I can't stand my cousin's boyfriend.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Back in March of this year I posted this thread about my cousin’s boyfriend. Since then I have gotten to know him better and I seriously can’t stand The Idiot.

In October the SO and I drove out west again to visit my aunt and uncle at their campground and to help while they laid new hydro lines. Every day was spent in the trenches slugging sand, pulling wire and shoveling rocks. Everyone, including the campers, was in the pit working from morning till night for a week. Everyone that is * except * The Idiot. He sat on a picnic table and watched, cracking jokes about how dirty and sweaty everyone was. Sometimes he would get up long enough to help himself to a beer from the cooler beside the trench.

Some days while everyone was in the trench he would sit in the restaurant/store/office and tell my aunt’s 16-year-old employee to make him a sandwich. Because, you know, watching everyone work was apparently making him hungry and there was no reason she should do actual work for paying customers when he needed a sandwich. So he would eat my aunt’s profits and then laugh and say, “they don’t pay me enough to work in a trench”.

As a thank-you to the seasonal campers for all their help my aunt and uncle held a pig roast one night. When my uncle ran out of beer he took a few from the cooler in his trailer to pass around. The Idiot flipped as it was his beer and hid the rest. Apparently they don’t pay him enough to be polite either. At the end of the night The Idiot grabbed a few plates, cut up the rest of the pig and hid them in his car with his beer so he could make himself lunches for work that week.

He can’t afford to pay half the rent at the apartment he shares with my cousin. He * can * however afford a 2000 Cavalier, a DVD player, a Game Cube, a computer, the internet, a radar detector, a new car stereo, computer games, a palm pilot, a cell phone and a pager. He just can’t afford to pay half the rent or utilities or food. I can’t even begin to describe how stunned I am when I call there and he says, “Guess what I got” two days after she’s mentioned that she can’t afford new shoes to replace the ones that are ripped and leaking. Every single one of those things he bought after he moved in with her. He lived in a room in a basement when they met with a shared kitchen and bath and had an old junker car. Now he lives in a one-bedroom apartment across the street from where he works and has electronic gadgets out the wahzoo. She, however, can no longer afford to buy shoes. He’s okay with this situation.

When she tells him he should give up some of his things to pay half the rent he says maybe they should just split up then and turns it around to make her feel guilty. So he freeloads and makes her feel like a shit when she gets upset about it.

Her friends know there is no point inviting her anyplace anymore because he sulks and pouts if she makes plans that don’t include him and she ends up backing out and staying home.

He has managed to insult or offend every single one of the seasonal campers at her parent’s campground. Every single one. Her parents don’t want him out there anymore. He’s actually hurting business.

She is 23 years old and her choice in boyfriends is no ones business but her own. No one is about to tell her to leave him regardless if we all think that is what is best for her.
She loves The Idiot for whatever reason and let me be clear in saying that is her choice.

My aunt and I had a long talk tonight about just cutting him from our lives. She will be invited to everything, he will not. I’m conflicted about this. It will be hell on her and it will break my heart to see her hurting. Ours is an exceptionally tight family. We do everything together. Holidays, vacations, day-trips, daily phone calls between my parents, her parents, siblings, cousins. To quote my father “We might all be loud, obnoxious and nuttier than fruit cake but * fuck * do we have fun.” She will be devastated to feel excluded, as an extension of him, from that atmosphere. Her favorite thing to do is hang out with her family and if he is excluded she will be forced to choose and I don’t think she will leave him in the end anyhow.

Gah! I don’t know what to do.

Would it be really crappy to just cut him out? To just tell her that he is no longer welcome around her family? To make her life hell so the rest of us no longer have to suffer?

2

Have you told her any of this? I know how it often falls on deaf ears to tell someone something negative about someone they care about, but to have people tell her how they fell about the situation might make her think shes not all that content after all. This situation is not good for her, at least not the way you describe it. Maybe she will leave him if given the chance, or the support of everyone around her. If she’s given up entire friendships because of this Idiot, then maybe she wants them back?

