LW, stand firm in this decision. You're doing the right thing.

Re: LW, stand firm in this decision. You're doing the right thing.

• MissKittyDanger member

  

  August 2021

  LW needs to push daughter towards at least considering therapy.
  At least if LW can say "look, you've had a rough time - why don't you talk to someone on how to deal" it can open a door on WHY daughter is drawn to these men.
  
  I also feel there's an underlying issue here that's not known or mentioned - like mental health, addiction, etc.

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• banana468 member

  

  August 2021

  Daughter both wants to rescue these guys and yet hasn't come up with a rescue plan for herself. 
  
  Sounds like the tough love is working. 

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• mrsconn23 member

  

  August 2021

  Why should daughter change when she knows she can come home?  Mom and dad will provide money, cars, shelter, etc. no matter how many times she blows her life up and won't hold her to any real, permanent consequences.  LW needs to let daughter figure it out for once because she's 30 going on 13 currently.  
  
  If LW really can't stand letting daughter bottom out, then they need to come up with some rules and boundaries and stick to them. But for real, it's time for daughter to stand on her own damn feet. 
  
  At this point, I'm not sure if it matters if there's mental health issues if daughter won't address them and she's not a danger to others or herself.   It sucks, but those issues can be just as harmful and destructive as dealing with an substance dependency (which also wades into mental health too, but you know...). 
  
  

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• STARMOON44 member

  

  August 2021

  It ends when you stop enabling it. 

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• banana468 member

  

  August 2021

  Also, is it me or is the LW also completely misguided here? 
  
  This isn't just bad taste in men.  
  She is making piss poor financial decisions with no accountability AND in addition to picking "creeps" it also appears that she is also loathe to consider the bounds of trust and appropriateness that exist between family.  
  
  So the daughter isn't just someone who has bad taste in men.  She's unaccountable all around. 

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• mrsconn23 member

  

  August 2021 edited August 2021

  Exactly, @banana468.  LW has been blaming the wrong people for their daughter's lifestyle and issues.  While it's not the most delicate way to deal with it, telling daughter she's the common denominator in her problems is entirely correct.  Keep going with that feeling, LW. 
  

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• VarunaTT member

  

  August 2021

  Oooo, this reminds me of K so much.  I sent the shittiest text to K's mother after K's parents and brother came to move them out (K didn't show up to help move b/c I blew the f**k up [at their mother, they weren't there to help pack the 32 boxes of shit I packed to get them the hell out of my space] about sidepiece #3 crossing the threshold of what was now MY GD SPACE to help them move out and laid out how it would go with the police there), telling their parents that they were completely enabling K, numerated out how, and told them that K was never going to change if parents kept doing what they were doing every time K made a piss poor life decision.  I've never told the board how the breakup went, but K found out real damn fast there was an adult on the other side of their mess and their attempt to f**k around and find out didn't work out for them and still isn't as they've found themselves shunned by a lot of people.
  
  I feel for the parents.  I really do.  The only possible compromise is a delineated plan that has specific timeframes for specific activities (job, therapy, moving out) that daughter has to follow and if she doesn't, she's kicked out.  And it's perfectly okay if the parents can't handle doing that and continue to say no.  At some point, your kids are grown ass adults and need to handle their daily business.

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• banana468 member

  

  August 2021

  I get it.  I hope that I continue to have the backbone of tough love with my kids because while you want to "fix" their issues it doesn't help when you see it's a repeated pattern of behavior.
  
  I'm not sure if I told this story but years ago when DH and I were engaged and living together we were falling asleep on Halloween in our condo and our bedroom was street facing.  The TV was on and we heard a car racing followed by a crash.  In our grogginess we realized it was NOT the TV but someone drove into our neighbor's car that was parked on the street. 
  
  It was a tiny pickup truck that hit the car with such force that the truck's axle was bent.  We assumed the driver would get out but instead he gunned it, put it in reverse and tore off like a bat out of hell down the street leaving a trail of literal burnt rubber in its wake.  I called 911 and wasn't the first neighbor to report it.  Another neighbor got in his car to drive down the street to follow the truck and the trail - because it was THAT visible. 
  
  Cops came and woke up the owner of the car (who managed to sleep through it) so he was notified that oops - guess you're not driving to work in the morning buddy.  Cops then said that they had a car down the street talking to the parents of the owner of the truck.  According to them, "Patrol is down the street at the house where the truck is parked.  His parents say he's not home but don't worry we've dealt with them before.  They enabled the kid enough that they knew his penalty for driving drunk and leaving the scene was worse than the penalty for just leaving the scene so he didn't fess up until the next day.  
  
  We told a friend of ours days later and she said, "Oh that's Chris my ex fiance.  We broke up because he beat the sh!t out of me."   
  
  DH and I surmised that his parents would get him out of any trouble and the dude who (like the LW's child) had to be in his late/20's or early 30s was done NO favors by their enabling of his behavior. 

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• short+sassy member

  

  August 2021

  @banana468, did Chris move to NOLA, lol?  One of our neighbors, luckily he is on a block perpendicular to ours, has a very wealthy mom.  He's in his 30s and lives in a house she owns.  Never worked a day in his life.  Drives drunk ALL the time.  For the block he lives on, he's probably hit every neighbor's parked car at least once.  For some of them, it's happened several times.  Momma always swoops in and quickly pays people for their damaged cars.
  
  He finally lost his license after multiple DWIs.  But it was only after that happened, his mom finally took his car away.

  

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• levioosa member

  

  August 2021

  I honestly think one of the last possible turning points for my brother was when he did a hit and run like yours @banana468. When he was around 20 he hit a parked truck so badly he broke the axle. He also broke his own windshield with his face. He fled the scene, leaving his car which was too damaged to drive, but like the drunk dumbass he is, he left a literal trail of clothes and belongings down the street to his friend’s house like fucking Hansel and Gretel in the woods. Cops of course found him the next morning and my parents were called. They arrested him and my brother actually started to make some changes, but then the owners dropped the charges because “he’s just a young kid and we don’t want to ruin his life.” But dropping the charges went the opposite way. He felt like he didn’t have consequences any more. That was the last time I’ve really seen any true impetus to change. I think about it a lot. 

  
  

  
  

  

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