Our Youngest Child Has Cut Ties With Our Family. Help!

[magid]

From today’s NY Times, in the weekly Social Q’s column.

Our youngest, who is 37 and uses they/them pronouns, has a long history of psychological problems. They sent a text informing us that they no longer want to interact with family members, and that if we want to meet with them, they require an advocate to be present. This child lives in our second home. They don’t pay rent, but they have a job that covers food and health insurance costs. We’re not sure what caused the break. They had a very bad interaction with our son, and we asked them to work it out themselves. But our son wants nothing to do with his sibling, and my husband wants to stop communicating with them, too. He says they are toxic. I am heartbroken. What should I do?

MOTHER

I may be off base, but I feel optimistic about your child’s text. You don’t mention anyone asking to meet with them, so perhaps the text was their indirect way of reaching out to you. Your child may want to meet — together with a neutral party — to discuss the issues that make your relationship so difficult. Why else send the text?

I would respond that you look forward to meeting with them and their advocate as soon as possible. At the very least, you will learn the reason for their break with the family. An advocate may seem excessive, but I suspect it will give your child comfort to know they won’t be going up against the entire family alone. Encourage your husband and son to attend the meeting, but don’t force them. Remind them, too, that psychological problems are not “toxic”; they are mental health issues.

Now, I sympathize with your heartbreak — and even with your husband’s avoidance. The whole family is probably exhausted from years of difficulty. But your child is not to blame for their mental health, and leaving them to struggle alone, particularly when they have opened the door for a meeting, seems wrong. Accept the indirect invitation, and try to take a productive step forward.

Comments

[bikergeek]

Our youngest ... has a long history of psychological problems

I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient

Dollars to donuts that whole family is toxic and they're hanging it on the one child who has mental health issues.

[melannen]

I realize this isn't to the legal or money advice people, but first and foremost, you need to sit down and figure out the legal issues around their continued occupation of the home. It's simply not workable to have a family member who has cut contact living in a home you own without any formalities. It *will* end badly. And either they're doing so badly they're out of touch with the fact that they can't completely cut contact with the people who own their home, or they are also probably really worried about being tossed out with no warning but feel strongly enough to risk it anyway.

Ideally you're going to come up with a contract that charges them nominal rent in exchange for you and them getting landlord/tenant protections and a formal way to report property issues that doesn't overstep anyone's contact boundaries, and then you're going to arrange a meeting with the advocate to go over it, negotiate changes (especially around things like maintenance visits), and have everybody sign. Hopefully this will result in much better relations all around because you won't have the uncertainty of the house situation adding fear of homelessness to everything, and improve relations between them and you and your husband overall (the son is probably a lost cause, you should put that he's not allowed on the property without their permission as a first step to show good faith.)

And if the owners of the house can't agree on making it official that they can stay, and want to leave open the option of tossing them out unceremoniously, that's something you need to air out between you now before you have the meeting with the advocate. And then you need to make that clear at the meeting, too, so they know where they stand about their housing and can make informed choices.

[cereta]

*Points up.* Tenancy laws are a tangled nightmare under the best of circumstances, and these are really not the best of circumstances.

[adrian_turtle]

Oh, Social Q. What on earth are you thinking? Oh, nevermind. I know exactly what you're thinking. You're thinking that there is a single "family" relationship with this youngest child, that the youngest child broke it because of mental illness, and that their mother can repair this collective 4-person relationship. Pfui. You don't have a single relationship with 3 adults.

The youngest-child + older-brother relationship is broken. Neither wants to reconcile. Mom can't fix it and shouldn't try.
The youngest-child + dad relationship is broken. Neither wants to reconcile. Mom can't fix it and shouldn't try.
Can the relationship between youngest-child and mom be fixed? Should it be? It's obviously badly damaged, and the adult child clearly does not feel safe (thus the advocate.) Can the mother focus on her own relationship with her adult child? I think individual therapy for LW might help her deal with her heartbreak without trying to force the rest of the family into being who and what she wants.

[dissectionist]

It would not at all surprise me if the situation at least partially involved the younger kid being trans, the elder kid being transphobic and shitty until the younger kid had to estrange themselves, the parents refusing to tell the elder kid to knock it off, younger kid feeling unsafe with parents because parents have considered elder’s bigotry to be an “all sides have good people” situation, dad getting defensive because younger kid labeled his fencesitting on bigotry a problem, and then dad labels younger kid as the issue.

…but that is based solely on the fact that I’ve seen nearly that exact situation happen within my own extended family.