How to help friend who won't be helped? (long)

MrChot and I have a friend we’ve known since college (about 20 years.) Let’s call him Q. He’s an intellectual with regrettably poor judgement in his relationships. I dated him briefly. He was my husband’s best friend. We’re still good friends.

A couple of years ago, Q had a bunch of money from a small dotcom in which he was a startup investor, because he sold when the stock was high. With that money, he tried to start up a business with a longtime friend (I didn’t know her).

To cut the story short, about a year ago the businesspartner split the country with a couple hundred thousand of his money. And his ex-SO seemed to feel she had rights to most of the rest, so there’s not much left.

Then in the last 6 months he got cancer, very aggressive - currently in remission after 6 rounds of chemo, a debilitating surgery, and a long series of radiation treatments. The surgery damaged the major nerve in his leg, so that he can’t walk well, falls frequently and without warning, and has pitting edema in that leg most of the time. At least he still has medical insurance…for now. Until his dwindling savings really run out.

For the last few months he’s been living (for lack of anywhere else to go) with the aforementioned ex-girlfriend in a state of increasing stress, and in absolute squallor because she and their other housemate can’t seem to turn on a vacuum or find a broom or mop…did I mention the multiple cats and 2 longhaired dogs?

He’s been making plans to get out, with ‘hard’ dates that come and go with no visible forward progress. There’s always some reason. They’re sounding less and less rational, and every suggestiion is met with ‘yes but’ ‘no but’ ‘I understand but’ and ‘but there are all these details you don’t know anything about’ sorts of dodges. The most recent ‘hard’ date was set for the 20th. I, thinking I would be helpful, arranged for my brother, his buddy, my husband, and a truck and trailer to be there (at our expense) to move his stuff to a storage unit on the 22nd, the soonest I could arrange. Presented with this hard date, he was still ‘yes but’ ‘no but’ ‘thanks but’ and saying it wasn’t going to work because he wouldn’t be ready.

He has no job, saying his job skills are out of date. This may be true in the IT field, and he certainly can’t do anything where he has to lift, walk, or stand. He has not filed for disability, foodstamps, Medicaid. He has not filed a police report on the aforementioned businesspartner. He has not done a number of other things he’s said he’d do to help mend the gaping outflow of money he doesn’t have. My husband and I aren’t sure he’s capable of holding down a job right now (he doesn’t seem to be thinking quite straight - stress? chemo? malnutrition?), even though he really has no choice.

My husband took Q a packed lunch and a bagful of non-perishable food last night, and it somehow made things worse… he said if we’d called and asked, he’d have said ‘not tonight’ but his cell phone is unreliable at best and he hasn’t been returning messages. So we just did it. And he’s upset because, having said he’d be out of the situation by the 20th…he now has to be out by the 22nd if not sooner…no more putting it off.

Except he has nowhere to go. He THINKS he will be staying with a friend in another town for 2-3 weeks while he gets an apartment, but we tracked her down and she says ‘2-3 days maybe, not weeks’. So he’s going to be homeless. He needs an apartment, but has to have 2 recent pay-stubs to prove income, to get one. Or, 9x the amount of monthly rent in a verifiable bank account. He has neither of these.

He claims a friend on the East Coast wants him to come stay with him and will pay for his trip, but since we cannot contact this friend, we have no way of knowing if it’s any more accurate than the “2-3 weeks” thing which was really 2-3 days. He won’t give us that phone number either, since it’s unlisted.

We’ve offered to let him stay here, but now we’re not sure if that would do anything to change the situation, and I would absolutely have conditions he would have to meet, period, such as:

  • Call DSHS. Arrange to begin filing paperwork for assistance, including such things as food stamps.

  • Place ad to sell teak he’s been storing for years, which is unfortunately not Bermuda teak and therefore few people have wanted it after seeing it. (But they sure can’t buy it if they don’t know about it.)

  • Cut ex-girlfriend off insurance policy and cell phone plan. Change cell phone plan to increase minutes per month, to end overages.

  • Provide detailed budget of all ‘fixed’, necessary bills, such as health insurance premiums. Attend financial counselling of SOME variety.

  • Try to find some variety of sit-down job, even one that is non-prestigious or obnoxious, even if it paid less than he thinks he’s worth.

