English is not my first language and I’m in a bad place mentally so please excuse any spelling/grammatical errors.
My parents keep asking me to intervene in their fights. We live in a conservative society and they cannot separate without jeopardising my marriage prospects. They’re fighting now because my dad sold our house years ago and still hasn’t invested any of the money. My mom is desperate to invest at least in a house so that they’re not left with nothing when the money runs out. My dad wants to invest the money but he’s very anxious about spending and it prevents him from doing anything. He also won’t agree to anything my mother finds for him. My father is also very stubborn and won’t accept anyone’s ideas/opinions. He’s also emotionally/financially abusive to her.
I lost my job after COVID and am now home studying for a licensing exam to further my career. I have already failed this exam once, leading me to feel like a disappointment. I have tried applying for jobs but I’m either over or under qualified for most of these jobs. The exam is in November and no one wants to take me on at this stage. I also have OCD and have lost access to therapy/medications as we live in a remote area, and I would feel guilty about asking my parents for therapy money. I also have no friends I can move in with and my relatives live far away.
My mother is making staying at home difficult for me because she’s getting increasingly frustrated with my father. Every time they fight, she comes to me and asks me to intervene/confront him. This never goes well, as my father then gets incredibly defensive and angry. He’ll threaten to off himself, ignore my calls or stop taking his medication, which’ll send me into a day long panic attack. I agree that the way he treats her is wrong but I don’t know how to tell her that Im not in a place (mentally, financially) to call him out on it. I also don’t want my relationship with him to worsen as he’s already disappointed with me about the whole joblessness thing.
My mother is relentless in asking me to intervene, she brings it up in every conversation. Every other conversation is about how much my father ruined their life, or how Im bad at things. She’s not a bad mom and has been very supporting in the past. Even now if she’s not fighting with dad, or worried about the future of our family, she’ll be sweet to me.
This is making my anxiety much worse and sometimes I think I should just suck it up and start the conflict with my father, so that she would be satisfied, even if it means my peace is gone. I already feel like a disappointment because of failing this exam, so I feel if I can help her in this way it would be worthwhile?
I’m also worried that my dad might kick me out if I challenge him. I guess I’m just looking for guidance and some perspective out of this hole.
TL:DR: Should I, as a mentally ill jobless freeloader, at least contribute to my household by standing up for my mom?
3 comments
>My parents keep asking me to intervene in their fights. We live in a conservative society and they cannot separate without jeopardising my marriage prospects
Excellent, this is an easy problem to solve – when your parents ask you to intervene, you agree to intervene: this creates the problem.
It’s not possible for someone to intervene in a fight and resolve it – after all, the “fight” is between the two opposing viewpoints of the parents. You don’t agree with either of them, which means you can neither take a side nor design a conclusion they both agree with.
So for you, the simple cause of your problem is that you agree to participate. You simply need to try saying “no”. Set yourself a two-week period in which you always say “no” to intervening – I bet you anything your parents respect you more for it. In fact, of the three of them you’ll suddenly be looking like the adult, the first person wise enough *not* to participate in a fight.
When you consider this…
>This never goes well, as my father then gets incredibly defensive and angry. He’ll threaten to off himself, ignore my calls or stop taking his medication, which’ll send me into a day long panic attack
All the more reason not to intervene. When you do, it quickly progresses to the worst possible state an argument can enter: one of the parties threatening to kill themselves.
The first person to refuse to participate in that is going to be the most grown-up person in your entire family.
Let it be you.
>My mother is relentless in asking me to intervene, she brings it up in every conversation. Every other conversation is about how much my father ruined their life, or how Im bad at things. She’s not a bad mom and has been very supporting in the past. Even now if she’s not fighting with dad, or worried about the future of our family, she’ll be sweet to me.
Imagine the sheer power you’ll feel when you’re no longer subject to this manipulation.
Imagine a person who says “I will always stand by the principal of doing no harm, even if the person is preferentially sweet to me. I cannot be bought with this kind of behavior”.
