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I really want to help my girlfriend
Death of Rats
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My girlfriend is in quite a bad situation... well... in every which way.
Basically she's living with her parents, she's dependent on them for pretty much everything, they're not helping her with stuff that she actually needs, and they're emotionally abusing her.
She doesn't have a car or know how to drive for that matter. She's going to school through loans she's gotten without them. She's trying to find a job, but her parents have given her a very limited area where they'll give her a ride (and as you know, the job market sucks right now).
Add on top of that the fact that she had thyroid cancer, had part of her thyroid removed, and needs to get a checkup to see if she's ok. They refuse to take her. They refuse to help her get her social security stuff taken care of so she can get a damned bank account (she has had her identity stolen on top of all this).
In other words, she's completely dependent on them for shelter, food, and transportation.
And they're emotionally abusing her, and have being doing so for some time. She feels worthless and alone. I've been trying to show her she's not, but it really doesn't seem to be helping. I'm guessing that's because her grandmother (which she was very close to and she considered to be the only person who really cared about her) died a while back, she blames herself. Her parents seem to give and give when it comes to her two older sisters (they've had cars given to them, were taught to drive, were helped with school, ext). She's constantly put down and compared to her sisters by her parents. Her sister who's 25 (she's 19), and still lives with them abuses the situation she's in, taking advantage of her helplessness by having her help with babysitting jobs and paying her like... $10 out of $60.
And now I've entered into the whole situation and I want to help her get out. The way I see it there's 2 real things that need to happen...
The only ways so far I've come up with to help with #1 is, well, be there for her, tell her how much I love her, and try to get her to integrate with my group of friends, who all have there shit together relatively well for a bunch of suburban kids.
As for the second one, besides teaching her how to drive, pushing her to start saving up for a car once she finds a job, and trying to give her a ride to anything she really needs to go to, I don't know what to do. If we had been going out for longer than we have, I would be completely comfortable just trying to get her to move in with me... but we've only really known each other since the beginning of September. And it really wouldn't help her become self sufficient. She'd just become dependent on me.
I just don't know what to do. I really want to help her, it hurts to see her stuck like this. And it really worries me. I'm hoping someone here might know what to do. Or at least have some idea of what she should be doing. If anyone needs anymore info, I'll give as much as I feel comfortable with.
Basically she's living with her parents, she's dependent on them for pretty much everything, they're not helping her with stuff that she actually needs, and they're emotionally abusing her.
She doesn't have a car or know how to drive for that matter. She's going to school through loans she's gotten without them. She's trying to find a job, but her parents have given her a very limited area where they'll give her a ride (and as you know, the job market sucks right now).
Add on top of that the fact that she had thyroid cancer, had part of her thyroid removed, and needs to get a checkup to see if she's ok. They refuse to take her. They refuse to help her get her social security stuff taken care of so she can get a damned bank account (she has had her identity stolen on top of all this).
In other words, she's completely dependent on them for shelter, food, and transportation.
And they're emotionally abusing her, and have being doing so for some time. She feels worthless and alone. I've been trying to show her she's not, but it really doesn't seem to be helping. I'm guessing that's because her grandmother (which she was very close to and she considered to be the only person who really cared about her) died a while back, she blames herself. Her parents seem to give and give when it comes to her two older sisters (they've had cars given to them, were taught to drive, were helped with school, ext). She's constantly put down and compared to her sisters by her parents. Her sister who's 25 (she's 19), and still lives with them abuses the situation she's in, taking advantage of her helplessness by having her help with babysitting jobs and paying her like... $10 out of $60.
And now I've entered into the whole situation and I want to help her get out. The way I see it there's 2 real things that need to happen...
- She needs to stop caring what her parents say to and about her and gain some self confidence.
- She needs to move out and become self sufficient.
The only ways so far I've come up with to help with #1 is, well, be there for her, tell her how much I love her, and try to get her to integrate with my group of friends, who all have there shit together relatively well for a bunch of suburban kids.
As for the second one, besides teaching her how to drive, pushing her to start saving up for a car once she finds a job, and trying to give her a ride to anything she really needs to go to, I don't know what to do. If we had been going out for longer than we have, I would be completely comfortable just trying to get her to move in with me... but we've only really known each other since the beginning of September. And it really wouldn't help her become self sufficient. She'd just become dependent on me.
