Who's the Inextricable Thorn in Your Side?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

And how do you deal with them?

For the past few years, I’ve had a family member living with me, because she can’t afford housing on her own. She’s working, and able to cover her other bills, but that’s about it. She’s been able to manage it in the past, barely, but I’ve recently started to realize - and accept - that she may well never be able to again. And even if she does start earning enough to move out at some point, she won’t be able to sustain it indefinitely. She’ll always be a paycheck or two away from missing rent, and eventually, she’ll be too old to work, and will need my support. To be clear, this is not a “she just needs to stand on her own two feet” situation. She has issues I’m not going to go into here, but they’re not her fault, and there’s nothing to be done about them. She genuinely needs help, and I’m glad to be able to give it.

Except… she’s a jerk. This is one of her issues - she doesn’t do it intentionally, and doesn’t see what’s wrong with her behavior, even when it’s pointed out to her. She’s rude and unfriendly, and never expresses a word of gratitude for anything I’ve done for her. She doesn’t help out around the house, and in fact, can barely be coaxed to clean up after herself. She treats anything we ask of her as a major imposition, even if it’s just, “Please be quiet when we’re trying to sleep.” At best, she just stays out of our way entirely; at worst, she makes my home a hostile environment I don’t want to be in.

I’m not looking for solutions or suggestions. Trust that I’m already attacking this issue from every angle imaginable, and whatever it is you have in mind, I’ve tried it. What I really want is just to commiserate with others in similar situations, who are stuck with a jerk - but a jerk you can’t blame, and can’t just disown. Maybe you’re caring for an elderly parent with dementia, who expresses nothing but hate for you. Maybe you have a child with mental disabilities who lashes out with uncontrollable tantrums. Maybe you have a cat who’s an ornery old bastard and won’t have anything to do with you. Tell me your stories. Tell me how you cope. Tell me how to not resent this person, and how to not look forward to the rest of my life with dread.

2

I have a family member who has been, in the past, just as you describe. And she lived with me for a while too.

Fortunately, she married a fellow who seems to be able to deal with it, I think because he has issues of his own which prevent him from noticing a lot of the stuff.

Anyway, it’s still a lot of trouble dealing with aspects of her life. For example, one of her limitations is that she is easily conned into doing unwise things by other unstable people. Hubby and I had gone to some trouble and expense to fix up an old car we had for her and her husband, as they had no vehicle (and public transit is nonexistent here). Of course they did not thank us for it. They drove it for about three months, when one day at lunchtime her unstable friend called her insisting that she come over there and eat lunch. My relative left work in a big hurry and promptly T-boned a lady, totalling the car. She expressed no remorse whatsoever.

I then tried to put the car on craigslist in order to sell the engine and transmission out of it, to get some of the $ back out of it. But some guy came around her neighborhood towing junk cars away “for free” and she let him have it. Then called me all proud of herself for “getting rid of that old junk car”. I felt like she had punched me in the stomach.

A friend of mine gave me a cute little antique dining table. It had pull-out extensions on the ends, just the neatest thing you ever saw. I lent it to my relative. I went over there later and it had a perfectly iron-shaped burn mark right in the center. I noticed only two chairs were there. I asked her where the other chairs were. “Oh, I saved the pieces.” The pieces ?! What happened? “They just fell apart.” ??? Turns out she had left them outside. :smack:

3

We have 2 boarders here at our barn. One of them is a peach, I love her to death. She’s been here since she was 15 and is kind of my “kid.” She’s always on time with her board, never bitchy about things, just a dear soul.

The other boarder is…not. I call her the Speshul Snowflake because she is the Queen Bitch of All Bitches. She’s your typical old maid who “gave up her life” to take care of first her grandmother, and now her mom, and she wastes no time in letting you know how she could have been so much more if she hadn’t had to take care of all these people. She also has muscular dystrophy which is under control, but she feels that no one else can have pain, be sick, or anything worse than she does. You have to suck it up and keep going no matter how bad things are—and it’s also YOUR FAULT that you’re going thru these things.

