Oct 13, 2026, 3:12 PMThe part that drives me crazy is that, for all the stupid misogynistic bullshit in the stupid church culture around us, our dad was NEVER a half-hearted dad. He'd get home from work & was immediately helping my mom with us kids, which continued until bedtime.
I do not remember a time in our lives where our dad in any way suggested that raising kids was "women's work". Mom was a SAHM, so she was the primary caregiver, but if Dad was present, Dad was being a father.
Oct 13, 2026, 3:15 PMI see Bro1 do the same thing. I have my problems with him but none of them are related to him failing to be an active, caring presence in their lives. I don't think anyone who sees Bro1 & SIL with their kids could get the impression that SIL does all the work.
So like...dude, if you need an example of what it looks like to be there for your kid, you have 2.
But it's wooork.
Why won't women just raise his child for him?
Oct 13, 2026, 4:53 PMIt's hard to process that I've reached this point with him after all these years of refusing to give up on him & always thinking the best of him & giving him every benefit of the doubt anywhere that doubt could exist.
I don't think he's an alcoholic (although I can't know that for sure), but some of his patterns are similar to my ex husband to whom alcoholism was a way of life (if you or someone you are close to have experienced alcoholism, you know what I'm talking about).
Oct 13, 2026, 4:53 PMI was talking to a friend & as he was trying to add "benefit of the doubt" kind of ideas, I had to explain that over his whole life—going back to childhood—I have always come up with every best possible explanation for his behavior.
Unfortunately, no one needs to suggest "maybe it's actually this [slightly more positive interpretation]," because I have BEEN there & DONE that.
Trust me, if it's a more compassionate explanation for his behavior, I already came up with it & leaned on it hard.
Oct 13, 2026, 4:58 PMThat's the thing.
Me being at the end of my rope is a very bad sign for him because it is a very, very long rope.
Even as recently as last month I was making little excuses for him to other people in the family (which is enabler behavior, by the way).
I have always been the one saying "give him time" or "I think he's actually been growing a lot lately".
Please understand, when I write harshly about him, you are reading the words of someone who has only ever tried to think the best of him.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:03 PMAt this point, making excuses for him, whether to myself or to other people, is only enabling his destructive choices.
It may come from a place of compassion & hope, but I've been trying to hold his relationships with our family together this whole time & not letting him reap the consequences of his destructive choices. I'm not the only one, not at all, but I may have been the most energetic.
I have to stop.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:10 PMNot everything you do to be "compassionate" is actually good for someone.
It's really hard to accept, but sometimes you have to let someone blow up their life because otherwise they will always expect other people to bear the consequences of their actions.
He doesn't want to face the consequences. That's why he's always in "crisis". At any moment, a choice he made could come back to bite him. Oh, he must be saved! Oh, how would he ever be able to bear *the consequences of his own actions*?
Oct 13, 2026, 5:14 PMThis just takes me back to enabling my abusive, alcoholic husband. Eventually I had to decide to stop mitigating the damage for him. I had to stop cleaning up his messes & making his excuses.
If you have been in this situation, you KNOW. It's not something that can be fully described in words. You become trapped in someone else's disaster, but you can't stop trying to help them.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:20 PMGod, this hurts.
But please trust me...when I say I am done with his shit, it is NOT because I haven't given him enough chances or that I haven't "looked at it from his perspective."
I have always looked at it from "his perspective". I have entertained fantasy notions about who this person is.
I have done everything I can to help him not fucking lose his relationships. Continuing to do that would be literally *immoral*, as in actively harmful to people (including myself!).
Oct 13, 2026, 5:25 PMIt's not "giving up" on a person, not really.
"Giving up" suggests one should just have more endurance, but sometimes endurance is the problem.
It's not primarily that he's exhausted my patience.
The core of the issue is that he has been allowing other people to pick up the slack in his life, & people (self-included) have been doing the lifting for him. That's a man who never properly deals with the results of his choices.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:31 PMPart of what happens when I try to explain this to others is that I talk about individual issues, but it requires self-examination to get to the root of what's happening, because it's not happening in a vacuum. What's happening here is the definition of enabling.
You don't notice it's happening at first, especially when it's a person who lives far away whom you don't interact with every day. It's not the same intense emotional drain as it is when it's someone in your household, but same thing.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:34 PMIt's time for an anti-intervention.
Consequences are going to hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, but other people need to stop softening the blow. Let them hit him. Let him deal with sorting his own problems out.
"Help" isn't helping, because it's not a bad situation he needs relief from. It's him & his choices haunting him.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:38 PMI don't know how it is that this man & his victim complex have had us doing this for years.
Some of it is that he DID go through traumatic stuff, & all of us have been through traumatic stuff, so we didn't want him to suffer alone.
But then his life became defined by his supposed suffering, & we just kept trying to relieve the suffering, kept trying to treat the symptoms, when at the very bottom of it all is a guy fucking destroying his own life with his own choices.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:43 PMBut right now he CAN'T let himself be ok because the moment he's recovered, the moment he is ok, then everything he does after that reverts to being his own responsibility.
As long as he *stays* in crisis, as long as he never recovers, the help will keep coming, the sympathy, the unasked for & unappreciated forgiveness that is given to him. All of that stops being readily on tap once he's "ok".
Oct 13, 2026, 5:44 PMHe's genuinely suffering. A lot.
But I don't think he really wants to get better. Getting better means he doesn't get excuses anymore. He wouldn't be allowed to blame everything he does on everything but himself.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:50 PMThe thing about realizing you've been enabling someone is that often your reflex is to blame YOURSELF for harming the person you're enabling by, well, enabling them.
As though all of the harm they inflict isn't their responsibility.
It's Enabling Round 2 where you go "if only I hadn't enabled them, maybe it wouldn't have gotten that bad." You have to remember that you HAVE been emotionally manipulated by this person, that they have taken advantage of your willingness to help & protect someone.
Oct 13, 2026, 5:53 PMI can take responsibility & say "that wasn't a healthy choice for anyone involved," but no, I did not cause his behavior, & yes, he did manipulate me.
I didn't make him behave this way. I help other people all the time who do not manipulate me in this way.
I didn't show up & say "I want to do some enabling!"
Oct 13, 2026, 5:56 PMI hate this.
I hate it so much. You hope that if you just give someone enough grace, eventually they'll stop requiring so much of it.
But some people seem to want to find out exactly how much grace they can get without ever having to change.
Oct 13, 2026, 6:06 PMYou want to think you're having compassion on someone. You want to think you're helping them through a hard time, but eventually you realize that the "hard time" they are having right now is one of their own making, & the original circumstances that made you extend your sympathy & forgiveness, the original crisis, was a long time ago.
Oct 13, 2026, 6:09 PMHe wakes up screaming every day (& I believe him about that) because he's waiting for someone else to figure out how to fix that.
He would rather wake up screaming every day & blame other people for not giving him the "help" that he needs than actually work on himself & get better.
Oct 13, 2026, 6:10 PMHe's been complaining lately about how people don't really want to help, & I haven't been able to get a clear answer on what help he wants, but I think I've got it now.
I thought that he knew that no one but him could fix his emotional problems, but he's legitimately sitting there going "why won't anyone fix this for me?"
he sounds awesome.