I would sit down and talk to her, and perhaps tell her straight out that the current family solution is to exclude him, but that you all want her to be there. Explain exactly how you all feel, and hope she doesn’t take it as too much of an attack. If she does, then don’t get mad at her in return, and continue to offer that she join in on events. Perhaps choose certain gatherings where the Idiots presence won’t be TOO much of a drain, so that she might at least go to those?

I’m not all that good wih advice, or even my own friendships and relationships sometimes, but I have kind of noticed that talking things out help a lot. Or even letters, if you’re into that. I had a fight with my best friend once about her boyfriend, and although we couldn’t talk to one another for a while because we’d just bitch and never sort anything out, we still wrote letters to one another, trying to explain tot the other person how we each felt. It helped, because we could get things off our chest without having to actually say them, you know? In the end, some kind of conclusion must have been met, because one night I ran into her as she was waiting for a bus, I drove her home and we ended up baking a cake at 2am and talking about eveything EXCEPT the whole fight, since we knew what the other one thought about it all already.

So I say talk it out, explain everything, and keep in touch with her even if she gets angry and defensive.

Or steal the Idiots stuff and pawn it off to pay his half of the rent. If he won’t do it, you can always try :slight_smile:

3

The guy sounds like a practising alcoholic and/or druggie, and her accepting all this makes me suspicious that she’s a punching bag. Any bruises on her? Is she wearing clothing that she didn’t before; clothing that covers her neck and arms? Does she have a newly broken arm or stiffness? Has she recently “fallen down the stairs?”

4

I have never actually told her I dislike him solely for his abrasive personality. I have, however, had many talks with her regarding his failure to cough up any financial contributions towards the relationship. I told her only that I find it difficult to respect him when I feel he is taking advantage of her. Last night, when she said he had again not offered to pony up the rent, I got ticked and said something along the lines of “kick his ass out and get your key back” but felt badly afterwards.

I asked her if it upsets her that he comes across as using her and she said yes. I asked her if she understood that his putting his wants ahead of her needs speaks volumes about the way he will handle more serious situations in their relationship in the future and she said yes. I asked her why she allows herself to be in this situation and her reply was “I dunno”. She says she wants him there with her. Whatever. I can’t argue with that.

I don’t think she will get angry. Sad and defensive for sure though. I might try the e-mail thing you said. That way she can read it without having to react immediately. Thanks.

No physical abuse that we can see. We all think there are control issues and some level of emotional abuse happening though. I’ve asked her about some of his control ‘quirks’ and she sees nothing there.

Mr.Jawofech, cut and dry man that he is, is fairly certain that tossing him in the Red River will solve everything. I’m starting to think he may have a point. :wink:

5

Beware using e-mail. It would be too easy for the jerk to read it. E-mail has been the downfall of presidents to working stiffs and needs only a misbegotten click to spread like wildfire. Lawsuits feed on email. Use snail mail.

6

Most people turn a deaf ear if you complain about their boy/girlfriend being a jerk. But then when they get rid of them, they are usually there to say to you again & again, ‘boy, that he/she was some jerk, I wish I saw that before’. people. shrug.

7

How does a basic conversation go with him? What does he usually talk about? What kind of job does he have? does he brag or fish for complements frequently? Sorry about the barage of questions, I’m curious.

8

** Chief Crunch ** Conversations with him are nerve racking. He talks about other people behind their backs constantly, fishing for compliments is something he has turned into an Olympic sporting event, lying about the most pointless things, bragging about past accomplishments until you want to scream “NO ONE CARES” and argues with you about things he has no clue what he is talking about. He thinks he is an expert in all things legal, medical and mechanical. He plays “I know something you don’t know” as if he held international secrets and would have to kill you if he told. When he had to work overtime after the terrorist attacks my cousin mentioned to her mother he’d be home late the next night. He got mad saying, “That’s classified. You can’t tell anyone why I’m working.” He is a security guard in a strip mall housing a dollar store, a grocery store and a bookstore and overtime is apparently top-secret information. Because, you know, it’s not like it was all over the news media that all police, military and security personnel were to be on high alert or anything. Gaaaahhhhh!

