A
female
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anonymous
writes:I have a fiance. We've been together a little over a year now. We were living together, but we had some pretty severe money problemsand my fiance left after a few weeks. We have begun talking again through emails and the phone during work.Since we've lived apart he had discovered some rather shocking surpressed memories of parental abuse and he is trying to deal with them one day at a time with the help of self help books and prayer. The problem is, he lives with his parents now, since he left, and they do not approve of his relationship with me, they don't think I am good enough, and believe he had just settled for me because he didn't want to be alone.They do not know that we are back in contact, but they search through the car and any personal belongings for evidence of it on a regular basis.He is going to an online college for his MA and his parents had paid for it. They also own the car he drives. We are both adults. I'm 25.he's 26 and we want to plan a future together, but he is terrified to leave his parents due to the fact that they paid for his college and to get him out of debt. He feels he's showing them that he is ungrateful by leaving, and yet living under the same roof with verbally abusive people, the same people who have abused him in the past is tearing him up inside.I want so much to be with him. I have my own place, and a family who wants to help us in any way they can.How can I help him overcome his fear and move back?How do I get him to understand that it's okay to put himself first and while his parents did pay for school, that in no way implies giving up what he wants.I want to help him overcome his past abuse to become the person he wants to be so that we can have a future together but I'm not sure how to make him understand.Thanks!Tuki
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (9 November 2005): I too suffered parental abuse. I know about what you write. Your boyfriend should get counseling from a good therapist. You should encourage him and give support to therapy in any way that you are able. Transportation, arranging appointments, seeking out a quality therapist, coordinating with insurance, etc. Of course, do this together, talk lovingly, talk often, talk about decisions, talk about progress. Give him unconditional love. Do everything you can to get him out from under his parents' roof and influence. With them, the triggers of memories and the ongoing manipulation will only make his problems, both financial and emotional, worse. In no way can he become a contented adult with them involved. Do not waste your time convincing them of anything. They will not change for his sake, or they already would have. If you are in for the longhaul, you should know that abuse stymies, delays, distorts, or even stops maturation. Depending on the damage, this will take a lot of time...even years. Your boyfriend will have to go through stages that other people went through in childhood and teenage years. For example, he will have to learn money management. Another example, he will have to learn to solve his own problems by accepting responsibility. Another example, he will have to learn how to exert his wishes, his promise, his dreams, and even his limitations on anyone that does not accept him as he is. You must be kind, patient, and nonjudgemental. As long as you are not being abused or over-extended emotionally, I say to love him until he can love himself. Then, love each other.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 October 2005): this is a hard question to answer, your fiance needs to toughed up alittle bit im afraid, and you AND him need to sit down with his parents and talk it through how ever scared he might be of them just reassure him that your there for him ask them why they think youre not good enough for your fiance, and your fiance needs to back you up with that saying that he loves you if he just falls at thier feet and doesnt back you up, he obiously isnt worth your time because he will act as a shoe cleaner to his mother and father who does not deserve his respect,after treating him so badly, money doesnt come into it, its true feelin tht counts
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