A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I'm soooooo confused and feel really alone at this point in time. I came for a holiday to england with my mum and sisters for a month and have ended up staying for 6 months with my aunt and uncle after the rest of my family went back. It's been a great experience except me and my aunt haven't always gotten along very well. She's very controlling. My uncle has been almost imprisoned by her for past 18 years and finally realized how much he was missing in life when I came along...I loved that I could be of assistance to making him a happier person and have him confide in me and also finding him to be like the dad I never had. Over the past month, things have gone mad. He'd become so fed up with my aunt, we made a planned escape and left her...however, I'm now living with him and because it's just been the two of us, things have become a very intense and almost intimate in ways a niece and uncle shouldn't be. Only now has the reality of what I've got myself into hit me and I'm petrified as to what to do? I mean, he's my uncle and yet now Ive devoted myself to being the shoulder he needs to lean on for support and care. He constantly tells me he doesn't know what he would do with out me. I liked what we were, at first...but now I realize the implications, and I don't know what I want or what to do anymore? I'm really scared.Any advice would be muchly appreciated! Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2007): First off you are still very young, too young in my opinion for your uncle to be burdening you with his adult problems....this is very inappropriate of him to leave his wife and make you the accomplice. If I were you, I would move out if you could, back with your aunt. Tell your uncle you don't mean to take sides but feel you need to set some boundaries and move out...so what if your aunt is a controlling witch, you don't have to do what she says, you just have to try to let her now you empathize with her, and that should make her back off from you a bit.
Do not cross these boundaries in your relationsip with your uncle. The fact that you are lonely and away from home may be contributing to your vulnerability...go home, as soon as possible....you need to get away from the dysfunction going on in your aunt and uncles lives, don't be a party to it, you will regret that you helped your uncle make a planned escape, this isn't yours to fix, it is his, and he should not be putting you in the middle of it and manipulating you with his feelings and concerns.
This is very unhealthy for all involved.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2007): Hello, Reading your letter you are having a whole mixture of emotions. A big theme is confusion. It is easy to see how this situation happened: you were in a new place without a network and spending so much time alone with your uncle has meant you have developed an intimacy that was not there before. Forgive me but putting it bluntly, your uncle coped before without you. He will in the future. You are a young woman with a life. Your life. Don't take his on. It sounds as if, he is abusing his position of uncle and has overstepped "appropriate behaviour". My advice, break free. Book a flight, train ticket, whatever. Go and stay with a friend and find who you are and what you want. Not what your Uncle wants. If after a time alone of not seeing him say 6 months and you still feel the same then chat with a counsellor. I bet you won't. You and your life will have moved on to a less confusing place. Good luck
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