People who want to be "rescued"

[Poison Ivy]

Hi. I'm starting a new thread but it's based on something written in the "After the Funeral" area of the forum.

"He seems to be making a huge mess of his life, floundering around, lying poorly it would seem, covering up just enough to make your head spin and to gaslight you, waiting for someone to 'catch him' and provide structure and limits that he alone is responsible for establishing for himself."

This was not written about my ex-husband but I think it could have been. Ex's parents have been dead for three years, he lives by himself in their house, and he's neglecting the house and some financial matters. At this point, I think our adult children are not at risk from their dad's behavior, but I do worry that might eventually happen.

Does anyone have tips for how to take care of myself while not interfering in my ex's victimhood?

[Andeza]

It might be time to ask whoever is sharing the news not to do so anymore. His mess is his mess, he made it, he can deal with it. I'd tell your kids not to sign their names to anything, especially financial so they cannot be hounded, were I in your shoes. So long as their names aren't on anything, they can't (granted I don't know the laws where you are, so take this with a grain of salt) be forced to pay anything. Not that creditors wouldn't try it. They stoop pretty low at times. But, if he eventually dies in debt, all his creditors can do is take it from the estate. So his assets would be liquidated, they would take what they are owed, and if anything was left over it would go to your kids. If nothing was leftover they might try to intimidate the kids, possibly even you if they're really scummy, but so long as nobody has their name on the debt there's not really anything they can do. (Far as I know, do your research for peace of mind! Consider talking to an estate lawyer for an hour and asking these questions to get your answers and get your peace of mind if necessary.)

If you can close down the news about him, that'll go a long way toward helping you not want to rescue him. Then you have to sit with it a bit. Why do you feel the need to take care of yourself when you hear these things? Are you worried about yourself financially? The divorce protects you from his financial misbehavior. Are you worried about him? I can understand that. Is there some small part of you that still thinks he can change? You might still have some letting go to do. I don't know.

The wise learn from their mistakes and do better. Eternal victims don't. They just keep wallowing in the victimhood for attention, wanting others to do the hard work and save them from themselves and feel sorry for them. But we know it's ultimately impossible to save people from themselves. You ex would have to change, become a new man, and turn his life around by his own effort to stop being a victim. Nobody can do it for him.

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you, Andeza. I think I need to focus on sitting with things a bit.

[Starboard Song]

I think our adult children are not at risk from their dad's behavior, but I do worry that might eventually happen.

Does anyone have tips for how to take care of myself while not interfering in my ex's victimhood?

Do you need to seek to take care of yourself, or your adult children, or your ex?

If there are substantive risks to your kids, you can share with them your observations and concerns. Once. And you can explain the steps they can take to protect themselves. Also once. Chances are your children see the same risks you do, or will agree with you. Seeing that you have fine, responsible kids who are wise to it will give you a lot of strength to move on and leave them to it.

It doesn't sound like there is any risk to you at all. So the one thing to do for yourself is, as Andeza says, to get away from the news of this person. His continued failings are dragging you down. When we live vicariously, it at least ought to make us happier, and not more stressed.

Be good. Be strong.

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you, Starboard. Your comments are wise and helpful.

[easterncappy]

Is this a need to be rescued, or is it laziness, or is it learned helplessness, or is it entitlement? It can be hard to tell. Plus, do you really want to be "rescued" if you're fine living a certain way?

For my parents, it's definitely a mixture of those things. Why wouldn't their debt be in my name? I'm the bad guy for not wanting that. They tried to get me to take out a whole mortgage for a house out in my name but "don't worry, we'd make the payments, it'd just be in your name". Yeah, right. What about if I want a house? Not that it mattered to them. No idea what your family dynamics are like but some kids who grow up with parents like that are significantly more open to "consenting" to stupid things like that... I know I agreed to a lot of terrible things before they came up with that idea, which is where I drew the line, even before I had a backbone, but it just felt like I had to help my poor little parents who have been sooo screwed over by life. I didn't see any "need to be rescued" but just a "need to have everyone else do things for them".

Another PD I knew, a guy I lived with for a couple of years who was much older than me and definitely more than capable of doing things for himself, simply refused to. There was some degree of malicious compliance - for example, overloading a washing machine to the point where it broke due to the weight of the wet clothes in it, on purpose, so he wouldn't get asked to do it again. He refused to do anything in the kitchen beyond making tea, or washing dishes so poorly that he didn't get asked to do it again. Never saw him touch a vacuum cleaner, a paper towel, a bottle of cleaner... and he thought ignoring credit card bills made them go away, after using the credit card as a form of free money of course. When I got tired of him and made him move out, my mom freaked out about how "He's going to die! How can you do this to him! He doesn't know how to do those things for himself!"... well, he's still alive! No idea how he's living in terms of quality, but he must be eating, washing clothes, and cleaning around himself well enough to not die of the bubonic plague.

Here's the thing: Outside of physical or mental disabilities, they can help it. A personality disorder does not stop you from taking care of yourself. It's not really a disability. You might be bad at maintaining relationships, having normal reactions to things, etc. but you can still pay credit card bills, cook a meal, and clean your room with a personality disorder. This is on him. It's probably difficult to explain to adult children that "dad needs to figure it out and start taking care of himself because there's nothing stopping him from doing that" without coming off like you're trying to make them pick sides, but they need to know. Unless he's disabled, there's no reason he can't do this for himself. They're good at looking so helpless that you just neeeeeed to take loans out to help them, or cook and clean for them. They're not. Is he in a wheelchair? Is he missing limbs? Is he cognitively disabled to a crippling degree? Seriously!

And like everyone else is saying, if he's your ex and the kids are grown, you don't really need to be hearing about him.

[BeautifulCrazy]

Just thoughts.

People who want to be rescued:
- Are adults who can take care of themselves (or choose not to, that's THEIR sad choice, not mine)
- Manipulate others to do things for them. I am choosing not to be one of those people. I do not enable other people's sad choices anymore.
- Are not entitled to my "rescue", no matter what my relationship to them IS, or WAS.
- Are free to fail on their own terms.
- Can keep on "wanting to be rescued". Not my problem.
- Can go kick rocks. Good riddance.
- Are not allowed to drag me down anymore.

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you easterncappy, especially for this: "It's probably difficult to explain to adult children that "dad needs to figure it out and start taking care of himself because there's nothing stopping him from doing that" without coming off like you're trying to make them pick sides, but they need to know."

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you, BeautifulCrazy. Your response and everyone else's are helping me get to a better frame of mind. I appreciate you all!

[easterncappy]

Just thoughts.

People who want to be rescued:
- Are adults who can take care of themselves (or choose not to, that's THEIR sad choice, not mine)
- Manipulate others to do things for them. I am choosing not to be one of those people. I do not enable other people's sad choices anymore.
- Are not entitled to my "rescue", no matter what my relationship to them IS, or WAS.
- Are free to fail on their own terms.
- Can keep on "wanting to be rescued". Not my problem.
- Can go kick rocks. Good riddance.
- Are not allowed to drag me down anymore.

Plus, just because someone likes like absolute crap, doesn't mean they need to be rescued. The way I see it, if you can't even cook a meal or clean up around yourself or make a phone call about a bill you can't pay at the moment (without a valid reason such as a disability), you must like living that way. Not my problem. It was extremely freeing to realize that the messes I kept trying to bail my parents out of were of their own creation... I'm not a charitable organization!