Are You Enabling Your Adult Children?

In prior articles, I've discussed the concepts of enabling and codependency: 

Relationships: Overcoming Codependency

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Being Enabling 

Avoiding Codependency Between You and Your Children).  

In this article, I'm focusing on parents who enable their adult children.

Are You Enabling Your Adult Children?

Before I discuss parents enabling adult children, I want to stress that, of course, most parents want the best for their children and would never do anything intentionally that was harmful to them.

At the same time, good intentions can sometimes lead to bad outcomes.  With regard to enabling adult children, this often means that these children don't learn the necessary skills to develop and grow psychologically.

What Does "Enabling" Mean?
Let's start by providing the negative definition of "enabling," which is how I'm using it in this article.

Basically, the concept of enabling developed in the recovery community to describe spouses, family members and others who intend to "help" someone with an addiction but who make the problems worse with their "help."

Common examples of enabling in this sense is the wife (or husband) who calls the spouse's employer to make an excuse for an absence when, in fact, the spouse is too drunk to go to work.

In this case, the intention is for the spouse with the drinking problem to keep his job.  However, the unintended consequence is that the spouse with the drinking problem learns that he can continue to drink and his spouse will make sure that everything is taken care of with the boss.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion for the wife in this situation can understand why she's doing this.  If her husband loses his job, she and the children will also suffer terrible consequences.  But, at the same time, she is unknowingly and unintentionally making the situation worse because there are no consequences for the husband at home or at work--at least for a while.

Presumably, these excuses can't go on forever.  In the meantime, since alcohol problems tend to be progressive, without help, the husband's drinking problem will get worse and can lead to serious health problems or death.

The same scenario often occurs when parents make excuses for their adult children to shield them from experiencing negative consequences.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized scenario to understand these consequences better:

Sandy and Ann:
Sandy's daughter, Ann, moved out with roommates when she was 25.

Initially, when Ann moved out, she wasn't making much money, so Sandy paid most of Ann's portion of the rent and helped to pay for Ann's phone.

As time went on, Ann got a promotion to a managerial position at her bank, and she was doing well enough so that she could afford her own apartment in Brooklyn.  But she asked Sandy to continue to pay her rent for the next six months until she was settled in.

Sandy was happy to help her and continued to pay Ann's rent for the next six months--even though it came at a financial sacrifice.  Sandy cancelled a vacation she planned to take.  She also became a lot more careful about other everyday expenses so that she could continue to help Ann financially.

A few months later Ann approached Sandy for more money because she maxed out her credit cards and the balances were so high that she could no longer make minimum payments.

When Ann told Sandy what happened, Ann was shocked.  She had no idea that Ann was running up her credit cards.  She told Ann that she would pay off her credit cards, but she needed to be more careful in the future about how she spent money.

Are You Enabling Your Adult Children

Ann agreed to be more responsible, but this pattern continued for the next few years with Ann living above her means to have whatever she wanted and Sandy cutting back more and more on her own expenses to bail out Ann.

By the time Ann turned 30, she had a high paying executive position at her bank, but she continued to get deeper and deeper in debt.

As a single parent of an only child, Sandy was getting increasingly concerned about Ann's financial problems.

On some level, she knew that she had enabled this problem by constantly bailing Ann out, but she felt too guilty to refuse to help her.

Sandy offered to pay for Ann to see a financial advisor to help Ann develop better financial skills, but Ann wasn't interested.

Then, one day, Sandy came to visit Ann and told her that she had run up a new credit card and she couldn't pay it.  When Ann told Sandy that the balance owed was $25,000, Sandy was shocked.  At first, Sandy refused to help her.

At that point, Ann got enraged and said in a desperate tone, "What am I going to do!?!  If the credit card company contacts my employer, I'll be so embarrassed!  I'll lose my job! You have to help me."

Sandy wasn't sure what to do.  She agonized about it for days.  Then, she confided in her best friend, Meg, who was already familiar with this dynamic between Sandy and Ann.

