“Letting go of adult children. It’s something parents do all the time. At least we’re told that’s what parents are supposed to do about the time their children turn eighteen”, says author Arlene Harder in her book on dealing with grown children who haven’t turned out the way parents hoped and expected. Whether our grown “adult children stayed living under our roof longer than we want, or strike out into the world earlier than anticipated, parents are told they need to cut the apron strings that have kept us focused on our child.”
In other words, says Harder, “when our children reach the age of maturity, we are expected to make a major change in our relationship with them- to transfer responsibility for decisions concerning their lives from us to them. If we successfully complete this transition, we will, says conventional wisdom, accept our children as independent individuals just as they are, including imperfections, values that conflict with ours, and different needs and desires. And they will accept us in return. We will communicate openly and share our values and experiences with one another without believing we have the right, or the power, to change the other person.”
Sound easy? Not if you’re the parent of a grown child who marches to a drum very different from the one you played for your child when he or she was young. You know it would be better for both of you if you could let go. But you can’t. You remain uncomfortably, perhaps painfully, “stuck” because things haven’t turned out the way you expected.
Parenting Adult Children
Letting go of grown adult children can be especially difficult for parents with adult children who have serious problems with drug addiction, alcohol abuse, mental illness, and/or choose to break societal laws and perhaps go to jail or prison for crimes committed. Many such parents have discovered that there are no guarantees that children will turn out the way they were raised, or how the parents expected, hoped and prayed their children would become as adults.
Arlene Harder’s book, “Letting Go of Our Adult Children, When What We Do is Never Enough”, is a FREE online book parents and families struggling to let go can read and receive helpful tips and advice on letting go with love. Having been granted permission to reprint the intro of the free book, parents who enable their grown children, or parents who can’t or won’t let go of their adult kids for various reasons may relate to many of the personal experiences discussed in the book and find the encouragement and support needed. The Introduction to the nine-chapter book, published in 1994, continues with the author saying:
Parents may unintentionally fail their children in some fundamental way so they aren’t really able to meet the standards we hold for them. Even more, because they have minds of their own, they can choose a lifestyle that we don’t approve of or that we feel is less than they are capable of achieving. Being stuck and unable to let go can arise from minor, irritating differences between you and your child or major obstacles that appear to be intractable. For example, you may be unable to get past frequent arguments over relatively unimportant issues that both of you always seem to turn into contests of who is right. Or while you and your daughter don’t often disagree, you can’t shake the disappointment you feel when she loses yet another job.
You want to accept the fact that how well she does at work is her problem. But you know she doesn’t demonstrate the commitment to work that employers want. How can you let go when you blame yourself for not teaching her responsibility? Or perhaps you need the money from the sale of a family house your thirty-eight year old son has been living in rent-free for Fifteen years. The only “problem” is that he doesn’t have money to move else- where; forcing him out would make you feel like Simon Legree.
Or, while you may realize that there is probably nothing you can do to prevent your son’s divorce, you remain entangled in accusations and defenses with your son’s in-laws because you’re afraid you will lose contact with a precious grandchild. And sticky in-law problems are legion in complicated step-family configurations.
Even if your children are happily married, however, you may have a hard time understanding and accepting in-laws who are of a different race, religion, or social group. You hadn’t thought of yourself as prejudiced, but you are having a hard time adjusting. And what if your child is single and living with a member of the opposite sex; or has chosen a member of his or her same sex as a life partner? With less than 25 percent of families made up of father, mother, and dependent children, family constellations aren’t what they used to be.
Letting go may be particularly difficult if the problems you face seem highly resistant to change. This is especially true when your child is mentally ill or is in serious trouble with the law. And if your child is like my son, whose difficulties in relationships and jobs have been compounded by drug and alcohol abuse, the road to letting go can be extremely long and trying. Yet your situation may be even more painful if your child died before you were able to work out the issues that kept you from letting go; all that unfinished business leaves you with pain you are sure will never go away.
You may be a parent who claims you have no choice but to let go when your child refuses to have any contact, or has extremely minimal contact, with you. Don’t kid yourself. On the surface you may look as though you have let go, but anyone probing a centimeter deep can see that your hurt in being excluded from your child’s life penetrates deep into your heart. This may be especially difficult if you are at a loss to understand what went wrong.
