Need well-intentioned advice regarding my daughter and her fiance
NURSEGENA - Dec 29 2022 at 02:58
Hi guys, newbie here. Wasn't sure where else to post this. So, thought I would give here a good try and starting point. To make a long story really short of a 24 year old daughter who is recently engaged for about 6 months.. at first your fiance was very charming very accommodating very kind almost to a ridiculous degree fast forward 6 months we now know he's obviously a covert narcissist based upon his current behaviors. They got engaged about 4 months ago, and since that time, she has become extremely depressed, her entire personality has changed. She cried probably five days out of seven, she is in horrible mental shape....he refuses to do thing like drop her off at work when she needed a ride before she got her car....he for yelling scream call her horrible names such as a whore... Just because she asked him to take her to work. It got worse, she became suicidal...calling me at 2,3am, crying and extremely unstable. On top of this, this guy is doing things in the the home of the illegal variety, which could land her in prison. I have begged, pleaded, bargained, and tired every approach possible to make her understand she is dying. He is killing her soul, she is broken, sad and frail, and is at risk of possibly even going to prison.
My kids have brutally attacked me, stating that I've gone about it all wrong, and should leave her be. That I should just let her make her own decisions, and stop begging and pleading with her to leave him. And that I should "never" restate his worthlessness or how terrible of a person he is to her and just let her be. I'm afraid she will die if I just ",go away". I won't give up on my own kid, why would I ignore or minimize threats of suicide and cries of misery?
Am I doing the right thing? What would YOU DO?
My sister was dating the wrong guy. My husband wanted to take her aside and tell her what a jerk "Joe" was, and knowing my sister better than he, I suggested we just let it ride. Sure enough, Joe was supposed to give her a ride to the airport for a trip, and pick her up on her return, but a week before her trip he just ghosted on her. Hubby and I picked her up at the airport, and asked her what she was doing for Thanksgiving. She said she had planned to go with Joe to his mother's house, but that was off the table. That was the end.
Back in the day, I had a friend who had ended up married to a not-very-nice person. (Cheated on her, among other things) She commented to me that she just wished everyone had not been nagging her about what an awful person he was, because at some point she just got mad and decided she would prove them all wrong. So she married him, her friends were right, he was awful, and they divorced.
What you're doing isn't working. I would back off criticizing HIM, and just talk to your daughter more along the lines of "this doesn't seem to be making you happy."
It may be a minor thing, but since you mentioned it - what's with the car thing? She couldn't Uber, Lyft, taxi? She's not marrying him because she can't finance living alone, is she? That would be a poor reason to get married. My man-friend drove me to work when my car unexpectedly died - but we had been together for two years at that point. Did she have an apartment before? Alone, with friends? Is she welcome to live with you? And speaking of which, my man-friend needed me to drive him around for a time. But THAT got old fast. He drove me to work and car-shopping for seven days. I was driving him to the rental car place for better than a month while he arranged to buy a car from a friend. Not fun.
As a woman who didn't date a lot, I would have wanted someone to remind me that *even though it seemed* as if all my friends were partnered up, that on it's face wasn't true, and it *certainly wasn't true* that the partnered ones were all happy. it would have been helpful at 22- or 28 or 30 for someone to say, "The right man is out there. You don't have to settle for the first one who asks you to marry him." Do I understand that they've dated for six months, and have been engaged for four of those months? What's the rush?
So I think there are things you can point out, without insisting this fellow is the devil incarnate - because every time you do that, your daughter is going to contradict you. Every time she delivers this dialog, she's convincing herself it's true.
I'm puzzled that your daughter tells you of his illegal activity, yet continues to date him. I agree, he sounds dreadful, mean, unkind, all that. I guess I'd be leaving that out of the spoken conversation and asking daughter what's the rush to marry? At only 24, she has all the time in the world!