My loving, kind fiancé is the only child of an emotionally draining alcoholic mother. Her husband left her when my fiancé was young. She remarried to an alcoholic and has been the neighborhood drunk for forty years. Her husband died and now she lives on the same land as us. She’s in a tiny home. She demands that my fiancé do everything for her all day. He agreed to do it because he doesn’t have to work and he cares about her. She makes him responsible for her happiness.
She doesn’t drive and she has trouble doing daily household chores. Her balance is bad. Mostly, it seems her alcohol consumption is making her have a hangover and feel terrible. She doesn’t leave the house for walks or go anywhere at all. She mostly sits on the porch waiting for noon to come so she can have her first glass of wine. She just smokes and drinks her life away.
Tonight, my fiancé finally agreed to get her a free in home caretaker from the county. He agrees that he needs to have freedom. She gets supplemental SS income and her late husband’s pension, which all together provides her with $1200 a month.
To complete the caretaker application I needed to look at her bank statements and answer some basic questions about her finances. I found out very quickly that she is spending at least $500 a month on alcohol. I had no idea she drank that much. We pay all of the bills on the property, including the monthly bills for her home. We pay for utilities on the property. The only thing she is responsible for is her car insurance and food bills.
My dilemma is this, my fiancé controls the money because she will blow all of her money on alcohol, if given the opportunity. She already drinks two bottles of wine a night, but she would drink more if he didn’t monitor her. This leaves him in a sticky situation where he is forced to physically go to the store and buy the alcohol for her, keep the alcohol away from her, and then pour her wine throughout the evening. He has to walk back-and-forth between our houses to pour the wine.
This situation is emotionally exhausting for me. It cuts into our time together every night and we never have more than two hours to relax together.
Besides my own feelings, I am concerned about my fiancé’s well-being. Not only is this situation emotionally toxic for him, because his mother is forcing him to purchase the alcohol that is killing her, but now I am worried about his entanglement legally.
What happens if she falls because she’s drunk? Will he be in trouble? His mom had money from a settlement. They co-own land which we all live on. But the entire family agreed it was best for her to give the money to my fiancé, and make him responsible for her wellbeing — because she would blow it immediately. So he gives her a stipend. My problem is that he is personally going to the store and purchasing her alcohol for her. He gives her about $1,000 a month. He then goes to the store with her card to buy alcohol. And worse, he pours the wine for her every night.
I want to stress that my fiancé is a very, very, very deeply kind man. He feels that if she’s left to her own devices and given access to liquor stores and her money, then she will kill herself with alcohol. He loves her and he wants her to live longer. I love him, and so I have supported this dynamic for the last two years. She is drinking about two bottles of wine a night.
Tonight I realize that he may have some serious liability issues because he buys the actual alcohol for her and he pours it. What do you guys think? What should we do? I am particularly worried about a Caretaker coming in and seeing what’s going on here.
I admit that I’ve reacted pretty big today. I yelled at him and told him he has to stop buying the alcohol. I told him to let her figure this out on her own. I told him that alcohol stores in our area deliver. He said that she would drink too much. What would you do? What if the Caretaker reports him for neglect?
Him buying her the alcohol is called enabling. He is literally keeping her sick. He's worried about her drinking herself to death if she has full access to her money? She's doing that right now, just slowly, and he's helping it to happen.
What you interpret as someone who is a "very, very, very deeply kind man" may actually be that he is totally enmeshed with his Mother, someone who cannot solve problems, someone who has no spine and no boundaries. He is controlled by her and he's allowing it. All of this is happening because he's allowing it. He's prioritizing her over you.
No paid caregiver is going to pour booze for her. In my recent experience, my Mom needed to have caregivers to recover from an injury. If she wanted a glass of wine I had to pour it for her. The caregiver from the agency didn't care that she drank it (and it was only 4 oz) but they very strictly could not pour any for her. So, this may pose a problem in finding caregivers for her.
She needs a medically-guided detox since sobering up on her own may actually endanger her. But this is NOT a reason to avoid rehab. Nonetheless, she isn't interested in sobriety. You can't make her want it. Your fiancee needs to detach from her and let the chips fall where they may. If he won't do this for the sake of your relationship, then I would seriously question his commitment to you and your relationship.