Yet the situation isn’t any easier if you recognize all too clearly how you contributed to the rift that has torn the family fabric in half. For example, perhaps you abused alcohol or drugs when your children were small. Today, although you are now clean and sober, your child is unwilling to forgive you, despite your apologies. In that case you may be paralyzed by guilt; concluding that you have permanently injured your child and that the gap between you can never be bridged.
On the other hand, you may be a parent who is perfectly satisfied with how your child has turned out and who thought you had a good relationship with her. Recently, however, she has accused you and her father of being “dysfunctional” and perhaps even “abusive.” Even though you realize you weren’t perfect parents, you are saddened by alienation created by her anger and your hurt.
If you see yourself in any of these situations (or ones uncomfortably similar), you realize that you’ve been unable to let go no matter how hard you try. This is what is meant by the subtitle of this book, “When What We Do Is Never Enough.” No matter what we say, think or do — no matter how hard we try — until we let go with love we remain uncomfortably bound to a child who is legally old enough to make his decisions without parental interference or approval.
As parents of children whose values and lifestyles are in conflict with ours — whether we experience a fairly small amount or a great deal of disappointment in that fact — we have probably already discovered that heavy-handed bullying and significant bribes cannot make our child become what we had hoped he would become. Money may work in the short run, of course, but in the long haul it can’t buy the integrity, honesty, determination, and responsibility we desire for our child.
Yet masking our attempts to change our child through less obvious measures is not unlike trying to run him over with a fuzzy bulldozer; it only leaves him, and us, bruised. Let’s face it — as long as we keep trying to get our child to live according to our values, we don’t stand much chance of having the kind of adult-to-adult relationship we all deserve with our children when they grow up.
The first part of the book, “Getting Caught up in Our Expectations,” deals with what happens when parents discover their child is marching to a different drummer. In it I offer a path to letting go with love and to forming a more positive relationship with your adult child, a path involving five stages of healing. In these chapters you will see that your disappointment and pain are not unique; nor is it unusual for you to keep trying to get your child to change. Most important of all, you will realize why it is essential for you to shift your attention from your adult child to yourself.
If you already know you must change your focus away from whatever stands between you and your child, you may want to go directly to the second part of the book, “Finding Peace by Letting Go.” These five chapters offer suggestions for healing the pain caused by the realization that your child does not share your values or cannot live up to the expectations you once had for him or her. Here you will find motivation to explore the issues that keep you pulling on your end of the rope in the family tug-of-war, to grieve your unfulfilled expectations, to forgive yourself and your child and, finally, to let go with love. And if differences between you and your child are still irreconcilable, you can learn how to bring closure and healing to that situation as well.
The concept of a path of healing for parents first arose for me during the painful years when I struggled with great disappointment in a child who was not living the kind of life I envisioned for him. Gradually I realized that I was moving through a series of stages and turned my attention from my son’s problems to those which I needed to address in my own life. I continued to observe this process and to further develop my theory in working with disappointed parents as part of my practice as a licensed family therapist.
Later these ideas were reinforced in interviews with over seventy-five parents, both those who were disappointed in how things have turned out and those who were very satisfied. To protect confidentiality in sharing the stories of others, I have changed names and identifying characteristics. In a few instances I have combined several elements from more than one situation to emphasize a particular point.
Letting go can be difficult for parents whether they are married, divorced, or widowed; adoptive or biological parents; single or step-parents. Since the specific circumstances in everyone’s life are different, and since we all have somewhat different expectations for our children, we will each experience different reactions to our adult children if those expectations are not met.
Consequently, the act of letting go with love will be easier and go more quickly for some and be more difficult and take longer for others. Yet this book offers to every parent the evidence that it is possible to let go and find peace even in the most difficult of circumstances.
It is my hope that this book will guide you in moving past your disappointment and pain into peace, healing, and acceptance of your child, even if he or she continues to make choices that have, until now, driven you up a wall. We cannot change our grown children. But dealing honestly and openly with our disappointment creates an opportunity to change ourselves — and in the process to let go with love so that our disappointment no longer causes us pain.
Parents, you can begin reading the free online book by Arlene Harder on letting go of grown adult children at Support4Change.com.
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We are facing this right now. Our son should have graduated in June and now we are hoping and praying he can pull it off by December. He is 19. At this point, we have had to (in our opinion) hold on since he may be an adult by law, but certainly is ready to face the world. We gave him a few things to try to manage and so far those have crashed and burned, although to give some credit seem to be rising from the ashes.
