What do you do when a loved one is dating the wrong person?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s a contentious title, I know, what exactly does it mean to be the wrong person and shouldn’t she be the person to decide? But here’s the problem. My sister isn’t the strongest willed person and her boyfriend is and has managed to wrap her around his finger so tightly she is completely blind to any and all of his lesser qualities.

He’s a gambleholic, to the point where he can easily blow a weeks pay in 20 minutes at a craps table, thinks he’s an expert handicapper for horse races and sports events, and day trades on the market like he was Michael Milken even though he’s on a tight budget. His parents almost pulled him out of college once for getting too deep into debt.

Second, he sees in my sister a meal ticket of sorts. My parents are reasonably well off and my sister is far more attractive than he. He’s so aggressive about moving the relationship forward that it has put the whole family off. He’s also a verbal racist and a misogynist. He has something bad to say every time I see him. The last one was, “I hate when black people mouth off to white people, it’s because they’re all racists.”

Lastly, and most disturbingly I get the distinct impression that while he’s being ultra nice to my sister right now, if they were ever to get married he would change his tune in short order. I think he wants a subservient wife, and unfortunately I don’t think my sister would be strong enough to resist him. Basically he just seems like a slimy character more and more.

We’ve tried confronting her about these problems but she vehemently denies everything and it only seems to make her more drawn to him. What can we do? :confused:

2

Be there for her when it’s finally over. I don’t mean to sound defeatist, and it’ll be great if some better ideas come along, but, as I’m sure you know, it’ll be tricky to accomplish much without driving her towards him. Sometimes people get married and quickly see their error, and move on.

Alternatively, you can try and slow things down possibly long enough to allow her to get a fuller picture of the guy. Can you get her away from him for a little bit? Take a trip, perhaps?

Good luck.

3

I wish I could help you, but a lot of times the more you do, the closer you’ll push her to him.

If you’ve all told her your concerns and she ignores them…well, sometimes people just have to find out on their own.

Sucks though.

4

Unfortunately it is hard to make people see the truth about someone they are involved with until after the fact or until you can get them away from the person.

The only thing is to try explain what you see and perseive(sp?) and hope that your sister can take a step back and see the big picture.

If not than it ultimately is your sister’s choice and most likely will have a rough ride until she can’t take it anymore and ditches the bum.

Sorry that’s about all you can do because if you force your opinion you risk pushing her to him. People have a tendancy to do what other people don’ want them to do.

5

IMO, there is nothing you can do. She doesn’t ask for your help, or tell you that she needs any help. You can only help when she asks.

She’s getting something out of the relationship. Maybe not a healthy something, I grant you. But that is not our place to say. Maybe she needs drama. Maybe she needs someone to tkae care of. Maybe, just maybe, he has some qualities that you are not hip to, qualities she really likes.

If she tells you or another family member that she is unhappy with him then feel free to suggest ways of righting her ship. Until then, keep quiet.

Just my opinion.

6

Having been through a similar situation in my own family, I hate to say it, but there really is nothing you can do…even when you do all that you can.

My uncle married “the wrong person”. She would bad mouth him to the rest of our family, her family, treat our family like crap and deny it to his face, even lie to their mariage counselor. Without going into the specifics, I’ll just say that we’d suspected mental problems of some nature, and it eventually turned out that she was manic depressive, had been since childhood, and would not take her meds because she could not take them and drink, and she’d rather drink than be emotionally stable.

My father (his brother) was one of the few members of the family who told my uncle the truth about his wife, and it destroyed their relationship. When they first divorced, my uncle even blamed my father for it, saying that the problems our family had had with his wife had added extra pressure on the marriage that caused it to fall apart. Only recently have they been able to talk to each other, and they’ve started to build their relationship again. My uncle is beginning to see that those who had tried to help were right all along, though he is still somewhat under this woman’s spell. Part of him still wants to get back together with her.

Having been through this, I can say that no matter what you say, no matter how much evidence you have in your favor, no matter how many times you tell her you love her and that you only want what is best for her, it might not do any good. In fact, it probably won’t. Try your hardest to convience her, focusing on her good qualities, and pointing out his bad qualities in the nicest way you can. Tell her the facts about him. How he treats people of other rascists. What you see happening to her. Finally, don’t ask her to leave him. Instead, ask her to look for these qualities in him, and see if she sees them herself.

