How do you handle the family control freak?
My daughter is cutting me out of her life because she does not agree with how I treat her sister, the alcoholic.
Their father was an alcoholic but I did not realize it until years after I divorced him.He did his drinking away from home so we never saw him drunk or abusive.He was just mostly absent. The girls were only 5 and 6 .They are now 40, 41. The older one had a drug problem in college until she asked me to help her and we found a treatment center. She was drug free for 20 years. The past 3 year she has had increasing and multiple health problems which cause her to be in constant pain. She also began to drink too much and started to go to AA .She had surgery in July and the bones are not healing, her partner decided after 3 years that she had had enough of the health problem so she stopped the support and locked her out of the apartment. She is in a homeless shelter now. I am going to NYC to try to find a room we can afford to rent for her. She does not want to leave NY She is an artist and she is beginning to find some recognition of her work. I am an artists as well so I know how important that is to her. When she is painting she is at peace.
When I told her sister my plans she got very angry and said she was cutting off contact with the family because I insist on enabling. I don't feel I have a choice . I have no question it is the right thing to do. I have not "bailed her out" ever or helped or enabled her. It is hard enough to have one child in such pain and at the same time have the other child do this emotional blackmail. I believe that the controlling child also has issues of self esteem and insecurity and she deals with that by trying hard to control everything and be perfect and always right. If she were hurting I would be there for her. I have been many times.In the best of times we three have had such fun together and the sisters, though very different loved each other. This split is extra painful right now but I cannot think of anything to do about it.