I know I am an Enabler for my adult daughter 45 but what do I do about the grandchildren?

I hear you and can see it’s not an easy situation at all.
I was at college with a girl whose parents paid for everything. She didn’t get on with them and eventually she realised herself that their constant handouts were stopping her taking control of her own life and reaching her full potential. She understood that they were enabling her to stay disempowered.
She didn’t last at college. Left. Did a lot of therapy and slowly but surely earned her own money and went on to Uni to train as a nurse. She was so much stronger and happier.

It seems like you and your daughter are enmeshed in this long standing dynamic and as a mother myself I would find it really hard to just cut off support. How about saying that over the course of a year you will be decreasing the financial support and they will need to become more self sufficient. You can still buy things as presents for the kids You can still be loving and have boundaries that feel good for your own well-being. That’s not being uncaring. Others may disagree but I think it’s giving her an opportunity to grow.

Just stop

I'd think you were me, had your daughter been ten years younger.

It's fine people saying "stop enabling", it's incredibly difficult to do "tough love". Especially when grandchildren are involved.
Good luck with your future choices.

I’ve been in similar situation with a dad not able to cope,and did all of what you are doing now.
When me and my husband retired it became clear we couldn’t offer the financial support and told her why.She didn’t see it as a problem and to be fair she has managed albeit with getting secondhand clothes for the kids from charity shops.
Her house is very messy and one of us would go round and clean and tidy up most mornings,until we became too I’ll to do it.our dd and children managed somehow with the mess.I couldn’t.But I’m not living there!
My standards are not hers,and I’ve accepted that now.We have a good relationship without me bailing her out all the time.Probably a more mature one,she’s not my child anymore,she’s a grown woman and finding her way through life in her own way.It is very hard though to let go.I think the idea of taking the girls for a weekend away is a good one, so long as your own dd doesn’t feel left out.

Have you ever had an honest conversation about money with your DD and SIL? Maybe helped them to work out a budget which they can stick too? You say your SIL is lovely and therefore I guess you have a good relationship with him? Maybe neither of them have ever been shown how to budget or work out bills? Its not something that happens organically! A good salary means nothing if your expenses outstrip it! If a realistic budget is in place maybe they will find they can in fact manage without your money and will give them a sense of self pride? Constant bail outs must drag down their self esteem?
You cant force them to live in a tidy clean house but could they benefit from a cleaner which you pay for directly rather than money which goes who knows where? I also agree with paying directly to the adult GDD and maybe once you have done a budget with them agree to pay directly for anything they need. I have a very similar issue with 2 of my DDs and that is what I do, so far it is working well.

Overit, your mental state and the welfare of your young relations are two different problems.

You can control your own anxiety, but you can't control other people.

You have tried giving a) advice and b) money. Neither has made your daughter more efficient.

Have you tried informing her she is a slob ? Have you tried calling at her place for brief, ten minute snoops just to ensure she has not become substantially worse and made her children ill?

My guess is her anxiety is some excuse but not a good enough excuse for her inefficiency, and she needs you simply and explicitly to tell her where her duty lies.

If your initial post is an example of how you talk to your daughter you need to advise her in clearer briefer language.

Overit
This could easily describe my life
My daughters a single parent, my eldest granddaughter's is 12, middle one is 10, and grandson is 5. Since she moved into a new 3 bed housing association property 2 months ago things have improved slightly. She keeps the house tidier than the old rental property they were in. She can't hold a job down due to mental health problems. She's on medication etc, the children are clean and well fed etc. But they don't always have what they need for school, the 2 eldest have mobiles now ( from me ) so I can ring them or vice versa , make sure they have everything they need for school. My daughters doing most of her own washing now but I still do bedding and towels . She should have enough benefits to live on but she always seems short the end of every month. We always lend her money ( never get it back ) bit I too am like you . I want to ensure my grandchildren have what they need. I am rewarded with lots of hugs and thank you's from them .

biglouis, glad you had a Gran who helped you out. Were you ever able to thank her for that?
Overit, I think you are starting to work it out for yourself, with good advice from some of the GNs on here. Good luck with the next steps.

Overit Meant kindly….You might want to consider the impact of estrangement, if your daughter as a result of putting your foot down.
Also, punishing someone with children and mental health problems isn’t going to work.

Cut back on what you need to - but please don’t cut yourself off from them all.