I don’t frankly think he’d like those conditions or willingly abide by them, and I have four kids, I don’t care to play mother to him and hound him, even if it was my place which it isn’t. Anyway, we’ve wanted to help, But every bit of help we’ve tried to give him has somehow been wrong, and I don’t think I can help him anymore. It’s giving me heartburn and keeping me up at night.

So to repeat my question, with this history given: How to help a friend who won’t be helped? Dad says to “let him go” but how do you let go of a friend of 20 years, just when they look like they’ve hit bottom and are digging? When they’ll be homeless? When their in-remission cancer is likely to recur with a vengeance within a year or two? Giving him money isn’t an option. We don’t have it to spare, and he hasn’t shown good judgment with his own money, or money we know he’s been given or loaned.

Don’t. If he won’t help himself your efforts to help him will be unsuccessful. It’s not much different than having a friend who is lost in love, drugs or booze to the point where it harms them.

Or do.

I say “don’t” but you sound like you want to.

You can’t help him if he won’t let you, and you’ll just drive yourself crazy in the process. Sometimes it seems people are just dead set on being miserable and will resist all help until they’ve wallowed in it for a while.

My advice? List what you’re willing to do to help him out - move his stuff, help him peruse ads for apartments and jobs, drive him places occasionally, bring him some food once in a while, even let him live with you for some fixed length of time provided he fulfills certain conditions. Tell him that he can call you (collect if necessary) if he’d like your help with those things, or with anything else reasonable.

Then detach. If he asks you for help, help. Otherwise, go about your life.

If he knows how you’re willing to help and how to contact you, it’s his own damn fault if he doesn’t take advantage of it. And if you write it down and give it to him, there’s absolutely no doubt about whether he knows.

He’s a grown ass man. You can continue to be his friend without enabling him. Be there for him in a support capacity if he needs your help to accomplish something he has started and is actively working towards, but his business is his business and he needs to take care of it.

You already are mothering him. You’re bringing him food and arranging movers, neither of which he’s asked for and neither of which, quite frankly, are any of your business.

I know you mean well, but he’s a grown man. The only person who can help him is himself. Back off, and let him know that if he wants your help, you’re there. If he ends up on the street after you’ve shown him that you’re willing to help, it’s neither your fault nor your responsibility. He reached adulthood on his own, and managed to succeed at something; he can come out of this, too, if he wants to.

(One bit of advice you might offer is to suggest he see a doctor about possible depression. But that’s different than offering to make the appointment for him and hounding him when he hasn’t done it yet.)

Do you, he, your husband or anyone involved in this situation have an Employee Assistance Plan available to you? They are often associated with either being an employee, student or having insurance. They will provide referrals and some counseling for personal or family issues. This might be a good resource.

There may be such a thing at MrChot’s work. Q has no such thing of course, having not worked for someone else for years. I’ve been home taking care of kids for 6 years, so…will ask MrChot.

Yet all this hinges entirely on Q’s willingness to pursue such suggestions/referrals of his own volition, once provided with them. And since he hasn’t asked…

Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we just can’t fix things. You have done your absolute best to help. There comes a point where you really must let go for his sake and yours. Do make sure that he has your phone number and address. You have a kind heart, but you must respect his choices.

Well, tonight was the ‘hard’ deadline by which Q had to contact us if he wanted the help (3 men, truck and trailer) with moving on Thursday. He hasn’t called. MrChot has been worriedly checking Q’s livejournal and sees posts have been made, but not ones we can see, so our error must have been egregious indeed.

I hope he does all right. I …doubt he will given the way things have been lately, but I do hope. MrChot may feel the loss more than I do, because he’d been estranged from Q for a number of years due to a misunderstanding, and had only recently renewed ties. Then he feared losing Q to the cancer. And now he says it feels like he’s lost him anyway. I’m a little angry, but I’m trying to do the whole “he’s a big boy, he’ll handle it himself” self talk thing.

I’d always known Q was bad with money. This recent stuff isn’t new, it’s just been exacerbated by the whole business-gone-bad thing. And the cancer. Anyway, even if he calls tomorrow and says ‘please come’, I think we’re going to make it clear that he knew the deadline, after which we made our own plans. My brother certainly has done exactly that.

I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. The one comment whistlepig made about it being “(no)…different than having a friend who is lost in love, drugs or booze to the point where it harms them” really struck home. That hurts too, when that happens. But we know you can’t save somebody from that sort of thing, until they want to save themselves. Seeing the parallel was helpful.