And yes, he has formed opinions quite different than ours and frankly we feel some of those are dangerous and since he is still in our house, we do exercise a fair amount of control.
I’m guessing this book is going to be (and probably needs to already be) a good resource.
I saw the Facebook like button, but I didn’t press it because he and many of his friends are our Facebook friends, too.
ChrisCD recently posted..Rates From Around the US
Hi Chris,
It can be very challenging for parents to “let go” of their grown children when making bad choices in life, especially when the choices include dangerous activities. Sometimes the problems are associated with drug abuse, alcoholism, criminal activity leading to jail or prison time. Adult children with mental illness of some kind, or who have some sort of psychological problems, can make ‘letting go’ very difficult for parents.
The author’s emphasis on letting go with love is so true. It’s not that the parents don’t care or don’t love their child, but the parents often find they have to sort of “pull back” and allow their children to experience the natural consequences of their choices and decisions, for the good or for the bad. Parents who have adult children with BiPolar and who struggle with the mood swings and other issues send me messages frequently, and are looking for a book or resource that deals with these exact problems. Thus the reason for the article.
We have an adult daughter 38 years old. In the past we have loaned her money for a truck & helped her buy a home in Florida. She has always worked and been responsible in the past. But since she met and recently married her husband, she has treated us differently. We purchased a home and she was to eventually buy the home from us. She was making regular payments but then she started making partial payments and then when her husband went back to school, she would pay us every 6 months to 8 months in arrears. Now she told us she would pay us in August and then denied saying that when her husband decided not to go to school anymore. She has paid no rent for this year at all. We always have called the home her home because we figured someday she would buy the home. I gave her 2,000. to finish the walls in the basement for the grandsons to have their own rooms. Now she and her husband say that they don’t owe us any rent because they did this work. I got angry and told her she needed to move out. No response from her but cussing me out. I finally sent her an eviction notice about one and a half months ago. She called me and said she was sending it back to me. I received it back today unopened.This year I put the house for sale with a realtor for 6 months. The realtor said no one will buy it with 4 dogs in the house and in the condition it is in. I recently heard from my grandson that they have no water and haven’t had any water for some time. My daughter refuses to work and her husband only works part time as a handyman. Our four grandchildren live in the house with them. It’s a difficult situation for my husband and me to be in. But financially we need to sell the house. Our money is invested in the house and they aren’t paying any rent or taking care of the house. Has anyone been in this position? I could really use some input, moral support, suggestions, please.
To Penny – I’m worried about those grandkids not having water or heat in the house. I guess you’ll have to do that at least and make sure the grandkids are safe and cared for. Sounds like they probably need things like clothes and necessities. Can you do that for the children maybe. It’s a bad situation, I have one with my son that’s even worst believe me. It’s always effecting the grandkids. If it was just him to deal with it would be easier. I hurt for what he does wrong that his kids suffer for. Hang in there Sandy
I was a very young mom I had 3 kids by the time I turned 19 all 3 very sick kids……………… 2 were by my first husband that I married at 16 he left when his son got very sick his exact words were … “No blonde haired blue eyed boy thats this sick is a son of mine”( the boy has brown hair and green eyes) and he left life was very hard when he left I was 17 with 2 sick kids no job and no family to speak of with the money to help …he left with the rent due the fridge broke and no food or diapers and I didn’t know how to drive. This was the hardest thing, I remember just thinking I cant wait til the kids grow up and are able to help me cause I never got child support and was to proud for welfare well with this happeneing I ended up pregnant again at 19 spent 8 years with a very abusive man, I think I stayed out of fear mostly. I explained all of this to give some background of my life…. Now the problem
My kids are now grown the youngest has turned out to be a great man even tho he does have problems all in all he turned out great ….The oldest to are prone to violent outburts mostly aimed at me blaming me for being a shitty mom the oldest boy’s life story is so different from the other twos lifes stories you would think they grew up in different homes. he makes up stories of his life bad stories that I ALWAYS comne oout the bad guy like his newest story is I lied to him about who his father was and when he found out he was left hurt and confused he is a junior and he ALWAYS knew who his dad was he makes up lies of how I beat him and he lived in squaller and was part of a gang to survive … just for the record none of this is true.