Meg listened patiently, as she always did, and then she told Sandy that Ann was in deep trouble with her overspending habit.  Then, she took a deep breath and told Sandy that Sandy was also in trouble for enabling Ann.

Sandy knew that Meg was right, but she felt too guilty and afraid not to help her daughter, so she took money from her savings account, gave it to Ann and told her that it was a loan and she had to pay her back.

Ann was taken aback when Sandy told her that she had to pay the money back, but she was feeling desperate, so she agreed to pay Ann back within the next two years.

After Sandy gave Ann the money, they each felt momentarily relieved and didn't talk about it again for a while.  But as time went on and Ann didn't give Sandy any money to pay back the loan, Sandy got concerned.

Whenever Sandy brought up the loan, Ann got annoyed and reminded Ann that she had agreed to pay her back.  Ann didn't like being "badgered" for the money and she said she would start paying back Sandy soon--as soon as she had the extra cash.

But time went on and Ann never brought up the loan and never gave Sandy any money.  Instead, she got herself deep into debt again.

When Ann approached Sandy for more money, Sandy had run out of all options and, even though she felt very guilty, she told Ann that she would have to deal with this new debt on her own because she couldn't help her.

Ann panicked and approached her close friends for loans, but she had already borrowed money from all of them and still owed them so they told her they couldn't lend her any more money.  Having no money to pay, Ann had to file for bankruptcy, which ruined her credit and caused her to lose her position with her bank.

Ann had no choice but to give up her apartment and move back home, which she resented.  Then, instead of looking for another job, she spent all day sleeping in her former childhood room. She refused to speak to Sandy because she was unable to help her.

Faced with this increasingly difficult situation, Sandy began therapy because the situation was overwhelming to her.

In therapy, Sandy learned about the concept of enabling and how she had unwittingly contributed to her daughter's problems by constantly bailing her out.

Sandy knew that she had to make changes, but it was extremely difficult for her to say "no" to her daughter.  But she took responsibility for her part in Ann's problems, and she began to deal with the underlying reasons that caused her to enable her daughter.

Sandy discussed in therapy that she had always felt guilty about separating from Ann's father, who was a gambler who gambled away their savings when Ann was a child.

After they separated, Ann's father disappeared from Ann's life and Ann blamed Sandy for this.  As a child, Ann was too young to understand her father's gambling problems and Sandy never explained it to Ann--even when Ann became an adult.  In fact, they never discussed it.

Ann realized in therapy that, due to her guilty feelings about the marital separation and Ann's father's abandoning Ann, Sandy felt she could never say "no" to Ann.

Ann had to work through her guilt in therapy before she could accept that she did what was best for herself and Ann when she left Ann's father, and it was time for her to stop trying to overcompensate for it by constantly bailing out Ann.

She also knew that she needed to speak with Ann about it and set limits with her, including how long she could continue to live with her and expect that Sandy would support her.

It was one of the most difficult conversations that Sandy had ever had in her life, but by the end of their conversation, Sandy explained why she separated from Ann's father.  She also gave Ann six months to find a job or she would have to move out.

It took a few days before Ann came back to Sandy and apologized for her behavior.

She told Ann that after her father left, she blamed Sandy, but she also blamed herself.  She felt that she must have been unlovable and that the only thing that made her feel good about herself was spending money (see my article:  Learn to Stop Overspending as a Way to Avoid Uncomfortable Feelings).

She understood now that she had placed herself in an untenable situation and it was always headed for disaster, but she couldn't face it until now.

Ann began attending Debtor's Anonymous 12 Step meetings to deal with her overspending habit and she started putting her life together again.

Although it was very hard for Sandy to set limits with her daughter, she realized that neither she nor her daughter would have made any changes if she had not confronted her own underlying reasons for enabling Sandy.  This, in turn, led to Ann facing her own problems.

Conclusion
Confronting your enabling behavior toward an adult child can be one of the most difficult things you do in your life.

