Disappointed Sister

Dear Chelsea,

My youngest sister (let’s call her Jamie) is in her early 20s, which is more than a decade younger than me. She has a 2-year-old daughter (let’s call her Rose). Jamie is a single mom, living with my mother and my other sister. Rose’s father is no longer in the picture. They tried to work it out at the beginning, but for reasons unknown to me (though I have a general idea), they cut ties. As far as I know, there is no visitation or child support.

Jamie is a mother when it’s convenient for her. She completely takes advantage of our mom and other sister. I know that they are enablers of this behavior. Jamie is always on her phone, she sleeps in, parties, drinks (and I highly suspect she uses drugs). My mom and other sister do just about everything for Rose (feeding, bathing, getting up and putting to bed, playing, doctor visits, etc). Jamie participates when she wants to. Jamie expects our mom and other sister to watch Rose whenever she wants them to. A few months ago, my mom and my other sister had to go out of town for two weeks. Instead of being present and stepping up to the plate with Rose, Jamie scheduled a breast enhancement and dropped Rose off with a close family friend for a week. During this time, Jamie did not even call to check on and talk to Rose. Aside from spending money that would have been better spent on Rose, Jamie didn’t even speak to her daughter for a week! (because she knew she was being well taken care of).

Jamie also has numerous, visible, poorly done tattoos. I don’t judge people for having tattoos, as I have some myself, but I do judge people who have bad tattoos. In addition to the tattoos, Jamie does lip injections, making her lips look like something that would be on a blow-up doll, or a porn star.

I don’t know what went wrong with Jamie. She used to be pretty. She was very intelligent. Her body modifications indicate low self-esteem. Her lack of parenting indicates immaturity. Since I live across the country from her and the rest of my family, I haven’t seen Jamie in 4 years. My husband and I had to travel there unexpectedly this summer and got to visit with my mom, my other sister, and Rose. Jamie couldn’t be bothered to drop by for just a moment, much less reply to any phone calls or texts I sent.

I need help in coming to terms with my disappointment with Jamie. I don’t feel that I can talk to her about this because I think she’ll view it as an attack. I just don’t know how to reconcile who Jamie used to be with who Jamie is now. Can you help?

Sincerely,

Disappointed Sister

Dear Disappointed Sister,

I think you will be able to come to terms with your disappointment in Jamie if you try to exchange some of your judgment of her for empathy. You've depicted Jamie as an immature, fiscally irresponsible freeloader who's getting other people to raise her child while she parties and makes questionable alterations to her appearance. I can understand why you'd be disappointed in that.

I would like to offer a softer interpretation of the story.

• The immaturity I can't disagree with, but she is still so young. A lot of 22-year-olds run around partying and still live with their parents. Rose complicates matters, but in spite of Jamie's parenting deficiencies, isn't Rose still growing up in a caring environment? Of course you would make different decisions if you were in her shoes, but you have more than a decade of life experience than she does, and that does make a difference. 
• Jamie is an adult and gets to make her own choices about her body. You don't have to agree with her taste in tattoos or her lip injections, but don't assume they have anything to do with her self-esteem. If she reformed her behavior tomorrow she'd still have the tattoos but you wouldn't be so disappointed, would you? I think the appearance issues are piggybacking on your primary issue with how she parents Rose. 
• Likewise, your mother and your other sister are also adults who make their own decisions. As you noted, their enabling behavior supports the environment where Jamie can offload her parental responsibilities. Perhaps your disappointment in Jamie will abate somewhat if you regard the family as a system of equals rather than seeing Jamie as the ringleader. 

I also have a question for you, and perhaps I am off-base here, but is part of you envious of Jamie? That she has access to endless free babysitting, that she can spend money on herself, that she can go out and have fun whenever she wants, whereas you live far away from your family's help and have to work hard to provide for yourself? I'm not suggesting that you want to be like her, but I can see how that disparity and unfairness would make you angry.

