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Do I have to be nice to my boyfriend's family? /
Am I enabling a victim?
Dear Annie: I am a sophomore in college and have
been dating 'Andrew' for nearly six months. He lives
with his father and stepfamily. There are several
legal problems involving abuse in Andrew's family.
Social Services visits their house often to check up
on things. Along with that, his family has no sense
of financial responsibility, and much of the burden
falls on Andrew. Bills have been placed in his name
because the adults in this household have not paid
them.
Andrew cannot currently afford to move
out. All his money goes toward college tuition and
car payments. His father helps with nothing. His
mother, who lives in another state, tries her best
but cannot afford much.
I know and adore Andrew's mother, but I cannot bear
to be around his father and stepmother. I do not
approve of how they do anything in their house,
because I feel it endangers the young children who
reside there. I rarely visit them, and apparently,
they have noticed. They told Andrew I needed to be
more "friendly."
I care very much for Andrew,
but why do I have any obligations to his family? He
feels I should "make nice" so as not to cause any
problems. What do you think? —Reluctant Girlfriend
Annie's Reply:
Dear Reluctant: Is this relationship serious? If so,
you must find a way to get along with Andrew's
family, whether or not you approve of them. He
obviously wants to remain close to his father.
Social Services is handling the abuse issue, which
means you can choose to be a stabilizing influence
in the family or a source of stress. You don't have
to like these people, but you can be polite and
civil, and show Andrew that you care enough about
him to make the effort. —Annie
Gabby's Reply:
Hi Reluctant: Your use of the word "care" indicates
that you are stuck in controlling your emotions. A
person who is whole and complete starts a
relationship from love. It's no accident that you
attracted someone equally emotionally challenged
from a
dysfunctional family. Of all the men on the
planet you attracted someone who supports, rewards,
and enables abuse of his siblings—for a roof over
his head no less. Worse yet, both of you are unaware
that the reasons he's given you for his situation
hide the truth.
It's clear that you needed someone who would mirror
your need for counseling. You were supposed to have
learned from your family:
1) To be able
to experience the karma, the aura, of someone
whose integrity is out.
2) To not
engage in extended or significant conversations
with people addicted to abuse.
3) Through life's experiences you were
supposed to have discovered the correlation
between personal integrity and outcomes; I refer
to the karma of the deceit—you conning him into
deceiving both sets of parents so as to
have sex.
That you didn't learn these important assessment
skills indicates that you also have some
incompletes
with your parents. A daughter who is whole and
complete in her relationship with her parents
selects dates with her parents in mind—would
my date,
and his/her family, treat my parents with the love and
respect they deserve? Will they compliment the clan
or will they generate unwanted problems? I doubt
your parents approve of your choice; for certain
your choice is abusive to
them. Perhaps
you're reaping the consequences of thwarting
(abusing and deceiving) your parents;
You've revealed that
you don't have the leadership-communication skills
it will take to have your relationship with Andrew
be anything other than what it is. You'll definitely
need an entirely different set of skills to
create/find your ideal
partner. To create, have, and recreate
daily, to sustain a magnificent relationship, you
must be willing to communicate openly, honestly, and
spontaneously, through to mutual satisfaction, at
all times within your intimate relationships.
You are addicted
to abuse and to withholding. You've submitted
yourself to his family's abuse (not once but
repeatedly) and you have self-righteously withheld
your experiences and thoughts about his family from
them. Read: An
inconsiderate gift to give a prospective partner.
As you've noticed,
being "polite" and distant causes upsets and keeps
everyone stuck in producing more of the same.
You already know that if you verbally shared
your experience of his family with them it would
generate upset, both with them and Andrew. No
significant conversation with his father or
step-mother could be mutually satisfying. You don't
yet have permission to communicate your experience
(to share what you're experiencing at any given
moment) and we already know that it won't work to
dump judgments, criticisms, or even recommendations
in his space.
For example:
His Father: "Shut up you kids!"
You: "I'm experiencing
uncomfortableness."
His Father: "It's
none of your business. If you don't like the way I
talk to my kids then don't come over, etc., argue,
argue, justify, justify."
Even your non-verbal judgments of his abuse get
communicated. They come across as self-righteousness. Know
that Andrew knows; he is uncomfortable and
embarrassed with the way his parents behave.
