So hire one.
This is what I wanted to say and it reminds me of my life. I was eighteen when I moved out and my mother was angry and did not speak to me for months.
At the time I did not understand why but I know now it was because of her controlling ways and I did not realize for many years how much I let my mother control my life. I remember once my ex-husband told me my mother was brainwashing me. Of course at the time I refused to listen to him and thought my mother only wanted what was best for me but what she was in fact doing was causing me to dance to her tune.
Neither you or your girlfriend are at fault her. The fault rest solely on the mother.
Be prepared once your girlfriend does get to NY that she may have guilty feelings. Remind her gently that she is not at fault for anything her mother does.
I have to admit, I’ll believe it when I read it if Dad really does end up bringing daughter to you in NYC. I bet mom does another attention seeking thing before she leaves tomorrow.
Mom has some higher level problems that are not going to fix themselves, and if I were the Father married to this woman I would not be leaving her alone. NO WAY!
As an alcoholic she may or may not think she has a problem. I do hope she has hit her absolute bottom but it doesn’t sound that way to me…not yet.
If this was her first suicide attempt then maybe Ican see her being let out and go home, however, she is now on record as having been seen in an ER for suicide attempt. They will most likely commit her if there is a next time.
Personally, I think she should enter a 30 or 90 day rehab or detox and get right sized, because obviously she is not abe to handle life as it is on her own. A 90 day stint will certainly clear her thinking and dry up some of that wet brain she’s got kick’in around in there.
Either way the daughter must get out of that house and get into a healthier environment plain and simple.
Get her on a Greyhound bus.
Look, if you are considering *any *kind of future with this girl, you need to consider her family as well. I’m not saying you need to dump her because of her mother. You need to evaluate what kind of impact her mother could have on your home life, your children, etc.
Her mother needs help. It’s possible this is her rock bottom, and she will finally confront her problems. But your girlfriend is 21. I would assume her mother is also an “adult.” Your girlfriend cannot save her mother. All she can do is save herself.
ivylass: word.
That assumes that fusoya has a license, and the wherewithal to afford a car rental, or worse a round-trip taxi hire. Just as owning a car in NYC is not the default condition, neither is being possessed of a valid driver’s license. I don’t know what his situation is, but given his location there’s room for me to accept that he may not be able to hire a car, either.
I’d also like to restate something I said earlier:
As much as fusoya wants his g/f out of there, I do see room for intermediate steps between leaving on Jan 1, and staying indefinately. The important thing to me, rather than leaving on Jan 1, is that if the g/f stays she set a time limit on the deferral of the move. Just as an example: Telling her mother that she’d put her life on hold for six months, to stay at home and help out, if the mother were to get into AA and seriously try to break her alcoholism. It would be a major bummer for fusoya, but I wouldn’t think it were an unreasonable accomodation. With the rider that, should mother backslide at all, the girlfriend is on the next bus out of town.
I’m not going to condemn the girlfriend if she insists on the Jan 1 move, of course. But, for all that I think that may be the best move, it’s not the only “good” move I can imagine.
I’d like to check in as the daughter of two alcoholics, one of whom – my mother – was bipolar and did a whole slew of extremely dramatic suicide attempts, one or two of them around issues of abandonment. (The extent to which her behavior tended to drive people away is a separate issue, perhaps.)
Leave the mother out of the equation for now – whether this is her bottom or not, whether the attempt was legit or not, etc. – not actually the issue for the OP and his/her GF. The issue for them is taking care of the GF – not the GF’s mother.
Long term, encourage her to consider getting counseling so she can straighten out some of her own shit, which is no doubt considerable since I doubt that this is the first indication that her mother stars in her own soap opera. (Note: the combination of bipolar disorder and alcoholism is far from uncommon, though I have no idea if it’s at all clear what the actual causality is, if any, between the two. Though my mother finally got correctly diagnosed as, and medicated for being, bipolar for the last 15 years or so of her life, her drinking – which had, to some extent, functioned as a form of self-medication for the manic/depressive swings – continued unabated until she died.)
So – long term, your GF will need some help getting clear in her own mind what of this shit is her problem and what of it is not. Professional perspective can help amazingly in that process.
Short term – don’t pressure her or make ultimatums. Tell her you love her (if you do, don’t make any promises that misstate where you’re coming from) and that you’ll support her in what she decides to do. Encourage her to continue with her plans to move to NYC – but don’t guilt-trip her if she decides not to. Be there for her. Listen to her.
I have no idea what’s “best” for her to do – and she probably doesn’t either. Help her as best you can, but don’t push her to do anything that goes against what her gut is telling her to do.