You can find many rationalizations and excuses for your behavior, but until you face it and make a commitment to overcome it, neither you nor your child will be able to change this dysfunctional behavior.

In the scenario above, the enabling behavior was about giving an adult child money, but it can be about anything--enabling substance abuse, enabling overeating, enabling workaholism, and so on.

Getting Help in Therapy
Parents often find it increasingly difficult to stop enabling their children on their own.

It's easy to continue to bargain with yourself, "I'll just do it this one time and then I'll stop," in much the same way that your adult child can bargain with him or herself to continue to engage in dysfunctional behavior.

Getting help in therapy can provide you with the tools you need to take yourself out of the cycle of ongoing enabling.

Parents are often surprised that once they take a stand and stop enabling their adult children's dysfunctional behavior, their children will have no choice but to confront their own behavior and make changes.

The first step, picking up the phone and setting up an appointment with a therapist for a consultation, can be the hardest step, but it's often the first step to making positive changes.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome negative enabling behavior so they could lead more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Developing a New Psychological Perspective About Your Parents After They're Gone

As a psychotherapist, I see many clients who come to therapy because they have unresolved feelings about deceased parents.  In an earlier article, Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From an Adult Perspective, I discussed how clients often develop a different perspective, as adults, about their childhood trauma.  In this article, I'll focus on how it's possible to develop a new psychological perspective in therapy about deceased parents.

Strange as it might sound, many clients do develop a new relationship, within their own internal world, with one or both parents even after their parents are deceased.

Is It Possible to Develop a New Psychological Perspective About Your Parents After They're Gone?

Working Out Parental Relationships Can Be a Longstanding Endeavor
For many people, working out their parental relationships can be a longstanding endeavor.  It's not unusual for people to struggle with their feelings on their own from early childhood to old age without finding a peaceful resolution.

Working Out Parental Relationships Can Be a Longstanding Endeavor Starting From Childhood

From Childhood to Adulthood:  An Increased Psychological Capacity to Understand Parents
Children often have a narrow perspective about their parents.  This is understandable because, generally speaking, children's capacity for psychological understanding isn't as developed as adults.

It's natural that children often idealize one or both parents.  For instance, a child might see a mother as being very glamorous and all knowing or feel that a mother can protect the child against whatever danger there might be in the environment.  Or, a child might see the father as being strong and powerful, the family protector.

Then, as children get older, especially in their teens, they tend to place more importance on their friends' opinions and values.  And, at that stage, they might even denigrate their parents' opinions or values, much to the chagrin of their parents.

The change, from idealization as young children to separation and need for autonomy as teenagers, is a natural stage of development.  Of course, it's all a matter of degree.

When people come to therapy to deal with unresolved issues about their parents, it's usually because there are negative feelings that are lingering about their parents.   They want to experience a resolution to these feelings so they don't continue to experience the resentment, which is eating away at them, for the rest of their lives.

There are many reasons why people have longstanding resentment towards one or both parents.  Sometimes, children grow up feeling disappointed in their parents without really understanding what's going on for the parent at that time.

In cases where there are more serious issues, like parental abuse, which I won't be discussing in this article, clients need trauma therapy.  See my articles on this topic:

Overcoming the Psychological Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Resolving Childhood Trauma to Lead a More Fulfilling Life as an Adult
Adults Who Were Emotionally Neglected as Children Often Have Problems Trusting Others

From a Negative Psychological Perspective to a New More Integrated Perspective
In this article, rather than dealing with abuse, I'm focusing on a particular issue that involves disappointment and resentment towards a parent when the child sees the parent as inept.

The focus will be on a psychotherapy client who began therapy with a negative perspective about his father and who was able to develop a new, more integrated  psychological perspective.

In the example that I give in the vignette below, the client is able to work through these issues in therapy. As always, this vignette is a composite of many psychotherapy cases and has no identifying information about  any particular clients:

Roger
Roger was an engineer in his early 30s.  When he came to my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, he was filled with anger and resentment towards his boss.  He feared that his resentment might eventually cost him his job if it became apparent to his boss.

