BreesGram

I have been on here since last week reading threads and feel like can tell my story a little. My 30 year old daughter's boyfriend whom she's been with since they were teens, is a heroin (and anything else he can abuse) drug addict. He is in drug detox/rehab (it's never really rehab because he only ever stay 2-3 weeks isn't that more like detox than rehab?) for the 4th or 5th time. He went because he was caught on tape (after the fact) stealing $100.00 in meat from a grocery store which he later sold for $50.00 for drug money. He also took my debit card for my bank account which my daughter has her own card for (she has two children and I don't want her to not be able to take care of them, so it's meant for when she absolutely has no choice but to use my money) and took my daughter's car whilst she was sleeping, having no license and no insurance and went to ATM and withdrew money from my account. So he did what he always does he high tails it back to detox and thinks when he gets out, we should forget about all the deceptions, lies, betrayal and thievery. He will promise me just like he does every time that he's going to go to counseling, he's going to go to support groups and yada, yada, yada which I now recognize as empty promises that will NEVER come to fruition. Now my daughter lives in my house. I don't live there. They have lived in this house for 10 years. When I left there I wanted my grand daughter to have the same childhood that my daughter had with a nice house to live in and a pool in the back yard so instead of selling it I have let them live there. They have never paid any rent. I kept waiting and waiting for her boyfriend to get his act together and help me pay the taxes on this house which are quite considerable. I have come to realize (seriously, just like a revelation) that by allowing this man to come back into my house to live with my daughter each time that I am enabling him. His mother is dead (she died about 8 years ago of lung cancer) so he has no where to go which is how he always convinces me to let him come back. Of course, there's my obviously super enabling daughter that helps convince me that he's going to be good this time as well. Now this time my daughter (and I have insisted) has told him that he has to go to a group home for 6 months this time but in my heart I don't think that will even be enough and I really don't want him to ever come back and live in my house. Things are further complicated by my daughter just recently learning she is pregnant (they also have an almost 12 year old and 2 year old) which I am devastated about. I know the mommy hormones are making her want to have an intact family but I don't think it's ever going to be realistic with this man? I could go on and on about what a total loser this guy is even without the drug addiction. He comes from a horrible dysfunctional family. His mother was an alcoholic, his dad left his mother and 2 other siblings when he was just little for a promising career selling drugs in Florida! He has no education outside of high school which he barely graduated from and supposedly has ADHD and gets $800.00 a month SSI, that's it. Every job he has ever had, he either quits or gets fired from. He has a felony for robbing someone with friends when he was 17 or 18 with a water gun that looked like a real gun so was charged as though it was a real gun so he can't get a real job because of that. He has no license or car because he was driving in the winter with no car insurance and wrecked into someone so he quickly dumped his car to get rid of evidence and ended up having to pay for the woman's car damages and fines so lost license too. Every which way you look, his life is a disaster. I can't think of one "normal" person in his family. So there's NO support system there whatsoever. In fact, I recently messaged his younger sister about him, what he did and that he's in rehab AGAIN and it was completely ignored. This man has been MY responsibility since his mother died (or at least I have been made or allowed myself to feel responsible for him). He tells me that I am his only mother in this world (I have known since he was 15) but I have come to realize that this too is a manipulation. BTW - I should say that when they were young I never liked this kid and I could tell that was nothing but trouble but I was not able to successfully keep them apart and then at 19 my daughter got pregnant to him. I feel like a complete failure. I should have tried harder to keep them apart but the other side of my brain knows that I really couldn't. My daughter was determined to be with him. Now in retrospect (I don't know why never thought of this or saw it before but so clear to me now), I know that he was always a con artist and attracted to my daughter most likely because she came from totally different life than him. She lived in a nice home with an in ground pool in the back yard. When she was 16 she got a brand new car (Mitzubishi Eclipse) for her birthday and when she didn't like that because it was too small for her and all her friends she got a brand new Montero SUV for her 17th birthday and he came from absolute poverty. My daughter used to feel sorry for him because his mom wouldn't buy him the bare necessities like underwear and shoes even though she was obviously receiving money from the government for his ADHD disability (she also received for his brother as well and he's big time druggie too!) to do just that, so my daughter would buy him his sneakers and socks and underwear. So I think he saw our family as practically millionaires (we weren't just upper middle class)? He's been taking advantage of our soft hearts ever since. I don't know how to be tough? I know I need to get really hard and tough. I am so grateful for this forum. In my circles, I can't even talk to my friends or co-workers about any of this because they would be aghast if they found out their children were even smoking cigarettes let alone hard intravenous heroin. I can't even talk about this to my fiancé who is very intelligent nuclear engineer who doesn't relate to any of this insanity (I wouldn't be able to either if this man wouldn't have come into our lives!) and is just so cut and dried and pragmatic about all this so I feel so alone most of the time with no one to vent to or anything.

chicory

Breesgram,
What a terrible and depressing situation to be in! I can imagine how you must feel, with grandchildren involved.

Your daughter is ultimately responsible for being with him, and allowing this in her life. If she never does anything about it, there isn't much you can do, short of throwing him out of your house, which probably would not work anyway. Sounds like he needs help, and lots of it.

Would your daughter consider going to Al-anon or Nar-anon? Does she have a job, outside the home? How are the children doing? This sort of life will forever affect them as well. Your granddaughter and younger sibling are learning behaviors that will shape their futures. in not a good way.


I am sorry you are all going through this.