Hi Dia,

Your brother’s role in the family is  The Little Prince. Your role in the family is the Other Mother. What would happen if you stopped playing your role? The problem isn’t your brother. It’s the family system and the family dynamics.

Let your parents coddle your brother. But don’t run over there worrying about him, taking care of him, giving him advice, whatever you typically do.

Just tell your family, “My brother seems fine.” And live your own life!

If, in the future, he runs to you with his issues, reply, “That sounds like a personal problem. I’m sure you can handle it. I believe in you!”

For a while you might be the designated Family Problem because you’re not “helping”. But what will happen is you will tacitly give the other family members permission to live their own lives as well.

Best,

Inky

Hi Coco,

It is so hard to stop enabling someone, especially your children!

My attitude would be, if you’re not in school, you have to work. If you’re not working you have to be in school. He can work for himself until companies accept him. It’s hard to believe he can’t find anything, frankly. So he can be an Uber driver, go on the Task Rabbit App, apply for Care dot com to be a personal assistant to someone, be a handyman, etc., etc.

Maybe he’ll realize that finishing school is actually easier than finding a job.

Give him a deadline. Move and don’t tell him where you’re going. Pay first and last months rent for his own apartment. Have him use your place as an Air B and B for extra money. Apply to community college for him and when he gets accepted say “You’re going or I’m kicking you out”. I’m just throwing suggestions out there.

Does he have friends? Relatives he can visit? He can couch surf with them.

You need a break, Mother.

Inky

Hi Mayra,

To answer your question: It’s him.

You cannot, must not, and shouldn’t marry an alcoholic. To make matters worse, he lies to your face about it. This is called “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining”.  He’s peeing on your leg and telling you that it’s raining.

I’m sorry your engagement fell through, but dumping him may just be the hurt he needs to clean up his life.

Best,

Inky

Hi Matt,

I think you did the right thing. You two were in transition. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway, most likely. High school and college romances seldom do.

What you are experiencing is nostalgia. Of course her parents loved seeing you. I genuinely love all my daughter’s old boyfriends and prom dates on the very rare chance I see them. Parents get nostalgic too!

She got nostalgic with the jacket ploy. One does not send several messages and happen to stop by where you are to return a jacket. Then she’s upset to find you blocked her two/three years ago. Meaning she never even checked on your social media since then!

My advice is to unblock and leave it alone.

Good Luck,

Inky

Hi Cw,

Can you simply “Unfriend” him instead of block? This is what I did with FaceBook: Instead of blocking, which can be seen as very immature and reactionary, I wrote a note saying, “I’m taking a break from Social Media. See you in (insert month/year)!” Then I locked down my settings so he couldn’t see how many Friends I had, what I posted, if I posted, etc. I changed my settings dramatically enough so it really looked like I was out of commission.

Then guess what? He DID somehow find a way to contact me. It wasn’t easy. There was effort, true effort (on his part) involved. Then I took several weeks to reply.

Change the script. You can close the door but not lock it. Close the door. And let him go through the butler.

Good Luck!

Inky

Hi Sierra,

The good news is as time goes by, he can’t really be mad at you for how you feel or where you were/are in life. That’s like being mad at a child for not being able to do calculus. You wanted to. You tried. It didn’t work out. You weren’t there yet.

You never intentionally abused him and that can go a long way. You tried NOT to hurt him. But he was hurt nonetheless.

To me you are either single, married, or divorced. You don’t have to give up everything about being single when you’re with someone. It just means you’re both single together, you go to the same parties and you don’t mess around. It sounds like now that you have your “Single” life back, you’re not enjoying it anyway. And the way you’re pining over him I can tell you’re not fooling around with other guys right now.

So yes, you can theoretically go back. But this time have him contact you. He can approach you at parties. He’s the one that was hurt. And he’s the only one that can get over that hurt, no matter how much you apologized and explained.

Blessings,

Inky

Hi Brooke,

The disrespect towards you in college, you still being with someone from college, living with him and him allowing his family to be entrenched in his relationship with you are each thing by itself not necessarily a deal breaker. But all four of those things together? I’d go nuts. Break up, move out, reset, and start over. With someone new.

Best,

Inky

To add: Humans are monogamous most of the time. There is cheating. This is universal. This is human. What is NOT human and universal, is to be open with the cheating and to legitimize it.

Paleo Anthropology 101

You are human. Humans are mostly monogamous most of the time. So is he. He is the one who has to come to terms with being human. He is in fact hard wired to be monogamous. Until/unless he isn’t. But no caveman or enlightened saint worth his salt would dare brag about his exploits to a woman fully human.

You rightfully dumped him. GOOD! Being unceremoniously dumped is GOOD for him. You did him a HUGE favor! No quality woman will stand for this. You doubted your decision, but 100K plus years of evolution and instincts are never wrong.

Never.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Inky.