Maybe suggest couples counseling for the two of you so he can identify healthy boundaries and learn how to defend them -- because his Mother will 100% reject those boundaries and will incessently try to break them down because she doesn't want to change.
If he's not willing to attend counseling, I think you have a big decision to make.
YOURE right that he’s enmeshed and he is lacking strength with her. She is entitled to live next to us, and he built us this home with his bare hands. We have a dream to raise our kids here. We are both non drinkers and don’t touch substances. We pray every day together. This is tough.
I lean towards this response too — to let mom have her monthly stipend and let her handle it how she wants.
I’ve seen other posts where people say that their parent’s doctors say that as long as the parent’s mind is sound, the child can’t stop it. I think it’s worse that she has implicated him in the act of buying it and rationing it.
The best-case scenario is your fiancé and his mother are in a horrific co-dependent relationship. The worst-case scenario is your fiancé is a thief and has taken control of the "settlement" awarded to his mother, under the guise of caregiving, for his own personal gain.
NEITHER scenario is one you want to marry into! Or co-mingle YOUR finances into!
You say your fiancé doesn't "need" to work...he should absolutely be working, needed or not, if for no other reason than to not be at his mother's beck and call all day long.
You must understand, if the settlement his mom was awarded has to do with an injury, Medicare can refuse to pay for any medical treatment related to that injury, because she was awarded a settlement that (I assume) was supposed to cover its medical treatment and care.
My advice to you is this - give him back his ring. Tell him there is a part of you that will always love him. And run like he** from this situation. NOTHING good is on the horizon in this scenario, and the longer you stay, the deeper you will get enmeshed into this and the harder it will be to extract yourself. Mom will never, ever get any better, and will become more and more dependent on her son, who seems perfectly content with the status quo here.
You can't fix this. This is years of uncontrolled disfunction at play. The only thing you can do is protect yourself.
he broke his back and shed his blood rebuilding for her, too. If she gets really mad because we take away extra money (even though her portion was already spent) there will be much larger consequences. We are trying to do the right thing but walking on eggshells in so many ways.
I would not marry this man because you will end up caring for her. The truth, if she is not willing to get help, let her drink as much as she wants. Her liver is probably gone anyway. No transplants for alcoholics.
i’ve been reading a lot of responses on this site and I am now leaning towards letting her drink as much as she wants. It should not be our job to be entangled in her horrible adult decisions. She doesn’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s. She is completely aware of what she is doing. She has been drinking since he was a little boy. She put him in situations as a child where he had to watch her drink herself to oblivion. It’s not fair that he’s still dealing with it. I love him, and I want to protect him, and sadly in this situation, I am really leaning towards letting her do whatever she wants.
She is already killing herself with alcohol and fiance is a willing accomplice to her suicide. He is also her enabler..
I've been exposed to alcoholics all my life. As a child, I thought it was normal to drink martinis from a thermos all day because that's what someone in my family did. Guess what - there's nothing normal about it. The alcoholics in my family did a lot of harm to themselves and others, all while everyone pretended that nothing was wrong. As an adult I refuse to deal with alcoholics. I won't be friends with them. I don't socialize with them; when they start getting glassy-eyed, I leave. I never drank because of what I observed in my family of origin.
This could be a great learning experience for you, but only if you stop being part of it. It's not the family for you. His mom is going to get much sicker, and she could live twenty more years. Some of the results of alcohol addition are dementia (look up Wernicke-Korskoff), chronic liver, kidney and heart disease, cancer, broken bones from falls, etc. etc. They can have more than one of these diseases at the same time. Fiance's mom may already have some of them.
If you want to become a caregiver of someone with these issues, stay on your present course. If you don't, you must leave him (and her). It will be easier to leave now before you are married and before she is bedbound.
I wish you luck in whatever you decide to do, but I hope you choose the course that will save you from becoming part of this dysfunctional family.
Yes! OP, it’s natural to think that someone like this will die sooner rather than later but in fact this
situation could drag on for YEARS.
And her ability to do her ADL’s (activities of daily living) will be declining all that time as well. Will your fiancé feel comfortable helping her in the bathroom? If not, the responsibility would fall on you, especially if there aren’t caregivers readily available in your (I assume) rural setting.
He's quite the manipulator too, isn't he?