Developing a New Psychological Perspective About Your Parents After They're Gone

In general, Roger had problems with male authority figures throughout the course of his life.  Now that he was in his 30s, he recognized that his anger towards his current and prior supervisors was out of proportion to the situations involved, and he didn't understand it.

As we discussed his family history, it became apparent that Roger also had lifelong anger and resentment towards his father, Dan, who had died suddenly of a heart attack several years before.

Roger's main complaint about his father was that he was disappointed in his father and he saw his father as inept.

As a young boy, Roger longed for his father to be his hero.  He wanted to be able to look up to his father like other boys did but, instead, he felt consistently disappointed in his father.

Most of Roger's memories about his father were about his father being inept in some way.  He thought of his father as being a kind, well-meaning man, who "just couldn't get it right."

He described many situations where his father tried to work on a household project, but he fumbled around instead.  Inevitably, Roger's mother would have to take over in order to complete the project.  Roger knew that his mother felt disappointed and resentful, and he sympathized with her.

Dan also had difficulty concentrating and would often "space out" when he was trying to help Roger with his homework.   Then, his mother, who became exasperated, would have to take over.

Roger was also aware that his father would often shout in his sleep during his frequent nightmares.  Then, his father was up for the rest of the night pacing around the house before he could go back to sleep again.  But Dan never wanted to talk about his nightmares or what was bothering him.

There were days when Dan couldn't go to work at the retail business, which was owned by Dan and his brothers, because he was too tired and shaken up by his poor sleep.  Fortunately, his brothers, although somewhat impatient, made allowances for Dan and they shared the profits of the business with him equally so that he never suffered financial consequences from his inability to work.

But Roger knew, even as a young child, that his father felt humiliated and upset by what Roger and other family members saw as Dan's ineptitude.

Roger also sensed that his father had no understanding of why he was having these problems.  Throughout his educational history, Dan was always at the top of his class, so it was clear that he was an intelligent man.  It made no sense to Dan and to anyone else that he would be having these difficulties.

When he was a young child, Roger's feelings for his father vacillated between sadness filled with longing and intense anger.  Each time Dan embarked on a new endeavor, Roger hoped that his father would be successful but, more times than not, Roger was deeply disappointed.

As he got older, Roger struggled with his resentment for his father.  He could hardly look at his father without feeling angry.  He tried to hide these feelings from his father because he didn't want to hurt his feelings, but he knew that his father was aware it.

Roger described his father as "a broken man" who sank deeper and deeper into depression just before he died.  And, after Dan died, Roger was left with many conflicting feelings about his father.

As we continued to talk about his father and his current boss, it became apparent to both of us that there were many parallels in his feelings about them.  He described his boss as a bumbling, incompetent man, which is also how he described his father.

But he also felt guilty for feeling this way about his father and wished he could let go of his resentments, especially now that his father was dead.  He regretted that he didn't come to some resolution before his father died.

It occurred to me, as I heard more about his father from Roger, that there was an important part of Dan's history that Roger didn't understand.

Roger knew from his mother, Betty, that his parents were "going steady" before Dan was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam.  They got married soon after Dan returned from Vietnam.  However, his mother told Roger that she realized soon after they got married that Dan wasn't the same man after he got back from the war.

As we continued to talk about his Dan's history, it seemed to me that Dan might have been suffering with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the horrific experiences he endured during the war.

After I mentioned this to Roger, he asked his mother about it and, reluctantly, she told Roger that Dan was, in fact, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder when he came back from Vietnam, but he never wanted to go for psychological help.  She also didn't understand this diagnosis and how it affected Dan.

She said that all she knew was that before Dan left, he was an intelligent, capable individual, and after he came back, he was struggling to deal with basic things in their lives.

With this new understanding, Roger was able to look back on his father's life and his relationship with his father and see them in a new way.

