You repeatedly rescue her and expect a different result?
She lies, cheats and steals—and is repeatedly rescued
Dear Doug:
My niece lies, cheats and steals from her family and workplace. Every time she gets into trouble, her family rescues her. We pooled our money to prevent an eviction; when she was caught embezzling, she was terminated but we helped her to avoid arrest; when her car was about to be repossessed, we helped her catch up on car payments. She always cries and promises to do better and the cycle repeats.
We know we’re enabling, but she has a 4-year-old son, an innocent who would be dragged down with her if we stop “helping.” Yet, we don’t want the boy to follow her into a similar life of committing serial misbehaviors, or get sucked down with her. She refuses to seek counseling and won’t turn over custody of her son. How do we stop enabling her without hurting him?
Signed,
At the end of our rope
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists would agree with your family’s setting of limits and trying to protect your niece’s son. They’d say it’s impossible to know whether she’s “just” chronically messed up or has a mental illness or is an addict, and suggest that the family seek counseling to help you set boundaries. They might admit that your family must let her face consequences by refusing to rescue her yet again, but this would not be emphasized. It should be.
First, the odds of addiction are about ten to one over mental illness, and being this “chronically messed up” simply doesn’t happen without one or the other. So, let’s go with the odds.
Addicts in recovery tell us when they used they lied, cheated, stole and manipulated everyone around them. Other columnists might figure out she’s using the family’s concern for her son to wield power and control over the family. They would fail to connect all of the dots and bluntly tell you to assume psychotropic drug addiction. Therefore, they would fail to tell you that no good can come from allowing her to keep her son. You have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors, or what will occur when she finds she can no longer control you by using her son. At the very least he is already experiencing emotional abandonment; at most she’s abusing him in other ways and, just like the rest of the family, he forgives her when she apologizes and proclaims her love for him on bended knee.
Unfortunately, counseling addicts only enables them. For the behaviors to improve she must get sober. While sometimes a credible threat of loss of a loved one will get an addict clean and sober, this has likely gone on way too long for threats to work. She probably needs to lose her son, at least temporarily. Your family would do well to plan for this and deal with it appropriately—which means the family needs counseling. And, if you all get lucky, his mother will get sober, stay sober, and be a mother to her son.
(Source for story idea: “Ask Amy,” May 10, 2013.)