You're buying right into the "company line" - he can't possibly leave her to take care of herself, the property is too big, he has to control her money or else, if you try to force the sale she'll sue, he cries, he prays, he "knows" that this isn't healthy - on and on, it seems.
What he HASN'T done is leave. Which, it seems financially speaking, he is fully capable of doing.
In the words of Roger Waters - Run Like Hell.
Otherwise, be prepared for this dynamic to play on for years. And as it goes on, what do you think will happen to YOUR role in this? YOU will become more and more "needed" to help with care.
Run like hell. That's my advice. Good luck to you.
there are two options, sell it, or remove the mother. I guess the third is to let her drink and turn a blind eye. But that would entail him pulling away from her and not being involved in her emotional issues. That seems pretty much impossible when she’s next-door.
I really appreciate your response and I am listening. I am not the type of person who will stay like this. This is exactly what an engagement is for, to figure out these issues or leave. We are clearly not aligned on this if he can’t make the right choice
You need to dive into Alanon meetings and learning about codependence. Read, watch Youtube, go to meetings, learn as much as you can. And stop buying into why you think his situation is special and different and people just don't really understand. That's the cry of the addict. They refuse to want to get clean because their pain is somehow different than everyone else's. They're more sensitive than everyone else. Their situation is special.
There is inside him, and more critically inside you, a need to be a rescuer. That comes from a fun mix of insecurity, codependence and enmeshment. It may take a lot of work for you to realize your first priority is yourself. You can't help damaged people when you're damaged. I wish you all the best.
Think long and hard before you marry into this.
Check out this website: Outofthefog.website
What you are calling "a very very very deeply kind man" is, in reality, a very highly groomed enabler whose been trained from birth to be his mothers servant. She's trained him through FOG, fear obligation and guilt, to believe he should not even be working so that he can devote his entire life to pouring her wine. And fawning over her. And helping foster her addiction every day.
You are not going to change this dynamic nor will you pray it away. Your fiance must first comprehend what's going on, what's been done to him, and THEN you can pray for the strength to do the right thing. To separate from the source of the pain. Not all mother's are kind and loving. Some are born manipulators who have only their own interests at heart, not their children's.
Check out that website with your fiance thoroughly. Then make your decisions accordingly.
Good luck to you.
This is a no win situation, because she is physically dependent on the alcohol. If we took it away, she could have really horrible withdrawal symptoms that could kill her and on the other hand, we don’t want her driving, because the liability and risk for her and others is far too great. I understand why my partner has chosen to seemingly enable his mother. There is no good answer.
His mother has expressed that she will sue us if we try to remove her from the property. And the truth is that she does not have dementia or Alzheimer’s.
In this situation, it may be one where I need to live and let live. Like you, I believe that helping him wake up is more of a gentle process. He has come a long way for only being with me for two years.
His mother wanted to live in the main house with him and make him single. She was so upset that he made her live in a smaller house on her own. She has tried everything to make him break up with me. But we stood our ground and we never let her win. I understand why people would tell me to run, but what I see is a good man who was manipulated. And I see someone who gets stronger and more alive every day. I see the way he comes to life when he assert his boundaries and lives his life for himself. Thank you again for your kind message.
I do not know if he will ever truly grasp what she has done to him, but partially I do think it’s my job to be a mirror for him. It’s not really my job to control the situation and manipulate like his mother did. Your response really aligns with how I feel. He is a human being who is always growing and changing.
Selling the property is a simple matter. If they co-own the property, he can file a partition lawsuit. His mother will have the option of buying him out. If she can't or won't, the judge will order the land to be sold, and she will get half the money. If she counter-sues, so what? She'll lose. She can take it her half of the money and move somewhere else. To assisted living, if she wants. Your fiance can take his share and you can start you life together without being enslaved to the property or the mother.
funny enough we are actually planning a trip for Valentine’s Day. I love that you suggested this. We just got a fence installed on the property so his mother can let her dog run around when we leave town. Previously, we were unable to leave because the dog would escape and the dog is aggressive towards other dogs. It’s just a gigantic mess, but we are slowly getting to a place where we can have normal lives again.
You said that his mother has been an alcoholic for years, and was a terrible mother because of it;
You said that there was a settlement from a "terrible fire"; and I'm under the impression that it was split between your fiancé and his mother;
You said that he built the house with his own two hands on the same property as mom. (And again, I am assuming this was after the devastating fire).