However, we are all on our own paths. We make our own choices and have our own triumphs and failures. You've talked a lot about how Jamie used to be pretty and intelligent and now she seems anything but, but Jamie is still the same person inside. What are her good qualities? Surely she must still have some. If you can't think of any, maybe that is because you haven't really gotten to know her as an adult.

You may not have confronted Jamie about your disappointment, but I am certain that she knows already. This is probably why she avoided you this summer when you came to visit, because she didn't want to be around someone who was going to judge her. So if you do want to be in her life, I encourage you to try to let go of the judgment and find a way to accept her for who she is, even though you don't agree with every choice she makes. And if you don't want to be in her life, then you have to let go of the judgment and let her make her own choices in peace or else your feelings will eat away at you and make you miserable.

I do think there is hope for her to become more mature and responsible. Time alone may do it, but you may also help. The things is, people have a way of rubbing off on those around them when they participate in their lives in meaningful ways. If you go into Jamie's life feeling as you do now, your disappointment and other negative judgments will sour your relationship. But if you can find a way to practice acceptance and appreciation of what there is to appreciate, that creates fertile ground that your values of parental responsibility may find a place to grow as well.

The Continual Accumulation of Moments

Dear Chelsea,

How do you figure out if your significant other is the "right one"? I've been dating a really great guy for six months now. We share the same faith and I know (because he has made it clear) that he's in it for the long haul. Amidst this, I've been trying to figure out my feelings for him. I'm not sure how to really figure this out—I definitely have strong feelings for him, but I'm nervous. The prospect of "the future" or marriage seems quite far away.

In conversations I've had with my mom, she tells me that she "just knew" when she met the right one, but I haven't had that moment, I don't think. She's also reminded me that our family backgrounds are pretty different—I grew up in a pretty well-to-do family, went to prep/private schools, etc., whereas he grew up in the military and more middle class. I don't know whether that matters.

I know I need (and fully plan) to have more conversations with my boyfriend about "the future" and all that jazz, but in the meantime, what do you think?


Dear Reader,

I'm thinking about time.

The first time I'm thinking of is six months, which as you well know is not very long to date someone. Give yourself more time to understand where you're going.

The second time I'm thinking of is the past. Have you been at the crossroads of a big decision before? How did you know which path to take? I ask because I think some people are prone to "just knowing"—having that intuitive leap you can't quite explain—and others know because the accumulated evidence demonstrates to them the best choice to make. Since you're in a place where you don't know, that means there isn't enough information to make a leap or to draw a plotted course. So the solution is more information, which takes time, and the certainty will likely manifest itself in a way congruent to your previous experiences.

The third time I'm thinking of is childhood. Differences in family backgrounds are important insofar as they influence our values, and successful relationships are usually founded on shared values. To a degree, people raised in similar circumstances share similar values; however, if I learned anything in statistics class it's to never extrapolate generalities to an individual case! What is important to discern is the degree to which your values and your partner's values align, especially on the things that are most important to you. Be thorough in this examination, especially given that your backgrounds are different, because you may not otherwise think to discuss or question many internalized-as-given long-held values. For example, what do you believe about how the world works, how relationships work, what is important, how people are supposed to behave and be treated, how much you should work for versus be given?

The fourth time I am thinking of is the present: This is where you do the work. Invest as much energy as you can into understanding your own values and then in living them. Encourage your partner to do the same. Resist the temptation to be the person you think your partner wants you to be or the person you think you want to be for your partner. Just be yourself. Because life is just a continual accumulation of moments . . . you can walk all day and never reach the horizon. And in each moment, you're either happy or you're not; you're either moving toward happiness or away. Over time, the course of things will reveal itself and you will know.

The last time I am thinking of is the future. Everyone changes—you, me, your partner, everyone. There's no predicting how, or when (except to say that you can't change other people; they only change for themselves). When it comes to long-term commitment, what you want is someone who is as committed as you are to doing the present-work of understanding themselves and aligning themselves with you as you pass through each moment. Then, after enough moments have passed, you will know whether you want another hundred thousand moments more.