I just don't know what to do. I really want to help her, it hurts to see her stuck like this. And it really worries me. I'm hoping someone here might know what to do. Or at least have some idea of what she should be doing. If anyone needs anymore info, I'll give as much as I feel comfortable with.
No I don't.
Death of Rats on
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Her extended family seemed fine with stealing from her grandmother until the day she died (and after as well), so unfortunately I'm guessing she can't really turn to them. It really seems like her friends can't help her either. Most of them have moved away for college, and the one that's still close to her is broke as a joke as well.
From what I've seen, she hasn't really met a really decent person in quite a while.
The #1 I see from your list is:
1. Getting to appointments for thyroid cancer checkup.
Start with this. Can you take her? Can she take a bus? Can she transfer/refer her appointments to a place within public transit. Start out with this issue.
Next is probably finding a job. Yes, it probably is going to have to be on transit route or within bike-ride distance for now, but I think it will be easier for her to afford the car stuff (including licensing) once she has a job.
It's probably time that she started emotionally separating herself from her family, and hopefully (looks like you understand this already) not just transfering the dependence to you. She can start in little ways like with her cancer checkups, she should book them, go to them and come home and manage her own health regimen without her family intervening. In fact, unless they ask she should probably stop including them in her business (even healthwise).
She has to be strong, not that I'm saying "suck it up" but really, lots of families don't give their adult kids lifts to every single little thing, so even though you're always going to be on her side, there is another side to the story.
Once she has the job, then start working with her on the car stuff, or even at the same time. Once she learns how to drive and gets a license, then she can start worrying about saving for a car and some of the other issues on her plate like moving out.
I would suggest that you deal with things in this order, it wouldn't be much good for her to move out when she doesn't have a job or a car/license. The most important thing to remember is that ANY step toward independence is better than the current situation. She (and you) have to learn to celebrate and enjoy the little steps toward improvement. Like anything in life, it won't happen overnight but that's no reason to not try at all.
Even though her parents might be harsh, they're supplying her with a home, food, and a ride (sometimes). This is allowing her to go through school. Moving out means working all the time, which makes school a crazy amount harder. Especially, at 19, she is probably going to be working close to minimum wage.
I'm not saying what her parents are doing is right, but they are giving her a lot. Yes, she should find a job. One where she can still do well in school. And then when the time is right and she has money saved up, then move out.
And like onceling said, she needs to start seperating herself from her family. She needs to use them. Sleep there, eat their food, clean-up/do whatever chores to keep them happy and then leave.
Unfortunately this is a money issue. She doesn't have the money for the checkup. Her father's insurance is crazy, and she'd have to pay around $500 for tests in order to get the checkup. She doesn't have any money, so she can't go. Her parents aren't so much refusing to take her, as refusing to pay for it. They'd take her if she had the money to pay for it.
For some reason I never thought of the public transit option. We are in the Chicago suburbs, shouldn't be too hard to convince her to widen her search to include those within the bus routes. Probably buy her some mace if she does start taking the bus though.
This is really the most important thing I think. She feels worthless, and I think the only thing that can help with that is if she gets out of this situation mostly on her own.
The thing that really gets me is that they blame her for not being able to contribute, when every step she takes to better her situation they fight her on. They've yelled at her for looking outside their convenience area for jobs. They've yelled at her for setting up interviews at certain times. Hell, they've yelled at her for not going on babysitting jobs where she'll get $4 out of $60 for doing half the work. The way she's been treated has made it so she sells herself short on a lot of these things, and it's also made it so all she wants is her parents to be proud of her, when from what I've seen, they could give a shit about her (I'm really pissed about the cancer thing. You don't treat your offspring that way).
Definitely agree on this. Only thing I'm going to do differently is probably teaching her how to drive. I figure that's a fun and cheap thing we can do together when we go down to my hometown in January (weather permitting). Much easier to teach someone to drive when you're on country roads.
Oh, and just to let you guys know, I'm 25, was dependent on my parents until I was 23, and know it's not horrible to live with them through your college years. However, it's the emotional side of this that bothers me. It's like they purposely sabotage her so she won't ever be able to be successful.
Yep, those would be a good start. Unfortunately you can't force someone to make life changes that they fundamentally don't want to make. You can also not force someone to want to make those changes.
Good therapists are trained to facilitate transitions like this, but again they're only facilitators. They cannot make someone change or want to change.
Yep, and this is probably the best you can do. The most frustrating thing in the world is that you can do this until the cows come home, and it may help and it may not, and you're not going to be in much control either way.
