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Time to Put My Big Girl Panties On
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<blockquote data-quote="donna723" data-source="post: 395791" data-attributes="member: 1883"><p>Lisa, don't beat yourself up for misjudging her motives. I think you made the same assumptions that any of us would have made, given the circumstances. So instead of being manipulative and looking for a free ride out of laziness, she really <em>IS</em> totally clueless and has no earthly idea how to assume adult responsibilities and properly take care of her family. But the result is the same - right now neither one of them is capable of acting as a mature adult or being any kind of a responsible parent to those children. She seems to be stuck in a child-like mentality where she has never learned to be self-reliant, like a child who finds herself with three slightly younger children to care for and has no idea how to do that. So, like a child, she sits paralyzed and scared and waits for some "adult" to take care of them all and provide the things that they need. </p><p> </p><p>We all, when our children were younger, tried to ease them in to the skills that they needed to know to function as adults. We hoped to teach them to be loving, responsible parents themselves through our good example. We tried to teach them a solid work ethic, that there is no such thing as a "free lunch", that they could accomplish anything if they were willing to work for it. When they were older and wanted a part time job, we helped them with job applications, and clued them in on how to get and keep a job. And we taught them (or tried to, anyway) how to be responsible with their finances, how to budget their money and how to handle a bank account. And gradually they became capable of functioning as independent adults, making their way in the world without us. Somehow, Katie either missed all of this, or it didn't "stick".</p><p> </p><p>And like a vulnerable child, she becomes dependent on someone else to look out for her and to provide emotional support, which is why she clings to M. She is stuck in the mindset of a 12-13 year old child! In my opinion, M has aleady progressed as far as he's ever going to! He is not mentally or emotionally capable of being anything other than what he is now - a hot-headed "child" in an adults body, the loose cannon she has chained herself to. With Katie, it would take a lot of time and a lot of patience, but you might be able to backtrack with her and try to teach her some of these adult life skills from the very beginning, like you would with a young child, and whether she acted upon it would be up to her. But still, the dependence on M would be detracting from what she's learning and tripping her up. And he may not <em>want</em> to see her functioning as a responsible adult because then she wouldn't need <em>him</em> any more and would soon cast him aside!</p><p> </p><p>The "self confidence" thing is the key. I used to work with a girl who was very much like Katie in many ways. This girl is very bright, very capable, holds an extremely responsible job, and has always been a wonderful mother to her two children. But her self-esteem is almost non-existent. She thinks of herself as stupid and incapable of making intelligent decisions about her own life. She has always had to have someone to lean on, someone to tell her what to do and to run her life for her because she doesn't think she's capable of doing it herself. She was raised by very rigid, domineering, unyielding (and I think abusive) parents and learned to defer to them in everything, no matter what she thought herself. She thought they always knew better and she really belived that. When she got married the first time she transferred that dependence to her husband, no matter how outrageous his behavior became, and deferred to him in everything. When they divorced, she remarried and transferred that dependence to the second husband, who was even worse but she was so dependent on him to take charge of her life, she would not leave him. When that marriage ended, she found someone else, someone her parents didn't agree with, and actually lost custody of her daughter rather than give this person up. She was THAT terrified of being on her own and THAT insecure in her capability to live on her own and manage her own life. She is in her forties now and has never, even once, not even for a single day, lived independently without some other dominating person to lean on! It's a very difficult, almost impossible thing to overcome.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="donna723, post: 395791, member: 1883"] Lisa, don't beat yourself up for misjudging her motives. I think you made the same assumptions that any of us would have made, given the circumstances. So instead of being manipulative and looking for a free ride out of laziness, she really [I]IS[/I] totally clueless and has no earthly idea how to assume adult responsibilities and properly take care of her family. But the result is the same - right now neither one of them is capable of acting as a mature adult or being any kind of a responsible parent to those children. She seems to be stuck in a child-like mentality where she has never learned to be self-reliant, like a child who finds herself with three slightly younger children to care for and has no idea how to do that. So, like a child, she sits paralyzed and scared and waits for some "adult" to take care of them all and provide the things that they need. We all, when our children were younger, tried to ease them in to the skills that they needed to know to function as adults. We hoped to teach them to be loving, responsible parents themselves through our good example. We tried to teach them a solid work ethic, that there is no such thing as a "free lunch", that they could accomplish anything if they were willing to work for it. When they were older and wanted a part time job, we helped them with job applications, and clued them in on how to get and keep a job. And we taught them (or tried to, anyway) how to be responsible with their finances, how to budget their money and how to handle a bank account. And gradually they became capable of functioning as independent adults, making their way in the world without us. Somehow, Katie either missed all of this, or it didn't "stick". And like a vulnerable child, she becomes dependent on someone else to look out for her and to provide emotional support, which is why she clings to M. She is stuck in the mindset of a 12-13 year old child! In my opinion, M has aleady progressed as far as he's ever going to! He is not mentally or emotionally capable of being anything other than what he is now - a hot-headed "child" in an adults body, the loose cannon she has chained herself to. With Katie, it would take a lot of time and a lot of patience, but you might be able to backtrack with her and try to teach her some of these adult life skills from the very beginning, like you would with a young child, and whether she acted upon it would be up to her. But still, the dependence on M would be detracting from what she's learning and tripping her up. And he may not [I]want[/I] to see her functioning as a responsible adult because then she wouldn't need [I]him[/I] any more and would soon cast him aside! The "self confidence" thing is the key. I used to work with a girl who was very much like Katie in many ways. This girl is very bright, very capable, holds an extremely responsible job, and has always been a wonderful mother to her two children. But her self-esteem is almost non-existent. She thinks of herself as stupid and incapable of making intelligent decisions about her own life. She has always had to have someone to lean on, someone to tell her what to do and to run her life for her because she doesn't think she's capable of doing it herself. She was raised by very rigid, domineering, unyielding (and I think abusive) parents and learned to defer to them in everything, no matter what she thought herself. She thought they always knew better and she really belived that. When she got married the first time she transferred that dependence to her husband, no matter how outrageous his behavior became, and deferred to him in everything. When they divorced, she remarried and transferred that dependence to the second husband, who was even worse but she was so dependent on him to take charge of her life, she would not leave him. When that marriage ended, she found someone else, someone her parents didn't agree with, and actually lost custody of her daughter rather than give this person up. She was THAT terrified of being on her own and THAT insecure in her capability to live on her own and manage her own life. She is in her forties now and has never, even once, not even for a single day, lived independently without some other dominating person to lean on! It's a very difficult, almost impossible thing to overcome. [/QUOTE]
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