My husband and our other children insist that I support my daughter’s life choices, but I just can’t bring myself to. I see only pain and poverty in his future.
We raised our beautiful daughter in an upper-middle-class family, sent her to private college, and traveled around Europe.
We have supported her 100% over the past year as she successfully embarked on and excelled in a prerequisite program to begin a three-year master’s degree (online, part-time) towards a new career.
She recently got a low paying job and wants us to continue to help her while she pursues her higher education and her boyfriend.
Her siblings said that if I didn’t support her choices, I would lose touch with them all. I feel like I’m being blackmailed into watching a horror movie play out. My heart is broken. If I cut my daughter off financially, she’ll hate me.
If I don’t support her relationship with her boyfriend, they’ll all hate me.
My husband, who wants to retire soon, wants me to at least support his relationship and is willing to tell my daughter to take loans and support her.
sorry: I see a distinction between “support” and “accept”.
Yes, you have to accept your daughter’s choice because she is an adult and she has the right to make terrible choices.
If you accept it, do you also have to “support” it? Absolutely not.
She may need to experience the reality of marginal life – away from her upper-middle-class privilege – to make a choice about it.
If she is pursuing her graduate program and you can afford it, you can choose to pay only her tuition (directly to the school). If she completes each semester successfully, you can choose to pay for the next semester. It would be extremely generous. She and “Clay” will then have to work to support their living expenses – as countless adult couples would have to.
Invite them to dinner, include them in family events, and yes – you may have to face and tolerate your disappointment in your potty-using daughter and her choice of partner, but until she is forced to face her own choices and disappointments, she will never be inspired to perhaps choose differently.
dear Amy: I have an alcoholic friend who is trying to quit drinking.
We occasionally go out for lunch or dinner and I wonder: would it be wise to only have one alcoholic drink?
I think it would be better for him to gradually reduce alcohol and supervise it rather than quitting completely.
Concerning: If you are an addiction specialist, you can certainly try to coach your friend by decreasing their alcohol consumption and monitoring their consumption. Otherwise, I think it would be best if you completely avoided alcohol when you were with him.
For some addicts, any contact with their drug will trigger their addiction. A drink at lunch could lead to a binge later.
Some people might be able to effectively reduce and eventually manage their drinking by choosing to change their habits, but an addicted alcoholic cannot be expected to do so.
It would be wiser for you to support your friend’s recovery by referring them to inpatient or outpatient rehab, attending 12-step meetings, and being mindful of your own helplessness in the face of their illness.
dear Amy: Regarding “worried dad‘, whose children in their twenties had poor hygiene, bad eating habits and a habit of leaving messes, you ruled out the possibility that the boys suffered from depression, especially if it is a change from their past habits. I strongly recommend that they be diagnosed by a doctor familiar with this insidious disease.
Was there: This father did not indicate any change in his habits, but I agree that a medical screening is always wise, especially for young men, who tend to avoid going to the doctor.
©2022 by Amy Dickinson distributed by Tribune Content Agency