You don't yet have the communication skills to
inspire someone addicted to abuse to remove him/her
self from the abusive relationship(s). That is to
say, rather than inspire Andrew to opt for health,
happiness, and abuse-free personal and familial
relationships you reward and enable Andrew in
empowering abuse within his own family. They cannot
begin to heal until he removes himself (including
his financial support) from the equation. Until then
he cannot be absolutely sure that it's not his
leadership-communication skills that's causing the
abuse. What do you suppose would happen if he
insisted that they complete 25-hours of therapy
before he talked with them again? In other words, he
doesn't even have the respect of his father.
Now here's the rub: Your letter turned me off about
Andrew. I never met the guy and already I don't like
him based upon how you described your problem. You
also caused many readers to think less of him for
enabling that crap. You have covertly unconsciously
badmouthed him to us. You have revealed that he has
mastered being a victim but you cleverly didn't
mention your cause in the matter. What is it about
you that's causing this in your life? That you
support him staying in that house reveals that you
also would rationalize staying in an abusive
relationship—another 24-hours—for good reasons of
course.
He has enrolled you in thinking that
he is generously sacrificing himself for his family,
helping them. What he calls "help" keeps
them stuck. He gets to look good and they look so
bad that you don't even want to interact with them.
It appears that he hid his family's condition from you until
after he hooked you. This is sneaky and
irresponsible. What have you
hidden from him? Note:
All divorced couples withheld
significant thoughts from each on their first date;
withholders automatically attract withholders—there
are no exceptions to this phenomenon.
Although it looks
like you're writing about his family's addiction to
abuse, in truth, you are revealing your own. You
unconsciously selected a man addicted to abuse, to
enabling, to covertly blaming his family. How they
interacted with you didn't feel good. He set you up
knowing full well they would communicate abusively
to you. He was thinking (hoping) you were a
conscious person, that you would say,
"Hey Andrew, I
should have asked you about your family. I'm
simply no good with these kinds of
relationships. I'm having a hard time respecting
you for interacting with them for any reason.
What I do around abuse is I remove myself from
it—so as to be clear that I'm not addicted to
creating/enabling it. If I continue interacting
with you then I become responsible for the abuse
of your siblings. Let me know when you have
completed 25-hours of therapy or counseling or
you have
estranged
yourself and
haven't interacted with any of them for
six-months in a row."
Wow! He'd
experience shock, upset, anger, and hurt. Then he
would probably argue, trying to justify, plead, and
beg you to reconsider. All this and more would come
up for him. When the smoke cleared (providing you
haven't conned him into
conning you to change your mind) he would have had his
first
experience—of just how bad it is and a sense of his
cause in it. He'd also get what a handicap it is for
him socially unless he insists that they get
therapy, and, if they refused, that he would have to estrange himself
from them—for life. Most
importantly, he would get that it was unethical of
him to submit another, ostensibly someone he cares for
and admires (you), to such abuse, to such a
dysfunctional family. Now is not
the time for him to be dating. He needs the courage
to disconnect from them with a firm clear ultimatum
on how they can return into his life. Perhaps it's
time for him to serve his country and set academic
education on the back burner?
For you to have
been so unconscious as to attract him indicates that
you are in denial about your own addiction to abuse.
If after reading this you continue interacting with
him it will reveal that you need as much therapy as
he and his family does. If you complete the
relationship with him and then don't clean up the
relationship with your parents you will attract yet
another similar relationship. And, because your
abuse is so unconscious, so covert (hurting their
feelings without communicating verbally to them
exactly why you don't want to interact with them)
indicates that you will teach your children to
withhold, eventually from you.
It speaks well
of Andrew's mother for her to have moved and to send
what money she can. But, I'm concerned that you
can't see that the person you "adore" has conned you
into thinking that she's not as abusive
as Andrew's father. She's still committed to being
the victim, supporting Andrew in empowering his
father to treat her and his siblings abusively. For
her to heal she also must estrange herself from
those who refuse to comply with her own 25-hr
therapy ultimatum, to include Andrew. Andrew has
unconsciously taken his father's side simply by
living under the same roof. He has yet to get that
both parents are equally damaged
and cause for the divorce and that to interact with
either until they get extensive therapy keeps him
and them stuck.
Very important: You
might be tempted to help Andrew
get away from his family by loaning him money, or
worse, letting him live rent free in your house. I
don't recommend it; it would reward his con (his
smart choice to date a fellow con, a helper). If you must, get a receipt
with payback date and agreed upon collateral he'll
sell rather than dump a "poor-me" story on you if/when
he loses his job, has an "accident" (can't make the
payments), etc. In
other words, you're confronting your own addiction
to enabling as well as his. —Gabby
P.S. Show Andrew these coms.
To ask a question please go to Dear
Gabby's Message Board (free
- registration required).
Last edited 2/12/23
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