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General Parenting
Helping vs Enabling - Now what?
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 612745" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>SB, just to give you a bit of perspective, everything you said about your son, is also true about my daughter, only she is about to turn 41, your age I just noticed, in a couple of weeks. She has poor cause and effect, has a severely inflated sense of herself, believes she is smarter then everyone, has little or no empathy with the exception of her attachment to her cats and she fits almost all of the narcissistic traits. She has not worked in 4 years, she has managed to couch surf and stay for extended periods of time in people's homes without paying rent and feels she "has rights." She also never hits bottom but remarkably, like your son, adjusts to a new, lower bottom. </p><p></p><p>I have paid an enormous amount of money over many years attempting to help her, always thinking that this time, she will be at level ground and begin her 'real' life. Unfortunately that never happened. Of course, it might someday, but I had to extricate myself from all of it, the drama, the unending requests for money, the lack of responsibility for her choices and her indifference to myself and her daughter, whom I am raising, became too much. </p><p></p><p>My story is a little different, in that my daughter was relatively okay, although she did exhibit some odd behaviors as a younger person, she still fit into the "normal" category.............however, that all ended when her husband committed suicide, that pushed her into a place which she has not recovered from and that was almost 14 years ago. Sigh. So, I probably helped and enabled her far too long, but my heart so broke for the circumstances of her life spiraling out of control inch by inch, it was devastating to witness it.</p><p></p><p>With a lot of help from therapists, friends, groups, books, this forum and my intense resolve to find a way out of all of that fear, guilt, sorrow and anger...........I made it through this detachment landscape. Once we recognize that this is all completely out of our control, that we cannot save them from themselves, that what we do really doesn't matter in the scheme of it all, that we are in fact hurting ourselves and hurting them too..........that we can't change someone else's life........that no matter how much we love them and want them to be safe and have a "normal" life, it doesn't change anything..........once we see how utterly powerless we really are...........then we can let go. It takes awhile to get there because we love them, but once they are adults and they aren't willing to change and we know it, then all we can do is detach from them and accept what is. I think the acceptance is what frees us and brings peace.</p><p></p><p>We all have to dig deep inside and figure out what we are willing to do and what we are just not willing to do. If you want to help him until he gets on his feet, then help him, negotiate a contract which works for you. Help him for a certain amount of time, make it very clear how long and what the help looks like and when you expect him to be independent. I took this whole year to do that with my daughter, little by little weaning myself of all of the responsibility for her life. As a result, I don't hear from her nor see her............I'm not sure how that will develop, weird as it feels right now, it also feels appropriate. I had to end the old relationship we had. Perhaps a new one will emerge, I don't know, but it's up to her. </p><p></p><p>Your son is still pretty young and he did get a job, so perhaps a little more time to give him a start in life, but I think you have to make it very clear that after that, he will be on his own. You're the one who makes the boundaries around what it is you are willing to do. Your son's life is the result of his choices and at some point, he will have to take complete responsibility for those choices.</p><p></p><p>*Good luck with your talk with husband about your son's options.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 612745, member: 13542"] SB, just to give you a bit of perspective, everything you said about your son, is also true about my daughter, only she is about to turn 41, your age I just noticed, in a couple of weeks. She has poor cause and effect, has a severely inflated sense of herself, believes she is smarter then everyone, has little or no empathy with the exception of her attachment to her cats and she fits almost all of the narcissistic traits. She has not worked in 4 years, she has managed to couch surf and stay for extended periods of time in people's homes without paying rent and feels she "has rights." She also never hits bottom but remarkably, like your son, adjusts to a new, lower bottom. I have paid an enormous amount of money over many years attempting to help her, always thinking that this time, she will be at level ground and begin her 'real' life. Unfortunately that never happened. Of course, it might someday, but I had to extricate myself from all of it, the drama, the unending requests for money, the lack of responsibility for her choices and her indifference to myself and her daughter, whom I am raising, became too much. My story is a little different, in that my daughter was relatively okay, although she did exhibit some odd behaviors as a younger person, she still fit into the "normal" category.............however, that all ended when her husband committed suicide, that pushed her into a place which she has not recovered from and that was almost 14 years ago. Sigh. So, I probably helped and enabled her far too long, but my heart so broke for the circumstances of her life spiraling out of control inch by inch, it was devastating to witness it. With a lot of help from therapists, friends, groups, books, this forum and my intense resolve to find a way out of all of that fear, guilt, sorrow and anger...........I made it through this detachment landscape. Once we recognize that this is all completely out of our control, that we cannot save them from themselves, that what we do really doesn't matter in the scheme of it all, that we are in fact hurting ourselves and hurting them too..........that we can't change someone else's life........that no matter how much we love them and want them to be safe and have a "normal" life, it doesn't change anything..........once we see how utterly powerless we really are...........then we can let go. It takes awhile to get there because we love them, but once they are adults and they aren't willing to change and we know it, then all we can do is detach from them and accept what is. I think the acceptance is what frees us and brings peace. We all have to dig deep inside and figure out what we are willing to do and what we are just not willing to do. If you want to help him until he gets on his feet, then help him, negotiate a contract which works for you. Help him for a certain amount of time, make it very clear how long and what the help looks like and when you expect him to be independent. I took this whole year to do that with my daughter, little by little weaning myself of all of the responsibility for her life. As a result, I don't hear from her nor see her............I'm not sure how that will develop, weird as it feels right now, it also feels appropriate. I had to end the old relationship we had. Perhaps a new one will emerge, I don't know, but it's up to her. Your son is still pretty young and he did get a job, so perhaps a little more time to give him a start in life, but I think you have to make it very clear that after that, he will be on his own. You're the one who makes the boundaries around what it is you are willing to do. Your son's life is the result of his choices and at some point, he will have to take complete responsibility for those choices. *Good luck with your talk with husband about your son's options. [/QUOTE]
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