By 
“I’m just trying to help.”
My mom tries to do everything for me, and it’s getting out of hand. I’ve realized that I’m missing out on major life skills at age 26 because I never had to learn them, because I always resisted, and my mom just found it easier to solve my problems for me. But I can’t keep going on like this forever, right? What should I do?
This isn’t going to be a popular thing to say, but there’s a chance here you might have to kinda be a dick to your mom.
Look, I get it. I know from experience that it’s not that simple as what everyone is likely telling you, which is, “Uh, start doing those things then stupid.”
First there’s the issue of wrangling controls from your mother while maintaining your relationship with her. Then there’s the issue of learning how to do all of this stuff you now have to do instead of living your old life full of Mario Kart and wiping responsibilities on your ass. Finally, there’s handling how overwhelming the whole reality of adulthood is, and cry-vomiting because you have jury duty, and they make you talk to a person on the phone to confirm that shit.
But you’re right. You can’t go on like this forever. Your priority should really be on not going on like this for another day. So let’s handle this thing step by step.
The first thing is talking to your mom. This isn’t as simple as just saying, “I’m in charge of me now, mom! Toodles!”
This should be treated as sensitively as possible. With that said, “as possible” might mean not super sensitively, depending on the severity of this. The tighter the grip she has on your life, the more insensitive you’ll have to become.
But the point is that a lot of parents like this derive their value as a person from how much their kids need them. This isn’t good or healthy, but that doesn’t mean you to burst in the room guns blazing, like, “I don’t need you anymore, mom! Also, dad hasn’t been attracted to you for years!”
The point isn’t to make her feel bad. It’s to make her see why things need to change. No one cares if you’re angry. It’s irrelevant. They care if you see something that sucks, and you have ways to make it not suck. That’s true here, and in basically all areas of life.
If you need to vent, blow your hot air at someone less relevant to this, like your friend, or your neighbor who is just trying to water her azaleas. Guilt and yelling doesn’t accomplish things. It just makes you walk away going, “Ha! Told her!” like a dipshit.
So my thought is you sit her down and list out all of the things that you never learned to do–everything from tying a tie, to filing your taxes, to swimming, to chewing your own food–or whatever your things are.
Say specifically what you need from her in order to transfer responsibilities to yourself (which stuff needs to be forwarded to your address, which passwords you need, brands of cereal without leprechauns on the box, etc.), and this is where you have to kind of be a dick. When she says she “just wants to help,” you have to tell her, “Well, please don’t.” This will hurt her a little no matter what, so try to say it in the least, “Fuck off, mother” tone you possibly can.
Once you have your ducks in a row, rely on Google. In this respect, Google is your mom now. Have Google help you with everything you possibly can. Help is always out there, and it’s available from people who won’t try to do it for you.
Becoming a full fledged adult totally sucks. It’s way easier to do what you’ve been doing, especially when you’re so used to it. But you’re right to pursue this. It’s the only way you’ll be able to look in the mirror for years to come, and not see a dumbass 6-year-old.
Remember this over and over again moving forward, and act on it, and eventually, you’ll just look in the mirror and see a dumbass 26-year-old, which is progress.
“How Can I Help?”
My husband doesn’t know when to help and how with the kids. Whether it’s cleaning stuff, dealing with a tantrum or whatever. He just kind of blanks out and asks what I want him to do. But I don’t want him to ask. It saps energy from me to have to be the point person on this stuff all the time, and I want him to just know what to do.
Here’s the problem with basically every situation where one person doesn’t like a person’s repeated behavior: they don’t get to the root of what is causing the behavior.
Whether we’re trying to stop someone from getting so worked up about a dumbass football game, or we’re trying to get them to stop eating so many fried Twinkies, or we’re trying to get our grandpa to stop saying “black people” in that awful tone, we don’t step back and ask ourselves, “What is really going on here? What’s actually causing this?”
