Question
Our eldest daughter (soon to turn 40) started telling “stories” in high school. One story was that I had a little boy that died. She had a picture of herself holding a friend’s child she passed around. I passed it off that she needed more attention and that our frequent moves and relocations were stressful to her. She eventually married a guy that cheated on her and left her with an infant. She moved in with us, but then began making public Facebook postings that we have “abused” her for 20 years. She married a European man after an online courtship. She borrowed money to fly him over for a “meeting” and they got married immediately after he stepped off the plane. She never repaid the money we loaned her for the ticket. Instead, we received vicious emails to us and all of her siblings saying we never support her in her decisions. She had three more children with him and then he left her. We have bought her cars, paid her rent, bought groceries, and supported her financially through her divorces and remarriages. She has alienated all of her siblings with her lies. Our daughter has strained our marriage almost to the breaking point. I need for someone to let me know that I am okay to walk away.
Answer
Your marriage is more important than preserving a relationship with your forty year old daughter. She is an adult and can be responsible for the train of consequences she’s created over the past few decades. You and your husband need each other more than ever. Now is the time to turn toward each other and begin enforcing healthy limits with your daughter.
Unless your grandchildren are at risk of being abused or neglected, there isn’t much you can do to protect them from their dramatic mother. I can’t even imagine how sad and painful it must be for you guys to watch your daughter cut her children off from her family.
You may even wonder what she can be accountable for, as she has such a chronic and chaotic history. Elder Maxwell taught, “our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability.”[i]
You have generously opened your home, your wallet, and your heart to your daughter. While investing in the lives of our loved ones doesn’t always make good financial sense, it’s common to go against our better judgment and keep investing. This might happen a few times, and then we recognize it’s a black hole. It sounds like you’re way past that point. I don’t understand how financially supporting her makes any sense.
What does “walking away” look like for you? I assume it initially means closing your home and wallet. You might even need to set emotional and relational limits until she shows that she can be respectful and appropriate in a relationship with you. This may never happen.
She’s someone who needs professional help and support, but is unlikely to get it, as I’m sure she doesn’t believe she has a problem. Learning to live with someone who possibly has a mental illness is a strain to individual health, marriages, and families. I recommend you get support from a NAMI chapter (www.nami.org), who offer free classes and support for family members of the mentally ill. You can also attend the LDS Addiction Recovery Support Groups for family members. You can find a meeting in your area at https://arp.lds.org. Additionally, there are great books on boundaries that can help you learn to protect your own mental health. The two I often recommend are: “Boundaries” by Townsend and Cloud and “Pungent Boundaries” by Nancy Landrum.
We often struggle with knowing how to create distance between us and the crazy-making behaviors of a loved one plagued by addiction or mental illness. Our reflex to “walk away” doesn’t always feel right, as we see their struggle. You don’t have to abandon the relationship entirely, but you can abandon the pathological patterns between the two of you. This may end the relationship, but unless the patterns can change, there won’t even be a relationship. Respect yourself and love her enough to set and keep these limits to protect everyone.
Geoff will answer a new family and relationship question every Friday. You can email your question to him at ge***@lo************.com
About the Author
Geoff Steurer is a licensed marriage and family therapist in St. George, UT. He is the owner of Alliant Counseling and Education (www.alliantcounseling.com) and the founding director of LifeStar of St. George, an outpatient treatment program for couples and individuals impacted by pornography and sexual addiction (www.lifestarstgeorge.com). He is the co-author of “Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity”, available at Deseret Book, and the audio series “Strengthening Recovery Through Strengthening Marriage”, available at www.marriage-recovery.com. He also writes a weekly relationship column for the St. George News (www.stgnews.com). He holds a bachelors degree from BYU in communications studies and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Auburn University. He served a full-time mission to the Dominican Republic and currently serves as the primary chorister. He is married to Jody Young Steurer and they are the parents of four children.
You can connect with him at:
Website: www.lovingmarriage.com
Twitter: @geoffsteurer
Facebook: www.facebook.com/GeoffSteurerMFT
[i] Neal A. Maxwell, “According to the Desire of [Our] hearts,” Ensign, Nov. 1996, 21.
TayFebruary 11, 2015
This sounds quite a bit like the problems I experienced with my former husband. He is deceased now and it was not until after his death that I finally figured out the truth. He was mentally ill and there was a family history in his mother's family. He had borderline personality disorder. There are some good websites such as bpdfamily.org and an excellent book "Stop Walking on Eggshells" that deal with this disorder from the point of view of the family members. You might read them carefully to see if the symptoms match. You will know. I recognized it by the second page of the first chapter in the book. The match was exact. Borderline is hard, sometimes even impossible to treat. I am extremely sad that we possess no drugs that bring it under control. There is therapy that can help greatly if the person is willing to admit they are ill. But it is a long struggle, with many setbacks. Not all are willing to admit they have the problem. I have struggled long and hard seeking answers to the questions I have regarding mental illness. Why does the Lord allow it when it so frequently results in the destruction of the person's eternal marriage and relationships with their parents, siblings and children? How can this be fair in the eternal sense? Why does the Priesthood seem unable and sometimes unwilling to use Priesthood power to heal the afflicted person? If we cannot save a person's eternal marriage and relationships with his/her children using the Priesthood, what good is it, why was it even restored to earth? I do not possess any answers to these questions and would love to hear from others who do, even just their thoughts on these issues. I know we have much to learn and many false beliefs and behaviors to overcome in this life. Exposure to the mentally ill can certainly help in these things. But I feel like the person whose friend came over to help her clean her house. Her friend worked hard and accomplished much but accidentally set fire to the house while cleaning the stove. She thanked her friend but mentioned that her friend's burning her house down as she cleaned it negated all the hard work she had done. Such is my no longer eternal marriage and family, no longer in existence and no longer capable of being restored, despite all I have learned. And such are the families of several of my mentally ill friends.
S SotoFebruary 2, 2015
I agree with setting boundaries, but I disagree with walking away from or completely cutting of a relationship with a child. This particular daughter sounds like she has some mental health issues, which tells me her children will need all the emotional support they can get. It sounds like a relationship with this child is never going to be easy, and the parents should definitely nurture their marriage and their own well being. If they need to step away from the situation to gain perspective and insight about how to proceed than they should. But please, please don't give up (like the father of the prodigal son didn't give up). You never know how your efforts will pay off with children and other family members, but we know in the eternities that all of our efforts will mean... everything.