I have a daughter (50) very similar. I'm in UK. She tells me so many times I am a terrible mother, and have been all her life. I have no idea what I've supposedly done as I brought up two other daughters who do not feel this way. She also has mental health problems but also using alcohol to deal with it. This makes her anger and spitefulness worse. I would throw money at her but I'm not going to as I would have to give the others the same and I might need it for myself. I'm 70 now. She actually has a fairly well paid job at the moment. Her children are now 24 and 21 so I am not so worried about them. When they were still living at home I got a lot more involved with cleaning and trying to keep the home nice but I have now stopped. I feel bad sometimes as she keeps telling me she has no one to talk to when she needs to, but thats partly because of her attitude when she is mentally down. My younger daugher will speak to her but when she talks to her she pretends everything is OK.
I'm talking to her at the moment but I find it very hard for a few days wen she has been so disrespectful and cruel to me and my middle daughter. Its so hard. I dont want to be cruel to her I love her but she hurts people all the time and never seems to realise. At least OP's daughter seems to appreciate her help. Families Eh! hard at times.

I can totally understand your problem Overit, I have done the same for 30 years, ( DS, drug and alcohol problems) he has never worked and always asking for a “ loan” I am so sick of all the worry and anxiety, like you just want some peace away from their problems, Can’t offer you any constructive advise as I don’t know the answer, just lots of sympathy.

Overit - comments on this thread suggest you are helping, not enabling, and that you should go to therapy to sort out your behaviour. As a psychotherapist I know you are enabling whilst thinking you're helping. Help is something one gives in a specific situation to assist another in getting out of a mess. Enabling is continued drip-feed assistance which does nothing to address the root cause. I'm afraid that's what you're doing - the underlying issues will never be tackled if you constantly bail your daughter out of the lifestyle that she has chosen for herself and her children. If you find it hard to go cold turkey, then spend the money on yourself and get into therapy which will help you explore your motives for facilitating your daughter's behaviour because that's what you're doing.

Yes families! I have 3 children but one is a nightmare, as is her son, age 22. They only want money ALL the time. I give the same amount each week to all my grandchildren but am constantly nagged by one grandson to give it earlier. Booze, debt, drugs, who knows. Its made me ill.

Sawsage2

This dynamic will only continue as long as you perpetuate it

I see no change coming till your GC are out of the house. Then you can just support your GC.
It's never easy and it must be so draining for you. I hope your DD gets support from psychiatry and therapy. Maybe she could find a local support group where she can get more emotional support which might give her more motivation.
If you withdraw the extra money you give her, maybe you buy instead a cleaning service going there once a week for 2 hours to help the living situation.
Just continue the phone calls and I am sure the GC have their own phones and just make sure they call you and let you know how they feel.

Sawsage2, why do you give money every week to all yr GC ?
is that wise ?
could you limit to birthdays and xmas only, maybe with easter thrown in for a new bonnet.

I would have thought that the cost of living going up is a good reason to say, I can't do this any more.
My daughter's living environment is awful too. She has BPD and EDS so I try not to judge but I must confess that sometimes I want to yell, "Get up and do something," and I'm not that much of a brilliant housewife myself! However, I now try to let it go over my head. She and her husband seem to make peculiar choices but they have to live their own life. Me going on at them will just make them feel judged...it's blooming hard when it all goes wrong and you have to bite your tongue to keep you from asking what they were thinking of.
I don't want my Grandchildren to think that I will always be there to bail them out and with all 9 of them, it wouldn't be possible. They might see their parents make bad decisions but that might be the lesson they need to do things differently.

Overitt, what a lovely mother you are. I just want to give you the biggest hug. You're in a hard place just now.

But know this: you are going to kill yourself in a battle you can't win.
You can't fix your daughter or rescue her from this situation. You are not to blame for her mental state, or her husband. You are not the cause of it.

Other posters are right: set clear boundaries - and stick to them. Know what is properly your concern (clue: not much) and what isn't - such as other people's right to make their own lifestyle choices, however much you might personally disapprove.

Step away. You can support, but you should distance yourself from the disfunction. It's their life and you can't (and shouldn't) control it. PPs are right - treat the grandchildren, but do not interfere.

I have done a lot of work around addiction and mental health issues and one thing always stands out. Mothers in particular are terrifyingly easily taken hostage by some close family member's refusal (or inability) to face up to their own situation.

