Comment on So you grew up with a dad who didn’t know how to express love? Here’s how it could be affecting you today by Tom B..
Dear Sarah,
I’m in need of some help. My daughter, (JK age 23) has been dating a young man, P, her age for 3 yrs. She lives with him and his roommate who are druggies. All of our friends and family truly hate him for good reason. When she came home 3 years ago, clearly not herself, I suspected she was on something. I picked up the phone just in time to hear P telling her he scored some heroin and asking if she wanted to share it with him. I broke in and told him to stay away from her. She acted irrational/scared, cowering in a corner of her bedroom. We calmly asked her why she thought we were trying to hurt her but the orders from P to get out instilled panic and were extremely powerful. The next day we got her to a psychologist who put her on Suboxone which she is still on 3 years later. J moved out to share an apartment but she lied, she really moved in with P. After about a year she moved back home. All through this, she maintained her high GPA and has now graduated. She moved back with him on graduation day. J is fine living in these two worlds. Mom and Dad give her everything so she won’t drop us out of her life and P gives her everything he can to keep her in his. J has said, P knows he could never find a girl as beautiful as I am if I leave. J comes to dinners, trips, and occasions perfectly happy to attend without him. We even lined her up once with a young man with similar interests. She immediately told him about the heroin history to scare him away. She still flirts with other young men we introduce her to. I feel like we are not being good parents by nourishing her behavior. Mom says, we have to provide unconditional love. She wrote an email to me a few days ago, that P is a wonderful boyfriend and she doesn’t care what family and friends think. P lies about being a student to get a subsidy on their apartment. His other roommate, C or ‘tic-tac’ because he ingests any and all drugs. We want the best for our daughter and P has no ambition. My daughter feels she can fix him. P worships her and lets her have full use of his new truck his parents gave him. Our friends and family say she’ll come around but 3 years is a long time. Personally, I suffer from serious back pain and have had 3 mini strokes. Life is short and I feel she is wasting it. We have always been so close and right now I feel this has gone on long enough. Is there anything we can do? I want to be a good parent to my daughter where I feel my wife is more concerned with being a good friend. There’s another weird twist; P’s parents and my daughter hate each other too for many of the same reasons. Please, how can we separate these two so we can get back to being a close family again? I feel I’m failing as a parent. J usually shuts down when her brother, sister, mom, or I try to discuss this and then we don’t see her for weeks.