The daughter ok to my face it seems she is my friend actually my best friend untl things dont go her way or she gets caught in a lie then she goes into violent tantrums that have be known to go on for 12 hours at a time with me being the person being attacked. I put up with this for my grandkids I love them dearly there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my grandkids but I dont think I can do this anymore.
The last fight ws easter sunday My son came over and brought his 2 kids (I just helped him get custody of both of them just 2 weeks before) anyways this party cost a lot between easter and birthday presents and dinner and the cake you know it wasn’t cheap, well he shows up with some new girl and her kid without even asking but ok I thought I can do this just let it go so I did we were haviong fun then this kid starts sreaming mom over my shoulder while I was talking so I asked him I could help him out and he said NO I want my mom…. next thing I klnow I am being yelled at by my son telling me NOT to even talk to the kid that he is sensitive and he will start crying…… I just looked at my son not sure what to say to him really so I just got up took my grandson outside for pics. We came back in the house and we were still talking and my son starts yelling Mom like over and over like a child (he is 29) I looked at him and said now you see where the kids get it OMG you would have thought I smacked him next thing he is screaming at me telling me when I speak you listen he is 9 and he doesn’t F’N matter and then proceded to let me know what a poice of crap I am and what a lousy mom I was and if I dont just admit my wrongs he was leaving right then and taking the kids and I would NEVER see them again… I didn’t know what to admit oy even what to say to my son treating me that way in front of a perfect stranger. I asked him to please calm down we can all take a breather and just let it be but Ohhh no thats not possible. I told him that treating his mom like this cant be a great thing for a new girl to see and he informed me that this stranger knew everything I did to him as a child and did I really want to go there ….Of course I did the minute I found out he told a stranger a pack of his made up lies of course I wanted to set it straight but I stayed calm and asked if we could just drop it and he packed up the kids (while still cussing and screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs) I hugged both of my crying grand babies and at that moment I knew it was time to walk away I cant let the babies see this constantly and the only time I am not attacked by my KID is when I shut up and walk on eggshells. Every single time it ends with him not allowing me to see the kids which is very hard for the kids to deal with I am sure. Now he has made up new lies and he is plastering them all over facebook in front of EVERYONE !!!!!!
I dont know what to do anymore I spent many of years being abused by one person or another and I cant just continue to get abused and hurt anymore. I was a young mom but I was a good mom I worked hard and that took me from the home a lot but it was the best I could do and to now be the one blamed for all the bad just hurts I feel maybe I should have adopted them out you know maybe I was just too young idk.
I dont know if any of this made sense but I will say one thing it felt good to type it even if no one can help me…. thanks for this chance and I wish the best for anyone with kids that continuously step on their heart.
Oh and I did found out that the reason he acted like he did on easter was because he wanted to have easter with his new girl friends family …… wouldn’t it have been easier to just say that ?…. he was looking for anything to fight about I was just too dumb to see it
my god, your son sounds like my eldest son. He called me a “f’g bit’c” just once when he got here drunk as I was letting him stay here as he lost yet another apartment. He had keys – my rule was you don’t come here if you have consumed any chemicals – booze or drugs. Thing is, I was usually in bed when he got home, but this time, I was up. I confronted him that he had been drinking, and told him he had to leave, and give me the key until the next day. He cursed at me and refused to leave or give me my key. I called the cops, they took him to detox where they seem to always have his room ready. Next time your son does what he did – tell him to get the “f” out and if he continues, call the cops. If he or your daughter dare touch you, call the cops. I learned a long time ago that if I don’t like the footprints on my back, to stand up and stop letting my kids (or anyone) walk all over me. Don’t fall for the grandkids being used as a weapon thing either. My kids did that and yes I lost them, but I gained my dignity back, though I fight for it almost daily. Don’t lose yourself. Don’t let the son of a you-know-what win. I cut my kids out of my Will – I am donating all to a shelter for abused womyn. I know from personal experience with my kids (and sibllings) that it is HARDER to take their crap and shut my mouth, then to end it with them. I don’t sit and cry and I am no longer their victim. Every day I tell myself, no matter what kind of day I had, that at least – today – nobody abused me. I feel pretty good about that. I may be alone, but I was still alone with my family. Inside, I was dying minute by minute, walked on eggshells, remained silent and the more I took it, the more they dished it out. PLEASE call the cops the next time, and see about getting grandparent’s visiting rights. I chose not to do that, but you can choose to pursue that, if you wish. You at least have the power to choose, and if you choose not to, the consequence of living without your grandkids. I play a little game in my head to survive not seeing them. I tell myself that my wonderful grandson who is the most beautiful creature on earth (he’s 6 years old) only has a few more years before he turned into HER (his mother) and that I am grateful that I met him, was part of his life, and let him know how MUCH I loved him, while I could. My daughter will have some explaining to do when he comes looking for me as he reaches the age where he can (though I am not holding my breath, by then, she’ll have told him god knows what about me). But one thing I will not let my kids do, is scream at me, call me names or lift a hand to me – I double dare them to try. I am 5’9″ and 200 lbs of solid muscle …….I would without hesitation, tear them apart and take them out myself. Best not to let me unleash my fury, and give me time to process the bag of crap I have to process to move forward.
