, that is what it amounts to.

I went to rehab and when you’re there they teach you about ‘codependancy.’ Basically thats what you are describing - the idea that people can, in a sense, become addicted to other people. They worry excessively about the person(s) and try to make their lives better.

Just set some boundaries - “Stop Mom and Dad. I’m a big girl now!”

I like the part about how the husband couldn’t stop himself, I hadn’t seen it that way, but it’s true, his inability to let her hit rock bottom was delaying her hitting the point where she would choose to help herself. That show is a tough watch sometimes, seeing someone completely lost in addiction, regardless of what their vice may be…..

dude i got nothin’

except that you absolutely need a parental intervention…

i got some good advice about that kind of stuff from ‘the dance of intimacy’ and ‘the dance of anger’ but those are kinda old now…

g’luck

All you can do is show people ways to make and consider their decisions. Your parents need to see that they did a good job at teaching you how to be happy, how to make the right effort at the right time with the right intent.
What it is that makes you happy is for you to decide.
Good luck telling them that. It might be that what makes them happy is trying to live their lives through you…

Mike tried everything to save Tammie from her drinking for six years.

Sent her to rehab. She got drunk the night she came home.

Her family tried to help her. Her friends tried to help her.

He finally gave up and left…

Almost 2 years later she ended up drinking herself to death in Tom’s bathroom on Valentine’s Day. She was only 47 years old.

She left behind two teenage daughters.

I cannot imagine a more painful ending for everyone…