The sad reason usually is that the parent has been manipulated through emotional blackmail, gas lighting, threats, bullying, sometimes actual bodily violence, into complying with servicing the other person's needs - whether that be for attention or money or whatever, to the severe detriment of their own health and well-being. I've seen people have panic attacks, heart attacks, strokes, even bankruptcy - all brought on by stress and not knowing where they begin and end.

It has a name: Co-dependency. Meaning someone who is overly-invested in their family's affairs, constantly attempting to control outcomes for another person. Rushing in to fix. Martyring themselves.

It is not easy to overcome but you can do it, with the right help. You've made a really brave start by coming on here to reach out.
Goldenage has it bang on: get yourself into therapy of some sort and take a good look at your own patterns of behaviour. When you begin to make positive changes in yourself, your daughter may begin to change too. It's surprising how often this can happen.

Learn where your responsibilities begin and end and start living your own best life. Best of luck and many hugs.

By now both your grandchildren are old enough to have their own opinions of their parents' way of life.

I am not suggesting that you should criticize your daughter or son-in-law to their children, or encourage your grandchildren to critizise their parents to you, as both in my book would be equally wrong.

However, if either child does make critical remarks, you can best help them by tellling them that we all have to make our own choices as adults, which they are, or soon will be, and that true happiness comes not from being wealthy or living in a marvellous home, but from knowing that you can and are supporting yourself, or at least in the throes of studying something that will enable you to earn a decent living.

I assume you are in the U.S. so your best help to the grandchild who soon will be leaving school is to help her find a part-time job to help with or even cover her living expenses whilst at college.

Don't repeat your mistakes with your daughter by giving the grandchildren regular amounts or paying things for them. A present now and then is fine, but anything else you can spare, is far better put in a bankbook in their names and do remember to state clearly in your will that these two accounts are the property of each of your grandchildren.

I would focus on the Grand daughters.

Violet sky…..thanks for that insightful comment. I have never heard it before and it is so true. You can’t make others warm by setting yourself on fire. It is like the saying taking poison and hoping the other person will die. To thine own self be true

I really understand this post and agree it is very hard to not offer financial or other help when you know you can. I have had so much anxiety loaded onto me these last six weeks, when my daughter walked out of her workplace and went missing for 3 days. She left her partner and two small children to go on a drinking binge. She does have mental health problems which overwhelm her and on that occasion couldn’t cope, felt her partner wouldn’t understand so just left.
For the following five weeks, I provided childcare for the family, liaised with mental health, social services and alcohol recovery agency, basically have been her advocate, whilst she has been so mentally unwell, she couldn’t think properly. I am now the lead person in a lengthy complaint, against the NHS.
Her sisters and my husband tell me I shouldn’t be doing so much that it’s down to her partner to take on what I’ve been doing.
It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it when you feel the need to help as much as you can, but don’t know what’s helping or otherwise. I’m now seeking help myself and start a course next week, strangely I have had a quick response to reaching out. My daughter is still struggling to get support, hence the complaint.
We are UK based and she is 40.
I don’t have any advice for you I’m afraid, just a lot of empathy. Look after yourself as best you can

OP, you say her husband is lovely, but what kind of a man leaves his wife and children without hot water, esp a man with a job.
all this not being able to cope; how does manage to cope at work, they wouldn't accept him saying it was all too difficult for him.
the children can shower at school can't they, so that's something.
you need to step back.
it is one of the most obvious descriptors of a child that one is financially dependent on others.
your daughter is not a child.
she is a middle-aged married woman.
except for odd emergencies, you should not be doing this rescuing behaviour.
good luck.

I think you are a lovely mother and grandmother. I would be doing tbe same in your situation, because children are involved. You have done your best. The children sound very resilient as they are doing well with their education and get on with things. Now you must put your health first as it all seems to be taking its toll, which is mo surprise. Your daughter is receiving help and so you can feel comforted by that. Keep in touch with them of course, but it's important to look after yourself or you won't be much use to anyone. 💐

The advice I always give grandparents who are worried about their grandchildren is this: take your relationship out of the equation when you decide if you need to intervene. Would you try to do something if these were students at a school you taught at, or neighbors? If the answer is yes, then you should consider acting on your worries. I've got a blog post with some concrete suggestions here.