I will tell you a personal story:
When I grew up and moved out, my relationships with my family members were all messed up, though at the time I did not understand how exactly or why (or even fully understand that they were abnormal). I thought that maybe distance and independence would fix them, but it didn't. I decided to approach the problem academically, and I read a couple dozen books on various approaches and theories of therapy and psychology. Of these, I found many to be somewhat bogus and one, in particular, to be incredibly useful - something called Family Systems Theory.
When I understood this, it became immediately clear what was wrong with my family relationships. They were all various forms of codependency caused by longstanding boundary issues between my mom and dad, and between them and me. In retrospect, they were textbook-obvious and had I (or any member of my family) understood this earlier I could have saved myself years of pain. After a difficult but necessary period of work and adjustment that took a year or two, setting and reinforcing boundaries that should have always existed, my relationships with my family became completely healthy and have remained so.
This is the kind of thing a good therapist will help you recognize and work through. If I had been in denial, or unwilling to address the problem, then no amount of therapy or reading would have helped.
Later, I had two girlfriends with significant problems with insecurity (the second more than the first, and neither as bad as yours, although the second came close). I made a conscious effort to encourage both of them to get their self-image and behavior in line with reality, one over about a year and one over several years. Understanding my own therapeutic process helped tremendously, although I can't responsibly recommend "playing therapist." I may have been arrogant to do so myself. Girlfriend #2 and I actually saw a real therapist a couple times, and my girlfriend decided to stop going because the therapist just kept telling her the same things I was telling her (which she didn't want to hear from either of us).
In both cases I saw marked improvement over time in their self-confidence and their own happiness. I can't tell how much of an effect I had (as vs. their own experiences or growth), but I did see them take positive steps that they probably wouldn't have taken without me pushing - carefully - in that direction. One went back to college (and eventually graduated from a top university with honors, the other re-established a healthy - if limited - relationship with a father she hadn't spoken to in years and went from hating her career and her life to really enjoying both.
In both cases, this was NOT a pleasant experience for me. It's emotional, messy, frustrating, and it seems hopeless at times. Self-actualization is a painful experience for the person going through it, and both girlfriends were often more than a little resentful that I was pushing them to do it. However, I went into both situations with open eyes and the outcomes were ultimately extremely positive. In these two situations, it took months or years of my life to go with them on this journey.
The end of both stories is the same: both girls dumped me as soon as they finally got themselves adjusted and on a healthy trajectory forward. The second one dumping me was especially painful, because I had been pushing and working on getting to that point with her for four years, and she dumped me right at the minute where we actually could have started really enjoying the relationship unencumbered by all this baggage.
I understand this, to an extent, because the people they had become were not the people they were when they got into a relationship with me. They liked me at first because I was a source of stability and constancy in their lives, and when they finally became their own sources of stability, my own seemed like an anchor holding them back from doing amazing things. Both immediately got into healthy relationships with other guys (which isn't hard when you're healthy yourself) and married them. I mention this as a footnote and as a caution to you - if you are willing to go on this long, arduous journey with your girlfriend, know that if you succeed you run a risk that you won't be the person she wants at the end of it. I knew that was a risk - both times - but losing that bet twice was especially painful.
It's good that you recognize that the proximity to her parents isn't the problem, and that she would be apt to just transfer her dependency to you. What she needs to do is get some perspective on her relationships with her family. Distance helps, but it's a necessary - not sufficient - condition. Again, I'm going to recommend a therapist who practices family systems therapy. If you want to read an excellent book first, this book absolutely 100% changed my life.
Just wanted to pipe and say that, ignoring all other back-and-forth arguments about the use of medication and psychiatry, the biggest loss in the 80s-00s era of psychiatry-dominated mental health care has been the decline of family systems and behavioral therapy.
Or to put it another way, pay attention to this guy ^.
I'm veering off-topic here, but this is one of my favorite subjects, so I'm willing to risk an infraction for it. :P Also, this may be too personal, so feel free to ignore it. Have you wondered about the possibility that you, also, would've had trouble with those relationships when they became adjusted? I'm not implying you have a White Knight thing, but I am saying that your relationships were defined by their baggage and may not have survived outside that context.
It's a perfectly legitimate question and it's not too personal, but I'll PM the answer because it would derail the discussion quite a bit. If the OP or a mod really wants to hear the answer I'm happy to post it.