If they do marry and it falls apart, be there for her then. It’s probably all you can do. Best of luck, cainxinth.

7

I guess I’ll be the voice of dissent here.

Speaking from my own experience, you might want to say something. Of course, every situation is different, but when I was dating my own uber-jerk, I was desperately unhappy. After I managed to break it off, I looked back a couple of months later and couldn’t believe I had stayed with him for as long as I had. This guy drove me to depression…I ended up on Effexor for a year after breaking it off with him. I also lost a ton of weight…went from a size 14 to size 8 in about 5 months. This was a bad, bad, relationship.

Talking about it afterwards with my family, they said things to the effect of, “Yea, he was a jerk. Wondering when you were going to realize it.”

My reaction was “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING!?” Of course, they say what everybody else says: “It wasn’t our business.” “We didn’t want you to resent us.” Etc.

However, I truly think that if my mom, or my sister, or especially my dad had just sat me down and said something to the effect of, “Oreo…you are smarter than this. Look at the big picture, etc.” I would have been snapped back to reality. I know they saw how unhappy I was…I wish they had acted on it. I might have saved myself months of torment.

And I’m close enough to my family that there’s no way this would have driven me away from them…especially when I knew in my heart that they were right.

Only you can judge what to do since you know the parties involved and can better judge how they’ll react. But I thought I’d add my own story to get another side.

Maybe a nice, gentle letter? That way she can choose to ignore it if she so chooses, and it won’t make her go on the offensive immediately the way a spoken conversation might.

Most important thing, though, is to let her know that you’ll be there for her no matter what.

8

Why don’t you have your Dad threaten him with death and castration of he harms or used your sister? Where are you? I’ll do it.

I hate it when men/boys disrespect their bosses :slight_smile:

9

Impossible to resolve this issue. Forget even trying.

My sister finally broke up with The Pizza Boy, as he was known to Mrs. RickJay and I, a few months ago, after over a year of dating him. The Pizza Boy had no redeeming qualities that I could see. He was lazy, dishonest, drunk, stupid, ugly, ignorant, and rude. He and my sister got into screaming matches four times a WEEK. He was an absolute nutbar and an idiot and was good for absolutely nothing. My sister is educated, beautiful, and ambitious. After tolerating this for awhile I finally began to drop hints like, “Pizza boy is an idiot” and “You should dump the Pizza Boy,” all supported by cites and evidence, of course. (I did not call him “Pizza Boy” around my sister.) Did it work? Nope.

What did she see in him? I have absolutely no idea; there’s some psychological reason in there somewhere, maybe his connection to our hometown, maybe she likes the smell of anchovies, I don’t really know. But she was absolutely blind to the idiocy of it all, so much so that after the fact She did not remember that I had told her he was a jerk. She actually said “Why didn’t you tell me?” To which I responded, “I did, you moron. I told you dozens of times.” She looked surprised and confused, as if she had just woken up.

Hell, people remain obsessed with the wrong person even after they break up. How many people have you met who are absolutely OBSESSED with their ex-spouse? My mother has a friend who I’ll call Michelle who is just obsessed with her ex husband. She says she hates him, but she’ll talk about him 500 times a day. If you speak with her for half an hour it’s guaranteed her ex will enter the conversation four times, minimum. She’s been divorced from the guy for years, they have no reason to see one another at all, but even now she cannot get the guy out of her mind. It’s baffling.

10

You’ve told her.

She doesn’t want to see it.

Just be there for her afterward.

Some people have to pee on the electric fence themselves before they get the idea.

Good luck. When they’re kids you can snatch them away from danger. But when they’re adults, all you can do is stand back and watch.

Of course, if she is in immediate physical danger, call the cops at once.

11

And you know, she may already KNOW he’s a jerk. Some women seem to have a Makeover Complex. “I know he’s a jerk now, but through my love, I can change him and mold him into a decent human being.”

12

I’ve seen this quite a few times too.

Once it was a guy friend whose girlfriend was widely detested by all of his friends and family, and he knew it. I lost touch with him because I couldn’t stand to be around her, and she wouldn’t let him go out without her. :frowning:

Another was a girl friend whose boyfriend I couldn’t stand. I never said it outright, but she knew I didn’t like him, and kind of knew why. After they broke up she told me all this and that she should have taken better notice.