Your son found an excuse to abuse you – most abusers have a repertoire of them. It does not excuse what he did. His anger about not spending Easter somewhere else, is HIS problem and in my view you let him off too easy – he has now taught your grandkids how to treat you, and how to handle frustration. Be careful. Its nowhere near over for you and this creature you call your son.
They escalate in abuse, as you know from living with past abusers. There are services for abused womyn, all over the world, please contact one.
Take care of yourself
In solidarity – a mom from Canada eh?
hi, I’am having problem with letting go of my first child who, had a baby at 16 that i have had for 5 years. but i feel that if let your go on with her life , I fear that i will not get to see my first born grandchild the way i want to.The most important thing is that the guy that she is dating will not be right by my grangdchild.That is not his,because if you can not be right by your own kids how can he love somebody child the way that God would have us to love and talk to a child. I pray that God will keep them safe in his arms away from harm, and the way that he talk to them it is mad, but I known in my heart that God will make things right in they life. I find the best thing to do is to take my hands off of it and leave it to God.He helps us when we are unwilling to help our self.
Hi
I just came across this today, as I am scouring the Internet for tools and tips on how to let go my entire family, including my 3 adult children. One son sexually abused his sister, the sister is on drugs/alcohol and holds my grandkids hostage when upset with me, the other son is a crackhead drunk. The pedophile son refuses to let me meet my grandson because I had the nerve to get the police to go tell his new wife about his past, so she can at least keep an eye on him with his son. My daughter has refused ALL therapeutic solutions, since her abuse that stopped at age 5 and where I had to give up my 15 year old son so that I could provide her with a danger-free home – he is bitter he had to go to a group home for sexually abusive youth, ordered by the courts, and that 2 years later I did not trust he would not do it again, so he spent the rest of his youth in care – and did so successfully, going to and finishing college, becoming webmaster for the organization and today makes a fortune as a high tech independent in Montreal, QC. My sibblings took sides and when my last parent passed away, 4 out of 5 of them stole part of my inheritance – 2 paid it back and though I have tried and tried to forgive them, I unleashed a few furious emails their way long ago, which “they” have never forgiven. Lately, when the past was thrown in my face, yet again, and when my kids decided the whole mess in the family was my fault, called me names and withheld my grandchildren, I finally gave up after 20 years of fighting, of being put down, of being blamed and the last insult was my 37 year old son saying it was the lack of my mothering skills that is responsible for how all 3 of them turned out. Enough already – they had a father who bathmouthed me the whole time they grew up, a step-father who was a dry drunk (I had no idea what that was at the time, and he abused all of us which my kids tell me was my fault he abused them, as I did not leave him! – I left him 10 years later, after I figured out what the problem was). My kids have sometimes vanished for up to a year, and no amount of my begging or reaching out to find them, has ever resulted in a new beginning. We re-start exactly where things were left off and to add to my pain, they REFUSE to let me talk about what it was like when I did not know if they were dead or alive. My eldest son (the junkie) and daughter, have consistently held their hand out for freebie, when we are speaking and neglect me in between. I am 58 and I tell you one thing. I returned to university finally at age 43 and stayed full time until age 51. I graduated with a B.A. and a M.A. – launched a new and lucrative career (whereas I was a secretary for most of my life before getting educated) and though today I am retired, and no pension to speak of, my head is still held high, somewhat, because I know I was not the author of my children’s behaviour, I know the “village” failed them, I know drugs and alcohol was their preferred way of coping (thanks to many years of therapy for me and Al-Anon meetings). I am single now, and have lived alone for 7 years – sometimes I wanted to kill myself, sometimes I wanted to just vanish, change my name, change countries – as it hurts to know my daughter and son live within 5 kilometers from me, yet my daughter visited me 3 times in the last 2 years. She said many times she was sorry, many times she swore up and down she would never take my grandkids away from me again – but the last time, I refused to trust her, so kept my heart guarded. I have no idea what set her off 3 months ago, but overnight she vanished from my life, no reason given, no notice, no conversation, nothing. She just never returned my calls, text messages, emails – pleas to see my grandkids even if she wanted nothing to do with me and I know my grandson is crying for me – he loves me and I love him – we bonded when we finally met. He is a carbon copy of my daughter’s personality, before she was abused. My pedophile son believes some day society will grow and accept that what he did was harmless (and he wonders why I alerted the Montreal police as to his whereabouts?).
