Help Me Help Them

Posted by fxckfeelings on May 10, 2009

How do you help people fix the way they help other people? The easy answer is, you don’t, but if the answer was easy, we’d be out of work. Here are two cases of helpers’ helpers in need of help themselves.
-Dr. Lastname

My wife is a good woman, but she can’t say no to people close to her or control her giving. Her mother has Alzheimer’s and often gets hysterical over aches and pains, or has paranoid ideas about being sexually molested by nurses, and my wife confronts the staff at the home at the drop of a hat to straighten things out. That just gets the staff upset because my mother-in-law is almost brain-dead and the complaints aren’t real, so now everybody’s mad at my wife because they think she’s blaming them. I’m not happy with her always being unhappy, and she blames me for not being supportive, and I’m worried she’s getting depressed. My goal is to get her to be less involved with her mother and less unhappy.

It’s hard to feel that you’ve done your best to help someone when they don’t get better, and they’re not satisfied with what you’ve done. Your wife can never feel she’s done enough for her mother; and you can’t feel you’ve done enough for your wife. And there’s no way to stop those feelings.

If you try to help her, you will probably make things worse. If you use a therapy session to confront your wife about her negativity and its bad effect on you and her mother’s care—if you suggest that she’s bending over backwards because her mother was really a jerk who always made her feel guilty–the more you’ll regret it.

She’ll feel you’re attacking her when she’s most vulnerable and in need of your help, and since she won’t be able to stop herself, she’ll just resent you for judging her everytime she continues with her old behavior.

Instead, accept how little control you have, take a deep breath, and consider your options. Let your wife know how much you respect her efforts and then encourage her to define her own standards for taking care of her mother, standards that do not depend on whether she feels guilty or on how her mother does or what she says.

You could suggest that, if she uses reasonable standards, she’ll see that she’s doing a good job, and might actually do better by doing less, not more. At the same time, if you believe you’ve met your own reasonable standards for being supportive, assure yourself that your wife’s unhappiness is not due to your failure as a husband and thus does not require you to change her or defend yourself.

She can’t help her feelings, you can’t help yours, and you may not be able to stop her from over-reacting to her mother’s condition and emotions. So, you guessed it, fuck these feelings. Go ahead and do what you think is right and encourage her to see that she’s done what’s right and has no reason to be guilty or fearful, even though she can’t stop feeling guilty and fearful.

STATEMENT:
Fight your negative feelings with a positive statement. “I believe that people in this family should look out for one another and I think we’re doing a good job. My wife may not be able to ease her mother’s pain and I may not be able to stop hers, but that’s the way things are, and not a measure of our efforts or love for one another. Indeed, the real measure of our success is that we keep on meeting our standards in spite of continuing pain and the lack of any feeling of satisfaction, accomplishment, or relief.”

I like my sister-in-law. I haven’t known her that long, and I know she’s only been sober for a few years (as long as I’ve known her), but she seems genuine to me and really eager to get her life back on track. My husband, on the other hand, thinks I’m being completely naive, and that she’s trying to con us, or at the very least, she can never be fully trusted. I’d let it go if she didn’t have a couple of kids that she’s still trying to raise essentially by herself; she’s struggling to get by, and I know my husband probably has good reasons not to trust her (she once tried to steal his car, for one), but her kids didn’t do anything wrong, and he’s so fed up with his sister that he doesn’t want to get too involved with her life, kids or no kids. I’ve thought about giving her money behind his back, but I don’t want to violate his trust that way. How can I get my husband to stop being so stubborn and take a risk for the sake of his own family?

Before trying to change your husband’s feelings for his likeable, recovering-alcoholic sister with deserving kids and a bad record for misusing help, stop and consider your own criteria for helping. Stop being a sister-in-law and start being an investor, asking yourself objectively whether giving her money is necessary and likely to do more good than harm.

Instead of responding to her pleasant personality or promises, dig up facts, study numbers, and look for patterns. You’re asking yourself, in essence, whether, before coming to you, she’s done everything you would do to tap all other legitimate resources, identify top spending priorities, and eliminate all unnecessary expenses. You also want assurance that the impulses that caused her to misuse help in the past are under better control now.

You can get good answers by asking simple, respectful questions; ask her how much income can she expect from work and benefits, what her expenses are, and which ones are likely to go uncovered. Ask her how much she owes, and if she has an assets. She’s lied in the past, but her numbers won’t.

You can also ask your husband about the worst of her fuck-ups and whether he thinks that sobriety will make a difference and in what way.

Finally, questioning her about her bad impulses may tell you whether she acknowledges them, admits that they can happen again, and has a plan for managing that demon.

Don’t approach your husband until you’re ready (as a competent bank officer) to present reasons why this loan/gift is necessary and likely to be well used. And remember, your goal itnot to get the money out of him. You’re offering him a positive, practical way to evaluate whether he can help his sister that bypasses guilty feelings and past hurts and focuses instead on doing right by someone he loves, when and if it’s possible. You’re just finding out whether agreement is possible; not building bridges, but brokering a deal.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement of helpful intentions that will protect you and your husband from over-reacting to his sister’s friendliness or past crimes. “My husband and I would like to help his sister but her actions may make it impossible. I’ll try to find out whether help is really necessary, whether she’s likely to screw it up, and whether she shows any signs of being in better control now than she used to be. I’ll also consider whether there’s a way of helping her children that does not allow her to misuse the gift.”