She’s just down and out mean and two faced. The only reason we haven’t booted her is we need her two horses to keep our place going, and she has been useful in the past. But her meaness, her being such a bitch to everyone has really gotten me down. There’s other things she’s done that have almost killed my love of horses and I tell you folks what, if it wasn’t for Sarah and her horse, and our two horses, I’d throw up my hands and say ‘fuck it all.’

4

My mother. Oddly enough, my mother-in-law has been more of a mother to me than my own mother has over the last few years. And I used to have mad respect for Mom.

My dad left her high and dry for another woman, and he hadn’t let Mom work when they were together. She had no skills to fall back on. As a result, she worked the graveyard shift at a fast food joint while putting three boys through school. We were on welfare, free lunch at school, living on food stamps in housing projects. None of us ended up in jail, on drugs or dead. While she did this, she got her GED, became a dental assistant and then a nurse.

Like I said, I really admire her for that. Then it started…

After my parents divorced, my mom attempted suicide for the first time. She’s attempted it a few times since then, all unsuccessfully.

Fast forward a few years. Over the course of one 12-month period, she had four events happen to her that, singularly, would have been enough to drive someone over the edge. My father died (he was her first love), she had breast cancer, her youngest son graduated college, and she became a grandmother (not in that order).

She was working in a nursing home, and there was a medical mix-up of some sort (I don’t know if meds came up missing, or someone got the wrong dosage, or what). She was suspended, and decided to crawl inside of a rum bottle. I found out several years ago that she was about to lose her house, because she decided not to pay any bills, or find a job. My brother and I pooled our money together, draining our savings in the process, and paid off about 3 months of back house payments. We told her that she didn’t have to worry about paying us back. Just get a job, and pay her own bills. She let her house be foreclosed on, anyway. She subsequently moved in with my cousin (who is a pillhound, and turned Mom into one, also), laying in a bedroom, drinking herself stupid, and stealing my cousin’s ill-gotten meds.

My little brother - who was living in Atlanta at the time - quit his job, and moved back to our native Indiana so that Mom could move in with him. That was 5 years ago, and she still hasn’t made any attempts to do anything on her own. She’s gone from a once-proud nurse to working in Wal-Mart (I’m not judging Wal-Mart employees; I was one once, and met my wife when we worked at one together…it’s just that it seems like Mom’s stooped, for lack of a better word).

She’s been arrested twice in the last few years for getting drunk at various riverboat casinos. On the second, she was missing for four days because no one knew she’d taken off. She didn’t have anyone’s phone number, so we had to file a missing persons report before we could find her.

She asked my brother if she could take his daughter to an amusement park about 90 minutes or so away, stay the night, and come back. My niece was about 3 at the time. My brother said no. Mom asked his estranged wife, under the pretense that my brother said it was okay if she okayed it, and she agreed. Mom then went ahead and stayed an additional night without bothering to tell anyone. She stumbled in after the police had been called, and MINUTES before an Amber Alert was issued. She couldn’t understand why everyone was upset. A footnote to that is that my (now ex) sister-in-law took my niece to the same amusement park, and my niece remembered NOTHING about it.

My mother has repeatedly said that she is only still alive because of my niece. My wife and sister-in-law are convinced that Mom planned on killing herself and my niece in the hotel room, but backed off for some reason.

My relationship with Mom has always been strained, at best. She’s told me that she wished she’d aborted me. On more than one occasion (if it means anything, I’m the middle child).

My wife and I went through a trial separation, and have reconciled. My mother is still so cold to her that Whit refuses to be around her. And I can’t blame her. I’ve told my mother that she has to accept Whit, or she won’t have me around. She’s okay with that. My older brother gave her her granddaughter. My little brother shits diamonds out of a platinum asshole.

Example…this past Xmas, both brothers got nice, semi-extravagant gifts. Whit and I got a set of Spider-Man sheets.

God, this has been a hijack of monstrous proportions.

5

A cousin. He’s about 56 and his own family has pretty much written him off. (His mom and two brothers, I don’t know about the family on the paternal side, his dad, my uncle, died two years ago). My family, with whom I’ve only begun to reconnect (just moved from Anchorage, Alaska to the Great State of Washington, last fall), try to help as much as they can, but he seems to be almost helpless.