Roger Developed a New Psychological Perspective 

Roger was able to develop a different perspective about his father.  It all made sense to him now.  He felt a sense of love and compassion for his father that he had never felt before.  He regretted that he didn't know this while his father was alive.

Over time, as we continued to work on this issue, he felt at peace with his feelings for his father for the first time.

He also realized that, even though his boss was somewhat incompetent, the depth of his anger for his boss was out of proportion to the situation and it was triggered by his unresolved feelings for his father.

Developing a New Psychological Perspective About Parents After They're Gone
One of the myths about psychotherapy is that clients spend years blaming their parents instead of taking responsibility for their own feelings.  The myth is that therapy clients keep going over the same material and getting nowhere in their own psychological development or in working through their feelings for their parents.

And, yet, in my experience this isn't the case:  Therapy clients can work out their unresolved feelings for their parents with the help of an experienced psychotherapist.

Developing a New Psychological Perspective About Parents After They're Gone

The ideal would be for someone to work through his or her issues about parents before parents die.   But, for a variety of reasons, regrettably, this isn't always possible.

But even though your parents might be deceased and you don't have a relationship with them in your everyday life, you still continue to have a relationship with them in your internal emotional world.

And just because they're not around any more, all is not lost in terms of developing a sense of peace about your relationship with your parents.  As in the vignette about Roger above, it's possible to see and understand things in therapy that you didn't see before.

And, in many cases, it is possible to develop a new internal relationship with a parent even after he or she is gone.

Getting Help in Therapy
Struggling with unresolved feelings for parents can be complicated, especially after they're deceased.

Without your being aware of it, your unresolved feelings can have a negative impact on you and the other relationships in your life.

Getting Help in Therapy: It's Possible to Grow and Develop  a New Psychological Perspective

Rather than continuing to struggle with these feelings, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who can help you to work through these issues and develop a new psychological perspective that gives you a greater sense of well being.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

Parents, of course, want the best for their children, no matter how young or old they are.  In an ideal world, we would like them to be spared from heart break, disappointments, and the many potential pitfalls that are out there in the world.  

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

It's natural to want to spare them from making the same mistakes that we made.  But in order to maintain a healthy relationship with your adult children and allow them to learn and grow, you need to know when to let go and allow them to lead their own lives with a minimum of interference.  

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult  Child's Relationship

This is one of the biggest challenges for parents of adult children--learning to let go, allowing them to make their own decisions, and not interfering in their lives.  This includes not interfering in their relationships with partners or spouses.

The healthiest scenario for small children is for their parents to allow them, over time, to make age-appropriate decisions, based on a particular child's maturity level and development.  So, for instance, we don't allow five year old children to make life changing decisions.  But we could allow them to choose their own clothes for the day and which books they would like to buy with their allowance money.

Learning to Let Go and Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

If, over time, children grow up with a sense of age-appropriate autonomy and develop good judgment, based on learning to make decisions and learning from mistakes, chances are that they will be better prepared as adults to make more important decisions, including choosing a life partner and being in an adult relationship.

If we're constantly telling our young children what to do and not allowing them to make even minor decisions, they are more likely to grow up lacking self confidence and not developing the basic skills necessary to make more important decisions when they are adults.

Does this mean that children who have parents who are always doing things for them and not allowing them to make any decisions for themselves are doomed as adults to make poor decisions about relationships and life in general?

No, it does not.  Even children who have had parents who tried to control their every move can learn as adults to make good decisions.  It just might be harder and might take them longer than children who've learned over time to gain self confidence and good judgment by starting to make age-appropriate decisions from a young age.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many different stories, is an example of a parent attempting to interfere inappropriately in her adult child's relationship:

Mary was in her mid-20s and when she and her new husband discovered that she was pregnant.  As a young mother, Mary felt very insecure and anxious.  She also became very controlling with her son, Ed, as he was growing up, but she had no awareness of this.