Anyways, I do not believe reconciling is possible for us. My kids hate each other, and my daughter projects the hate for what her brother did, onto me. Thank God I know this. Thank God I stopped punishing myself for whatever I may not have done right (men in my life were bad choices, but they could have been a LOT worse). I don’t drink much (1 maybe 2 glasses of wine now and then) and I have never done drugs. I worked for most of my life, taught my kids not to lie, cheat, or hurt others – and what do they do? My eldest is a criminal currently “working under the table” and getting provincial payments for his disability (in Ontario they classify drug addiction as an eligible disability) and provide him with over $1,000.00 a month to live on, plus a discounted bus pass. I offered to pay my daughter’s college and buy her a car if she completes 2 years – any courses she wants. Ironically, while I was studying full time for 7 long years, she dropped out of high school and today is working as a merchandising for a drug store chain earning $12.00 an hour. Her kids (she is only 24 and has 2 kids from 2 different fathers – both of which have alcohol and drug problems) are shipped off each weekend somewhere – with the other grandmother, with the father, with friends, and she parties, gets high and drunk. She smokes on her balcony off and on each minute the kids are home, and they are left in the apartment unsupervised. I never modelled this kind of behaviour to any of my children. I preached against the lifestyle they have and dragged them to Al-a-Teen, to therapists, and did all I could to ensure the opposite outcome. Today, with NO family ties, I am wondering what the point is of my existence but I tell myself that many refugees have similar losses (for differing reasons) and somehow survive the accumulated losses, and so shall I. I don’t know how, but recently, I am back on my bicycle, back swimming, doing weights and purchased a kitten – ironically, I named her what I had originally wanted to name my daughter, but I realize now, its keeping her memory alive a little too close to home. I think I will never be ok, but I also think I will be as ok as anyone can be if they had my stuff to deal with. I find it hard to meet healthy people, as most want to know about kids, backgrounds, etc and there is no way that society is ready to view me without assigning responsibility to me, so I have become largely a recluse. I don’t think I am ready for new hurts or to take a chance at not being rejected, or that I can lie about my past, my kids, etc, so its best, for today, that I remain alone, out of sight until I can figure out how to get this large hole in my heart to close in a way that won’t last forever. I am too “needy” to have a great new beginning with anyone, (female friend or a great new male partner – I am bound to pick troubled people – its all I have attracted in decades), so I have found some peace in being alone – I thank my sociological studies for that. I know the map, sorta, that I have in front of me and though navigating it alone is often unpleasant, for now, I still have my health (minus high blood pressure) and I guess what I want to tell others who might be facing the same trajectory – is that it is possible not to lose your mind if you accept what you cannot change and change what you can – the latter being yourself. For now, I will keep navigating life alone, and I may return to work as a consultant in a year or so, after I have managed to get through thanksgiving, christmas and a few other significant dates that always return me to a quasi-insane state due to missing my family so much. My family is poison, so its one moment at a time, sometimes, for me. There are actually days when I have managed to forget them – so this is encouraging, eh?