You would respect that person. That person would shine in your eyes as a paragon of strength, and you know damned well that their family would be stronger for their presence.
Now imagine the person who says “well my mother is nice to me and I really need that, god I’m so weak – I just want to be loved. Sure, I’ll drive my father into a suicidal state for a bit of affection”. What do you think of *this* person? What do you think a family containing that individual would look like? You need only look at your own family for the answer.
>I’m also worried that my dad might kick me out if I challenge him. I guess I’m just looking for guidance and some perspective out of this hole.
This is great news – because challenging him is completely the wrong thing to do, so you don’t even need to take the course of action that you’re worried about.
It is your parent’s business to resolve their arguments. Only they can resolve them.
Right now, those arguments are failing to be resolved because your need for your mother’s affection is causing you to do the wrong thing, and to involve yourself where you can only do harm.
Cease that behavior, and everything you want is yours – you’ll feel better about yourself, your family dynamic will be less strained and, given time, your parents have a chance of finally reaching the end of the argument that your involvement is turning into a perpetual stalemate.
Wouldn’t bother standing up or whatever. This money thing is a marital dispute. They have to decide together where they want to go. It sounds like everyone has issues that could use treatment, cos you’re sort of infecting eachother with the anxiety. Why was the house sold? Usually people have a plan what to do with the money after that.
Best would be if you can move out. You say relatives live far away, would that still not be an option? You’d have a change of scenery, perhaps access to healthcare and more work, and you’re away from these people who’re driving you nuts. Could you not then just transfer the exam or visit when you have to take it?
Your father is also abusive to you. Whenever he threatens, just tell him to do whatever he wants. You’re not responsible for his choices. He’s telling you, not cos you can prevent anything, but cos it makes you feel stressed out and pliable to his wishes. Especially because offing himself would get your mother exactly what she’s been asking for all this time, so he’s too spiteful to do that. If someone wants to cause harm, they’ll do that and that’s their own decision. He doesn’t want to take his meds? Okay, feel miserable. It sounds like you won’t be a good daughter, but his actions make him not a good dad.
NO! It’s not your job to play marriage counselor or facilitator or whatever between your mother and father when they fight. It’s their marriage, and they need to sort it out by themselves. You will not make any positive contribution to the household by standing up for your mom, just the opposite – you will widen the existing cracks in their marriage, which you say they need to maintain so you can have good marriage prospects of your own.
You are obviously sympathetic to your mother’s reasons for being so angry and frustrated, but IMO you should still refuse to get involved. It’s highly manipulative of her to ask you to serve as her go-between, and she may be intentionally trying to alienate you from your father. I’d advise you to refuse her requests, and say that as their loving daughter, it’s not appropriate or respectful for you to take sides in their fighting.
I think you could best contribute to a more peaceful household by finding a local job and bringing in some money, even if you are over-qualified. There are more entry-level jobs out there right now than there are people to fill them, especially in the service industry and retail, and the benefit of being under-employed is that it won’t sap your mental energy or require overtime. You can work to earn a paycheck with no worries about promotion or office politics, check out at the end of each shift, and still have plenty of time to study and prepare for your licensing exam in November. I think it would benefit your self-esteem, reduce your anxiety, and even make your mother happier, if you could give her some of your take-home pay so she doesn’t have to rely on your father’s generosity or lack thereof.
Finally, I’m sure you have plenty of good personal qualities you have failed to mention. You are much more than just a mentally ill jobless freeloader, so it’s time to start practicing positive self-talk instead of being so down on yourself. When you label yourself that way, it leads to feelings of hopelessness, which in turn decrease your motivation to work harder to rise above your past misfortunes. In my career field, I meet and work with plenty of people who are great at what they do, despite having failed the licensing exam on their first pass – and in one case, on their first, second, and third pass! It happens more often than you might think, because licensing exams are HARD and many people struggle with the testing process itself. Others are just naturally good at taking tests, but in my experience, passing the exam on the first try doesn’t necessarily translate into being brilliant at work. They are completely different skill sets.