A typical conversation? Okay. This is one we had that still makes me shake my head.

He told us that once he got his night-vision goggles from work he’d bring them out to help look for the problem bear that had been hanging around the area. He told us “Well you know I * am * the supervisor and I need to make decisions like this all the time. As the * supervisor * people depend on me. Just last week some lady came up to me and asked me a question in the mall and as the * supervisor * I could give her that information. It says * supervisor * right on my uniform because I am the * supervisor * and as such I make decisions on things we need to do our jobs better. Like the night vision goggles. As * supervisor * I had to make that call and I decided we require them.”

When he left Mr.Jawofech looked at me and said, “I wasn’t clear on that. Is he or is he not the supervisor?”
I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that he thought he needed night vision goggles to protect the dollar store.

9

Hmmmm, what would Abby do?

Since I’m not there, I can’t say with confidence if it’s the right thing to do. But if you decide to issue the ultimatium, I could only suggest trying hard to stay in touch with her, treat her with kindness (such as not bringing up her boyfriend ever again), maybe even try to include her in activities when he is working, if at all possible. Keep reminding her that the door will always be open to her.

What I find hard to understand is why you all seem to be ignoring him. He seems like an ideal candidate for some straight talk, if not out-and-out ridicule.

For example, while Lard Butt was sitting at the picnic table commenting about how hard everyone was working, did anyone hand him a shovel and invite him to work or to hit the road?

Is free food at the campground included in the rent?

And it seems like the perfect time for the “supervisor” line was immediately after he finished his idiotic speech, not to mention questioning his need for goggles to protect the store.

Why hasn’t anyone called him “Barney” yet, for heaven’s sake?

I don’t intend to criticize y’all. I’m assume I’m missing the reason why he’s being treated like a decent human being instead of the parasitical asshole he is.

10

Get in the jerks face. While you can’t control who your cousin chooses to cohabitate with with. You can control when he is around you and the rest of the family. Make it known he is not welcome.

11

Oh my Lord! Too funny. My SO will love this. Barney is now his new official nickname.

We were polite to him in the beginning because we were not sure if this was just his way of handling nerves when meeting and hanging out with her family. That turned into being polite to him for a bunch of reasons. What her family thinks of him is important to her. She wanted us to like him. We were not rude to him because we didn’t want to hurt her or upset her. We knew she really liked this guy and there seemed no point in upsetting her. We’d all just live with it. That, unfortunately, is no longer an option. No one can take it anymore.

Yes, people made comments when he sat on his ass while everyone else worked. He didn’t care.
That is pretty much the point we are at ** Reeder ** but we don’t especially want to “get in his face” really. Just make it clear he is no longer welcome at family functions, formal or otherwise, and have no contact with him anymore. We don’t want to make it worse on her than it has to be. I have no intention of making her so uncomfortable that she can’t even speak his name, I just don’t want to have to see him or deal with him anymore.

12

I think jawofech just won the SDMB irony-of-the-day award.

13

You have a shovel. Is the ground too frozen yet to dig a pit?

14

You know ** Sam Stone ** when I wrote that I actually thought that myself. I guess I should have said he talks about people behind their backs generally to spread untrue or highly exaggerated rumors about them. He uses it as part of his “I know something you don’t know” routine. I dunno, maybe you think that me discussing him here falls under the same umbrella. You might be right too. shrug

15

Definetly have a talk with your cousin. Its no big deal, she’s still welcome, he is not. If she lets him guilt her into staying away from her family…well, it sucks but it’ll be a learning experiance. You might want to give her some solid descriptions of controlling relationships and how damaging they are to people. They can creep up on people and seeing a clear picture of “This is wrong” can be very, very shocking.