Ottawa Lady, you’ve definitely been through a lot. The wounds are deep, the hurts very clear. You’re doing the best you can to heal and move on, in whatever ways you feel are necessary. What works for one person may not work for the next person, so each individual has to find the path for themselves to follow no matter how difficult it may be. The blame game helps no one, and hopefully the kids will one day “grow up” and realize they’re continuing and furthering painful past histories into their present and future, and bringing their young innocent children along for the destructive ride. From the description of the circumstances and personalities, and using the word “poison” in regards to family members, I thought I’d give you two links to what I believe are related articles of what you’ve been experiencing for so long. Please take a few minutes and read these over. I have a strong feeling you’ll be able to relate. This one about Toxic Family Members and this latest guest article about Toxic Relationship with Narcissists – you’ll see your situation in both.
omg i have the same life with my kids.
Hi Carol
I’m sorry to hear that! I returned to Alanon, my crackhead son entered a rehab (again) and within days was back on crack (again) and is now investigating another rehab centre. I am back to seeing my grandkids (my daughter’s kids) and my daughter is now making an effort to visit me each week, with kids in tow and seems some days to “get it” that her behaviour has been really “out there” over the years. We spent Xmas together, with one of my sisters (who I am a bit reconciled with, but no longer close to) and my sister’s two kids (who are my daughter’s age). Did not hear from my pedo son and never expect to until perhaps his wife leaves him or something happens that prompts his contact. I did think of him at Xmas, but only a bit and largely nobody talks about him to me, so its as if he never existed – the old rule of not talking applies well in people who just don’t want to hear “negative” stuff, unless of course its about them – then that’s all they want to talk about, their “crap”. Ironic eh?
So back to Alanon I went and though it doesn’t solve anything, its another place where I can get a bit of wisdom, spend an hour or so a week dumping whatever I’m feeling about whatever good or bad is going on, and gain a bit of perspective, and walk out with my chin up and in a better spot emotionally than I was likely to walk in with. Life is still not great and I have to deal with the reality that my kids and siblings and I will just never be close, as I would want, and as I crave. In a few momths, I hope you update this forum and let us know hopefully, that you have gained some peace of mind, and if so, how you did it and what’s different. Nothing stays the same with anyone forever. My next post may be that things went 2 steps back again, but for today, things are 1 step ahead compared to last summer, and I am grateful for any movement that is positive.
To Lin: I read the material on those links, but since I had Co-Dependency in the USA in the 80′s, and was in Al-Anon, CODA and ACOA for years, I found it to be more of the same, but a refresher did not hurt, so thank you. Knowing what the problem is, is helpful, but it does not help make the feelings go away. I have a hard time relating to the 12 steps, since they were created for the addict and in Al-Anon groups, many are recovering addicts and I cant relate to them, but I do get some information from them about the extent of their lies to loved ones, how normal that is for them, so their disclosures have often helped me weed out my kids’ b.s. as I tend to be gullible
Hi Lin and thank you for the feedback. I looked at those links before I saw your post, along with many others. The information on here is very useful and relevant to me. Funny though my kids say its me that’s living in the past – but I know the more I try to push forward, the more I have encountered the same attitude in them since they were pre-teens or teens. I changed, the problem is nobody else did. I see it, acknowledge it, name it, tried to prompt them to look at their own behaviour, tried every angle (good and bad), did all that a human can do, forgave them, forgave them again, again, again, forgave me, again, again and again and waived the white flag. I am almost sure that they are waiting for my “suicide” in order to say, see, she was nuts. Sometimes I hang on to a thread, just to not give them that satisfaction as I have had reason upon reason to end it all. I won’t let the sons-of-a you know what win. They may have driven me to the edge, and around the bend many times, but I survived them, got a B.A. and a M.A. in the process of needing to hang on to something and have a new beginning, and what I see is that they are still stuck in their old patterns with me, with me fighting every step of the way. I decided to stand up for myself, and they did all they can to put me in my former role of the person who accepted blame. Not going to happen, so I had to cut all ties, with all of them, because if I talk to one, all I say goes around and around until what I apparently said has morphed into such incredible proportions, I barely recognize it. So, sometimes, a mom has to move on, permanently. I knew this years ago, but could not do it. To purposely lose all family (and I have 5 sibblings), and 3 kids and grandkids, I thought would be worse than the abuse. I changed my mind. Each day now I can say nobody abused me and feel good about that. Thank you for the opportunity to comment and share.
Hi.