Her husband tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn't listen.   She was so fearful that he would get hurt or make a mistake that she watched him like a hawk.  When they were at the playground, she repeatedly told him to be careful on the juggle gym and the slides.  She became upset when he fell and bruised his knees.

Ed's pediatrician and Mary's friends also tried to tell her that she needed to relax. But Mary couldn't help herself.  She wanted to spare her son of any kind of physical or emotional pain.  Of course, this was impossible.  And, as her husband, her friends, and the doctor tried to tell her, her anxiety and vigilance adversely affected Ed so that he was insecure whenever he had to do anything new or make even the smallest decision.  He looked to her to solve his problems and make decisions for him, which she was all too willing to do.

This began to change when Ed reached adolescence.  He became rebellious and resented Mary's intrusiveness.  He wanted to have more independence, but Mary was unable to allow it.  This led to power struggles between Mary and Ed.  Ed's father was somewhat passive and although he didn't agree with Mary, he had stopped trying to get her to see what she was doing.

Ed struggled with making decisions.  During his early days in high school, he began hanging out with a rough crowd and started cutting classes.  He refused to listen to Mary or his father because he wanted so much to prove to them that he was his own person.  He also refused to listen to his school guidance counselor when his grades began to slip.  But when one of his teenage friends died suddenly of alcohol poisoning, Ed was very badly shaken up, and he saw the wisdom of the adults' advice.  From that time on, he applied himself in school and he made friends with serious-minded students.  He salvaged his grades just in time to get accepted at the college of his choice in another state.

Mary didn't want Ed to attend college out of state, but he was 18 and, legally, he could make his own decisions.  In his senior year of college, he became seriously involved with Susan, a young woman in one of his classes.  When he told his parents, his father was happy, but Mary worried that Ed might be getting involved with the wrong person before she ever met Susan.

When Ed brought Susan home to meet his parents, the situation was tense.  Susan could tell immediately that, although Ed's father was welcoming, his mother was leery of her.  Susan couldn't understand why Mary didn't seem to like her.  Susan thought of herself as being a kind, level-headed and caring person from a good family.  She had goals for the future, which she hoped would include Ed.  She was confused by Mary's wariness--until Ed explained how Mary tried to control just about every aspect of his life.  But, he told Susan, he wouldn't allow Mary to control his relationship with her.

By the time they graduated, Ed and Susan both got good jobs close to their college, and they moved in together.  Mary, who had been hoping that Ed would move back home, was upset that he decided to remain out of state with Susan.  Mary tried to persuade Ed to forget about Susan and come back home.

All of this culminated in a big argument between Mary and Ed where he told her to "butt out" or he would sever his relationship with her.   He assured her that he meant it and he was prepared to cut her out of his life.  When she realized that Ed meant it, Mary was very shaken.  She didn't want to completely lose her son, so she had a lot of soul searching to do.

After much thought, Mary realized she needed help.  She consulted with a psychotherapist who helped Mary to see how her attempts to interfere in her son's life had led to the current state of affairs.  Over time, Mary was able to admit that she had made mistakes with Ed.  She began to see that she had projected her own insecurities onto her son and this caused Ed to feel angry and resentful.

Accepting that Ed was an adult and that she had to learn to let go and stop interfering in his life was not easy.  But Mary realized that her relationship with her son was at stake.  So, she made amends with Ed and Susan, and she vowed to stop interfering and to respect that they were adults capable of making their own decisions.  This went a long way toward healing the rift and allowing Mary and Ed to develop a relationship based on love and mutual respect.  It also allowed her to get to know and like Susan.  Mary also focused more on improving her relationship with her husband as well as focusing on her own self development.

Letting go of your adult child isn't easy, but it's necessary if you're going to develop a healthy relationship. Interfering and trying to control your child's life or his relationship can lead to disastrous emotional consequences.

Getting Help
If you find yourself interfering in your adult child's life and this is causing problems for your child and your parent-child relationship, you owe it to yourself and your child to get help from a licensed mental health practitioner who works with this issue.  It could make all the difference in the world for you and your child.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me
.