A very trusted friend of mine excommunicated a guy I was with. He made it clear that I was welcome in his home at any time, as long as Fuckwad was not with me. The following phrase rang it home “I can’t watch how he treats you. Do whatever you like, but I’d rather stay out of jail and if I have to see it one more time I’ll do something that will land me there.” essentialy, your own business if you want to be in a really poor relationship, but don’t kill yourself where I have to watch.

I looked, hard, at my relationship and dumped the guy.

Good Luck.

16

Is your uncle your cousin’s father? What the hell is going on here? Your uncle needs to get all his brothers and brother’s in law and other adult males together and let this SOB know that if they ever see his face again that they will thrash him to within an inch of his life. That if any harm ever comes to his daughter in the future that it will be assumed that it was him and he will be thrashed within an inch of his life! What the hell is wrong with your family!? Sure it isn’t legal, but this is only going to get worse. Everyone needs to get together and move cousin or significant other out of the “apartment” in one afternoon. He is a bum! And worse. The sooner you get rid of Carlo Rizzi, the sooner your family will be better off.

17

Introduce your cousin to this site: http://www.heartless-bitch.com it’ll help open her eyes to the obvious and hopefully give her a wake up call. And whatever you do, don’t alienate her. She needs her family right now. Make sure she knows that no matter WHAT happens, she can ALWAYS come home to her family. That’ll be the deciding factor in her decision to leave or stay. I’d put money on it.

18

I’m sorry, the link is actually heartless-bitches.com

19

We had this situation with my sister a few years back. I wrote her a long, heartfelt letter, showing her the bad things that SHE was telling people about this guy, telling her she owed it to herself to realize that she deserved better. She actually grew a backbone and dumped the guy. He called her all crying and she took him back. The family issued a similar ultimatum – and it only pushed her further back to him. By God, she was going to show us what a grown-up she was! Now they’re married and things are exactly the same, except now they have a kid that they barely spend time with. Nor do they seem to spend time with each other (except, apparently, to breed – they are talking about having another child). He’s still a selfish, asocial, rude bastard.

It’s hard as hell, but sometimes you have to let people learn by getting their own lumps. Be warned, ultimatums can backfire.

20

DPWhite, do you know of an example where that actually worked? Where the man actually said, “Fair enough, I will leave the woman I’ve been freeloading off of without trying to poisen her against you so I can go back to living in a shack by myself and avoid the opportunity to get sympathy from her and legal retaliation against you for the beating you gave me,” and the woman followed it with “Oh, thank you my big, strong male savior for driving off the man who I, in my feminine frailty, would never have thought of leaving myself. I’ll never jump into a relationship with a scumbag again, for it was only my inability to see his weaknesses that caused me to get into that horrible relationship and that will never happen again.”

The only place for that kind of grandstanding is if she’s trying to leave but he won’t let her, and it’s more to reassure her that she doesn’t have to live in fear from him than anything else.

Ann Landers would call for counseling for your cousin (alone if your cousin’s boyfriend won’t go along). It probably wouldn’t hurt, she might figure out why she got herself into this situation in the first place, and see the warning signs in any future relationship.

In any case, there’s some reason why she’s still with him. Talk to her, try to figure it out, and, very, very carefully, try to question her reasoning. You have to be careful, because the reason is more likely to be an emotional one (“I just love the lunk.” “It’s better than being alone.”) than a logical one. Don’t judge the validity of the emotions or him in general, but perhaps plant the proper questions to get her thinking about the situation more rationally (“Well, does he love you? How could somebody who really loves you deny you shoes so he can have a new Xbox game?”).

Good luck. If you do go for the ultimatum, you might wish to state it as “we can’t watch the way he treats you anymore”, instead of “we hate this jerk”. Probably more productive.

-LV