Instead we just tell the person to stop doing the thing, and expect it to therefore happen. You can’t expect someone to stop being a certain way without giving them the software to stop. You’re essentially telling your ceiling to stop leaking instead of fixing a pipe, or in the case of my last example there, you’re telling your grandpa to stop being racist without at least putting data in front of his face that basically illustrates why he’s a dipshit.
I’d say you should start by getting to the root of what it is you think your husband is lacking. The real problem isn’t that he doesn’t know what to do, but that he’s not thinking of what to do. It’s that he’s not making an effort to think about what you would want, he’s not trying to get onto the kid’s wavelength. It’s that he’s interested in his own thing right now. You can use his body to carry things places, and wash dishes, but his brain is fucking gone, dude.
So it may sound like a difficult task, but there it is. You’ve got to get in there with some tools and fix your husband’s brain.
As I see it, the best way to do this is to start with very rudimentary, borderline condescending electronic reminders. (In light of this, before you actually do anything, you should probably talk over how important all of this is to you, and why you want to take some more extreme measures to fix what’s currently broken here. Try real hard to not call him a dipshit here.)
So start by listing out some things you’re typically wanting to happen. Like ten, fifteen of them. Think of the main pet things your husband is a clueless idiot about all the time, and write them down.
Then set hourly (or however often you want) reminders on his phone to check his list. Then he can look at the list of things to potentially care about whenever he’s reminded to do so.
Again, this seems extreme, and like you’re treating him like a child. I mean, it kind of is. But the fact is that habits like he has–really bad thought habits–don’t improve on their own. You kind of have to go back to basics on stuff like this. You have to pull out the behavior by its root and plant something else in there, and this is how you do it–with forced repetition.
You may be hesitant here, because you may feel like you shouldn’t even need to make a list. And well, tough shit. No one cares what you feel like you should need to do. React to what is actually necessary, not a standard you just made up in your head. Don’t join him in being an idiot.
The good news is that this kind of ridiculous scenario doesn’t have to last forever. You just have to do this until your husband doesn’t need the reminders, and doesn’t need to check the list any more to see how he can help. He’ll eventually get there. Just hold his hand a little, and eventually you eventually won’t be married to an spacey dumbass.
“….Can I Even Help?”
My wife has anxiety problems, and I don’t know how to help fix her. I wish I could make it go away, or even just fully understand it. I want it to just stop, and I keep thinking it eventually will, but then it just comes back around. It makes her irritable and sad, and I hate it, and I don’t know what to do. Help!
Whoa, whoa, whoa there partner. Back up about eight steps there. You’re not fixing a damn thing. You can barely even help. I’m not just saying that so that you keep your hopes low. It’s also really important for you to understand what’s really going on here. What she’s dealing with is bigger than you. It’s more powerful than you. It’s a monster made of brain chemicals you’re not equipped to defeat. No offense, but you are indeed just some fuckin’ dude.
But you can help a little, so it’s worth looking into how.
The best thing you can do to rise to the occasion for someone dealing with anxiety is to try to stay as calm as possible yourself. Even though I just told you it’s a monster that’s bigger than you, you have to really act like it’s not. Acknowledge that it’s there, and just how much it sucks for her, of course, but reassure her that this shit isn’t permanent. Let her know that it will get better. Anxious people often feel like they have an endless condition, and feeling that way keeps them in the condition.
So call horseshit on that. It will get better. Help her in never giving up faith in that idea. If you have a mantra of any kind, make that it. The most important thing you can have in that situation is hope, throw a bunch of hope at her until some hits her in the face.
Offer up ideas to help, but don’t speak in terms of solutions. There are no solutions–only improvements, and those are hit or miss. But the hits are all you’ve got. So keep trying those, keep having faith, and things will eventually get better.
There are other very obvious things, like “Be there,” “Listen,” and, “Don’t bring up climate change right now,” but I’d hope you have the sense to know all of that anyway.