I think all you can do is say “I am concerned for your happiness, and (s)he doesn’t appear to make you happy, for the following reasons: [insert reasons]. But I will continue to love you and support your choices.” Also: always answer direct questions. If you think your friends don’t like your boyfriend, and you ask them outright, and they say “Oh … he’s okay” then I will think you are telling me the truth.

Just keep being her friend and wait it out. No “I told you so” when it’s finished.

13

Take him hunting.

Just kidding. Seriously, why not confront him about his gambling problem? Why not let him know that you have these suspicions about him, that you disapprove of the racial slurs, that you think he is a manipulator, and besides all that, you think he is ugly. Get a private detective to invesitgate him. He might have some stuff in his past that would make your sister reconsider.

Note, that I would not be able to perform any of these suggestions. But it felt good typing it. Maybe somebody else can help. Sorry.:frowning:

14

Buy them the book, “The Mastery of Love”, by Miguel Ruiz.

15

Make it clear that you love her unconditionally. And try inviting her out to do fun stuff, just you and her–make sure you keep the communication lines wide open, especially if you suspect he wants a subservient wife. It’ll make it that much harder for him to isolate and brainwash her. Telling her that he’s a jerk will probably work against you. I bet she’ll figure it out for herself sooner rather than later anyway.

16

That’s my sister, who is now married to Mr. Wrong Wrong Wrong. We tried to intervene – by pointing out to her all the rotten things about him that SHE HAD TOLD US, in such a way that it was clear that she thought he was a jerk too! And every one of them huge red flags. But she stayed with him, thinking she could get him to change. I’m sorry to say that I think our comments pushed her to marry him to “prove us wrong.”

When she called me to tell me they were engaged, I told her that I knew she knew how I felt about him, and I would not say anything bad about him from now on, but in return I did not want to hear any more complaints about him from HER, since she hadn’t been interested in my advice in the past. We’ve both stuck to that.

They now have two kids, and judging from what I know about the parent-child interactions (and lack thereof), that was a mongo mistake also – but I continue to say nothing, and keep the lines of communication open enough so that maybe I can be the aunt who sets a better example.

You can’t win in these situations, and as much as it kills you, it’s best to stay out.

17

If everything you are doing is driving her toward him, maybe she’s getting something out of the relationship and you’re contributing to it in some way.

Stop “confronting” her. In a confrontation, people have little choice but to defend themselves.

Talk to her about YOUR concerns, fears, etc. Make it very clear that you just want to talk to her about yourself, not about her.

Stop calling her “weak willed” it’s disrespectful, and that attitude increases the likelihood that she’ll need this relationship. If you’ve been saying it about her, she probably thinks it about herself, and is out to prove it’s true (people do that with their negative characteristics, strange as it sounds).

Remember, she has the right to be a subservient wife if she chooses.

Respect her, love her, accept her. Don’t tolerate yourself being belittled by the guy, don’t tolerate racism from him, but don’t try to force your sister to believe like you do.

18

You get some thick twine and start to learn macrame.
Slowly but surely, you fashion a huge web.
Then you buy some solid posts.

Once you have built this safety net, let your loved one fall in it and be there for them.

I am currently going through the same thing. Bright, attractive, fun woman dating an absolute obnoxious, drunk, loser.

There is nothing you can do but wait for them to fall.

19

I think many people who stay in unhealthy relationships do so because they undervalue themselves to the point where they believe they either can’t do any better, or they don’t deserve any better.

All you can do for a loved one in this situation is be there for them, help them build up their self-confidence and self-esteem. The worst thing you can do is appear to be judging them or the person they think they “love”. This will put her in the position of defending him against your opinion - no matter how tactfully and lovingly you say it - she’ll feel she has to justify her feelings to you, as well as protect him.

If you and your family and her friends can somehow get her involved with taking care of herself, with social events, with ANYTHING that will help her understand that she is a wonderful person with a lot to offer who deserves happiness, perhaps she’ll find the strength to look honestly at her relationship and make the decision that’s right for her.

Good luck, I hope it works out!

20

“The Mastery of Love”, Miguel Ruiz. 12 bucks, used, Amazon.com