That, my friend, would have been them perfect opportunity for him to leave mom; take his share of the settlement and go. But he didn't. That speaks volumes, don't you think?
I rather like the idea of seeing if he is serious about wanting to travel with you; maybe it is time to see if the proverbial rubber will meet the road and make travel plans; or if he comes up with some excuse as to why he can't possibly do that.
Book a 2-week cruise to the Caribbean, where contact with her while you're away will be somewhat difficult. Tell him the cold is getting to you, and you need to go someplace warm. See if he's willing to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak.
His reaction will be very telling.
I agree that it will be interesting to see if he actually takes me on a vacation. I would like to see him experience a couple weeks of his life without interference from her.
“The only thing she is responsible for is her car insurance…” So she has a car. And he buys her alcohol and “…then pour her wine throughout the evening.” That is the liability he, and you, should be worried about. Not the danger to her, in falling or neglect, but that she gets in that car and kills someone else after he has been providing her a steady and excessive stream of alcohol.
We are incredibly worried about the safety issues surrounding her possibly driving, which is one of the reasons we have never left her alone and left town. But now that we are getting a Caretaker, we can do that.
This dynamic has been entrenched for years, and will continue for years to come.
How much longer are you willing to live like this?
Ideally, you could convince your fiance to stop being so involved (enmeshed) with his mother, and instead dedicate his energy to you and your life together.
You may not be able to change him. And it will fall on you to make a decision about how you want to live, and how you want to spend your future.
Your choices will be to continue living like this indefinitely (people don't often change), or to move on and live a life without him and his mama drama.
His response was that it was not any of my business. He made excuses for his mother and said that she is an elderly alcoholic woman who lost her husband and her house burned down, and he said things are complicated on a burnt out property. I said there is no excuse for him to enable her. I told him that he should either let her buy it on her own or send her to a rehab.
The fact that he said it wasn’t my business was heart wrenching. But it said a lot to me. He is really going to put his mother’s addiction above me. And so I told him that we are breaking up, and I told him there is nothing else to talk about.
Your MIL will always be the problem
in your marriage. Your fiancé will always be trying to fix her. As painful as it might be, you should move on.
I saw a one post where a woman who was 88 was walking in the snow to buy her alcohol. The situation was that she was going to slip and fall in the snow or maybe get hit by a car just so she would get her alcohol. She would stop at nothing. This is not the case here. She could order Uber eats and get the alcohol delivered. She has friends who could deliver it. I see no reason why we have to be involved. It is just codependence and everyone is right, I can’t bring a kid into this family.
I wish all good things for you.
You can not fix this kind of dynamic.
You can not fix this kind of broken.
He will probably continue to do this until she dies.
My guess he would have a lot of "guilt" because of his actions. (providing the alcohol and actually pouring it for her.) this is a very co-dependent relationship.
The fact that she is an alcoholic you/he can not simply stop providing alcohol for her.
She needs medical help. to simply stop providing alcohol to her would be dangerous.
The kicker is if she does not want to stop the alcohol abuse NOTHING is going to help her.
If you/he wants the store to deliver alcohol to her he can set a set dollar amount that can be delivered weekly. When that is delivered and consumed that is it for the week. this could be done as a 2 or 3 times a week delivery so that it is not brought to her house all at one time.
What I don't get is why does he have to pour the wine himself? Why can't she pour a glass of wine herself. Or for that matter if we are going to consume the entire bottle just drink it out of the bottle. If he die not get up from his chair or off the couch and walk to her house would she not find a way to pour it herself?
OK...yeah!!!! I just read that you are breaking up with him.
Now I feel bad that you are breaking up but this whole situation is simply more complex than him just buying alcohol.
I do hope you have a safe place to stay. I hope for the length of time you have lived with him you have saved $$$ so that you will be alright.
I hope you can find eventual peace with your decision; and I sincerely hope you find happiness with someone else down the road, someone who deserves a person as caring as you.
My daughter had the courage to break up with Mr Wrong and get her own place only to find Mr Right about 8 months later. They married in November of 24 and now have a beautiful 2 month old baby girl. Follow your gut. It never lies.
Best of luck to you.