I have heard that Mr. Hertz has so many cars, he actually rents them out. So assuming you have a driver’s license go get her.
As far as the father driving her on 1/1 goes, If they don’t leave someone to watch mommy on that day, she could quite likely do a repeat performance on the suicide. She might be successful this time. Leaving her alone would be a bad idea. Bad on toast.
Not only does Mom need counseling but so does the daughter. Other wise at some point in the future there is an excellent chance that she will start to emulate her mother.
when I was dating my wife, I made some comment about her mother to my sister. My sister said, if you want to know a girl is going to act in 25 years, look at her mom.
Good luck to you and your GF, you are both going to need it.
I’d like to chime in as a mother of a 21 year old who recently moved across the country and a woman who grew up in a family of alcoholics.
You and your girlfriend have done nothing wrong. Your girlfriend, however, will need to deal with the scars of living her life with an active alcoholic. I strongly suggest Al-Anon or ACoA. You should be able to find plenty of groups in NYC and Pennsylvania. Google or head for the phone book.
Mother needs help but I’m afraid that the help she needs does not include more people enabling her behavior. I’d say get your GF on the soonest train, bus, airplane to NYC and don’t look back. She needs to get away from that toxic situation.
And, just to give you an example of a “normal” (dare I refer to myself as normal?) mother’s reaction, when my 21 year old decided to volunteer for City Year in San Jose, CA (we live in Central FL) I was thrilled and did everything I could to help her find a place to live and get her stuff packed and shipped. Sure, I miss her. We talk on the phone almost daily and I’m thrilled that she’s getting such a cool life experience.
Good luck to you and your girlfriend.
A question about Dad- what does he advise your GF to do? Granted, he’s supposedly driving her Jan 1, but what is he saying to her?
If it’s anything but “Flee while you can & don’t look back. Let me deal with your Mom,” then he also may be part of the problem.
I do have a drivers license (I lived in CT until I was 23) but I never felt like renting a car/flying out there was the right instinctive thing to do. the ironic thing is I originally offered to come out and drive back with her, but she thought her mom would want to spend their last hours together…
I didn’t hear from her at all since my last post. I’ve been calling her and texting and I just got this response ‘im still coming tomorrow. now leave me alone.’ … I’m not sure WHAT to think, except that something really bad is going to happen tomorrow…
I was going to spew out some boilerplate crap, but skip it. I’m sure you thought it all, already.
Sending some good thoughts your way. I hope you’ll update us after if she shows up tomorrow.
It means she was busy. If you called and left a message then wait for a response.
There is nothing worse than having someone call you over and over again, text you over and over again and page you over and over again. If you are not able to respond right away keep you damn panties on until they can call you back.
I am sure she is having a rough time. Maybe she was in a long heart to heart with her mom or her dad. You calling again and again is only going to put preasure on her. Her mother is doing enough of that already. She needs you to be patient and understanding.
I hope everything works out, I really do and I am sure you love and care about her but relax and take a couple breaths.
Well, she made it. She REALLY REALLY doesn’t seem to want to talk about what’s going on with her mom, but she called her once she got here so I know she at least didn’t do anything stupid. It is my concern that they are wiping the problem here under the rug, but as long as she is out of the house and away from her, she is in the best place and I am staying out aside from providing emotional support.
Too many pronouns.
That’s great. Maybe sometime in the future she will want to talk about it, maybe not. Either way, I hope things go well for you two.
I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful 2008 for both of you, fusoya.
Be aware, this isn’t over. I’ll bet dollars to donuts her mother pulls another stunt within 30 days.
Your girlfriend needs counseling…now. It’s good she got out of an unhealthy situation, now she needs to anchor herself so she doesn’t get sucked back in.
I don’t disagree with you, Ivylass, but given what fusoya has reported here about her reactions - I’m not sure she’s ready to try any thing like that. I don’t want to advocate sweeping things under the rug, but pushing someone who isn’t ready to listen may not be the best strategy in this situation. I am firmly convinced that forced counseling often does more harm than good. If fusoya isn’t ready to talk, or to consider counseling, I’d really be leery of pushing hard, without further indications that she’s at a crisis point.
And, alas, it’s a judgment call that none of us, here, have enough information to actually make for fusoya.
True, but I take the fact the girlfriend did go through with the move to be a very good sign.
Great news!
I agree that the girlfriend may not yet be ready for counseling. She’s just gone through a really traumatic experience and maybe she just needs a bit of down-time to deal with it in her head. She can get counseling when she feels good and ready.