Unlike your family member, he’s usually sweet (too sweet). But he’s lost in lala land. He’s a Christian, but of the “Lord JAAAyses” variety. (the type that drive me BONKERS). Won’t believe, or understand that God gave us this big hunk o’ grey matter with which to run our lives. It’s all “God’s will this, and God’s will that”. I’ve flat out TOLD him "honey? “God’s will is to use that brain that God even gave a goose and get off yer duff and get a job!”.

From the time he was a very young man, first out of HS, then college, then married and making his way in the world, he’s had this bizarre “get rich quick” mentality. He TOTALLY buys into the whole Amway thing. Not just the business part of it either. And is so naive, that he gets ripped off regularly. And his personality doesn’t help. He’s sweet, and grateful and gracious. But he’s also completely delusional and thinks (or remembers) things that just aren’t true, or didn’t happen.

So when he gets a job, or job interview, he very quickly “talks himself out of it” as people start realizing “the boy ain’t got but one oar in the water”. What’s sad is he’s really smart, and articulate, and personable and that everlasting SWEETNESS. And he’s not cuckoo enough so that the family can have him put away.

And (it gets worse), none of us really know whose responsibility it is to finally start thinking about maybe making that decision. He’s living in a refurbished shed on one of my other relative’s property right now. He’s been alienated from his kids, his ex-wife, his youngest brother and his mother, possibly BY his youngest brother keeping them apart, but that might just be paranoid delusion on his part.

I think there IS something at least mildly schizophrenic about him, but it’s as if no one knows what to do, or who needs to step up and start the process. Frustrating yes.

(ps, I’m about to start talking to some of my family, this can’t last, he’s 56 for crying out loud).

6

Bane-I think you meant Multiple Sclerosis (people with MD seldom life into middle age, and usually end up in wheelchairs)

7

Maybe, but I have a form of it called central core disease that is much less severe than what one usually thinks of when they think of MD. She may have that or something similar.

Joe

8

My dad. And I do feel badly about saying this, but…he’s not been in my life for almost fifteen years. That was due mostly to my mother. Now that my mother’s passed on, though, he expects to just waltz back into my life. He wanted to live with my SO and I, live in the basement of a house he bought. I am not willing to sacrifice my independence enough even for a house. He expects me to switch back into being the dutiful Indian daughter, but he is completely uninterested in finding out what kind of adult I have become. He is in India now, but he will be back soon, and then I have to deal with him.

9

Wow, thanks, folks. It’s reassuring to know others are going through similar stuff, but jeez, I wish none of us had to.

NinetyWt, your relative sounds a LOT like my relative. She would do and say exactly the same things in those situations. And she’s often been conned or convinced into doing unwise (and usually, expensive) things. She also suffers from a bit of Special Snowflake Syndrome, like BaneSidhe’s boarder. She can be very concerned for others - to the point of being a bit of a busy-body, in fact - but if she’s unhappy, she takes it out on everyone else. Superdude, hardly a hijack! That’s exactly the kind of person I’m thinking of: she made lemonade out of lemons… and then pissed in the lemonade. I simultaneously feel sorry for her and want to slap her. CanvasShoes, that’s the hell of it: my relative can also be very sweet. I think she just feels that since I’m family, she can dispense with the niceties. She, too, is super-religious. That may be part of it; perhaps she disapproves of me and my atheistic life. At least she’s never dared say it in so many words. And like your cousin, she thinks things that aren’t true, or didn’t happen. But she’s nowhere near committable. Just impossible to reason with sometimes. So frustrating. Anaamika, I thought of you and your dad when starting this thread. I hope that however you deal with him, you don’t wind up living with him or otherwise saddled with his care. I wish you luck in finding a balance between doing enough that you don’t feel guilty, and not doing so much that you feel resentful. Actually, I wish that for all of us.

10

My father. I’ve written about him before, so I won’t repeat myself. He’s sliding into senility now, alas.

11

I did.

I divorced her.

She is now a series of other people’s problem, and hasn’t tried to contact me for more than a year.

Luckily, I did it early enough that my daughter has no real memory of her destructive ways.