OK .. so, here is what I am going through. Eleven years ago, I worked with a wonderful man and we were HUGELY attracted to each other. However, as circumstances would have it, because of company policy not allowing us to date, his diminished marriage and subsequent divorce, and other factors, we did not make it at that time. He divorced his wife shortly after I left the company and I met another man. He eventually went on to marry this woman again. Both of us made HUGE mistakes. Fast-forward ten years and we found each other again. The attraction and love was instantaneous. We couldn’t be happier with each other. After dating only a few months, he asked me to move into his house with him. I agreed immediately, as we lived 60-miles from each other, and wanted to spend as much time as we could together. He’s 55 and I’m 45 and we felt like we wasted enough time apart.
This is the problem. The house is a nice size house, with master on the main, kitchen, breakfast room, formal dining, formal living (which we made into a craft room/office for the two of us) – and the upstairs has two bedrooms and a bonus room. His adult son (30-years old), lives upstairs with his 48-year old “girlfriend” and her 5-year old daughter. At first they “pretended” to like me. I do everything for my boyfriend and tried really hard to blend us together and build a family (I too have a six-year old son who lives with his father and I get him on weekends). Then, being an outsider, I began to notice things. The son and his girlfriend have only one part-time job between the two of them. They work about 15-hours per week, if that. They are supposed to pay $400 per month for rent, provide some of the groceries and clean up after themselves in the house. Very little considering they are two adults and child and have an entire floor to themselves. For the past two months, they have not paid rent. In addition, they have asked for money for everything under the sun – from gas, to clothing for the child, to cigarettes, to loan payments (title pawns, jewelry pawns, etc.). – last month, I calculated he gave them an additional $1,000, plus not getting the rent. My boyfriend bought and paid for both their vehicles. If we ever borrow “her” car, he fills it up with gas before we leave and fills it up when we return it. It is usually on empty if we borrow it.
In addition, they fight CONSTANTLY. Yelling, screaming, slamming doors until all hours of the morning. Since I’ve been here, they’ve hardly lifted a finger. They constantly disrespect my boyfriend, telling him that I’m the problem and that he has changed since he met me and he doesn’t want them there. They have been sleeping and not taken the little girl to school on several occasions and often do not get up to go to work before noon, leaving the little girl with me. I have watched while the girlfriend was drunk, running around the neighborhood, screaming and yelling. I have listened while both of them berated my boyfriend, blaming him for not “giving” them anything anymore. I went to the store with the girlfriend one day and she stole a chili pepper plant when I bought flowers. I double-checked the receipt, the plant was in the truck, but it was not paid for.
When they are not here, we are SO HAPPY! There is no fighting and we love and support one another. I have talked to him every day about exerting some “tough love” on his son. THEY ARE GROWN! My boyfriend says he cannot just kick them out because they have nowhere else to go. Well, they would have a place to go if they didn’t blow every penny they get and then expect him to bail them out every month. Perhaps they could not live as they live here, but they could make it. I did it when I grew up and my boyfriend did it when he grew up. They have such a sense of entitlement, it makes me sick to my stomach and my heart aches for the man I love. It is so hard for me to sit back and watch this grown son destroy such a good man.
How can I lovingly encourage my boyfriend to stop enabling these adults and put them on the road – for his own good as well as the good of our relationship. We waited a very long time to find each other again and I don’t think I could bear to part with such deep love that I waited for so long. However, I cannot sit back and watch this without saying anything either.
On several occasions, they have told lies to the ex-wife about me – stating that I was wanted by the law, etc. She will call, raising all kinds of heck with my boyfriend until he calms her down and tells her the truth about the situation, then she’s OK until the next time the son doesn’t get his way and he’s calling her again. The other day, my best friend was visiting town and was coming to the house for dinner. She was there at the birth of my son and I had not seen her in 5-years. When they found out she was coming, they started a fight with my boyfriend and I until I finally called my friend and told her there were some issues and we should probably postpone our visit to another day. That same day, I was on the phone with my mother and they were yelling and screaming so loudly that I had to tell her I would call her back. I have an apartment that I still pay for in another city and seriously wanted to go back there the other night. I almost did. My boyfriend has assured me that he will make them leave before he lets me go, but I found out when this happened that is not the case. When I told him I wanted to go back, he said, “fine, I can’t just kick them out when they have nowhere else to go.” I don’t know why I stayed, but I did. The only thing I can think of is that I just love him so much I can’t bear to leave him in this situation with no support.
I need help in finding answers that will not destroy our relationship in the process.
Sami