My all-time favorite provider lives in a slum with several family members who treat her like crap; she works for a heroin addict who runs ads for her and my ATF splits her income with this woman. I’ve told her she doesn’t need to give this woman anything since she’s doing all the work, and I even offered to help her get a place of her own wherever she wants to live, but she avoids my suggestions. She is absolutely the best provider I have ever been with and is stunningly beautiful; unfortunately she also suffers from bipolar disorder. How can I help her?
It is a sad fact of human existence that one absolutely cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. It doesn’t matter how miserable her life is, how badly she’s being treated by her partner or family, how much she says she wants to change her life or how attractive you think the help you’re offering is; until and unless she actually makes the decision to accept your assistance, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. She may not find your offer as attractive as you think it is, or she may feel the price is too high; she may be wary of accepting help from a client, which very often comes with strings in which she may not wish to risk becoming entangled. She may resent or even feel insulted by your attempts to “fix” her, and you really have no idea what her relationship with the other woman actually is; how do you know they aren’t lovers, or that your ATF doesn’t owe her either a lot of money or a deep bond of gratitude? Even if you don’t think the relationship between them (or the one with her family) is healthy, that’s not your place to decide; every romantic relationship I’ve ever had has been called “bad” or “unhealthy” or “codependent” or even “abusive” by somebody, often (though not always) someone who wanted me for himself. And it didn’t matter whether that opinion was objectively true or not (which it certainly was in two of the cases); until I decided those partners were bad for me, no amount of convincing, cajoling or outright bribery could convince me to leave. And don’t forget, I’m not bipolar; mental health issues can amplify these problems by several orders of magnitude.
The short answer to your question, then, is “you can’t”. You’re already made it clear to her that you’re willing to offer her help; when and if she decides to take either your advice or your economic aid, then you can give it to her (and you had better give it without strings unless you want her to change her mind once she sees the price tag.) But you have to consider the possibility that the horse may never decide to drink, and if she doesn’t you have to decide how long you’re willing to wait on her before you wash your hands and walk away from the trough.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
I support Maggie 100% on this one, and I am bipolar.
I know how tough it can be for us guys. Of course you want to help someone you care about and whether or not she really is ‘a damsel in distress’ it can be very easy to characterise her that way. Then helping her becomes an issue of our own manly self-image. But I’m sure there’s a lot of guys out there doing a lot of harm for what they see as the best of motivations and you really don’t have the right to risk that unless you’re invited to try.
The mental health issue makes it even more applicable.
Us loonies often have too much experience of being told we’re helpless and need assistance from people who don’t and can’t understand our situation. A lot of people do that sort of thing for a living. You can get pretty jack of it, believe me.
Yeah, we’re probably a bit more prone to making very bad decisions than most people but the fact is we aren’t hopeless slaves of our alleged disease. We still have agency. Sometimes it can seem that’s all we have. Yet there’s no shortage of people trying to deny it to us.
That old chestnut that begins “If you love something, set it free …” may be trashy greeting card sentiment but I think it’s pretty important to care about people for what they are, not for what you need them to be. Let her make her own decisions. If she comes to you of her own accord it will be an act of self empowerment that will probably help her more than anything you can offer her unsolicited. Ditto if she decides to help herself instead.
Hey, we are all defective in some way or another. The important thing is to still make things work in some acceptable fashion. What is acceptable is anybodies own decision (with a few limits stemming from severe impact on other of course), not some busybodies that likes to dictate how people should be or how they should live or what they should think.
We’re only defective if we imagine ourselves as means to an end rather than ends in ourselves.
I’m bipolar and that has probably contributed to unhappiness in my life (as well as happiness). But that’s only a defect if you imagine the purpose of life to avoid unhappiness.
What I really am is me. And I’m absolutely perfect at being that.
I completely agree with this. And it applies basically to all situations where somebody is in a really bad situation and does not seem to want out: Make it clear you want to help, make sure your offer is genuine (or you will just make things worse), and then stay approachable, but back off. Also, do _not_ overdo it on the help offered as that could just look (or be) an offer to swap one dependency for another.
I have made good experiences with this approach several times and I have had no impact at all in several other cases. But it is the only thing you can do and it is their decision, not yours.
Very much so.
Realistically, this correspondent wants the woman for himself. He wants what all us men want: free sex. (Please forward any objections to this observation to Mother Nature, c/o Santa Claus, the North Pole.)
There’s also an excellent possibility that this gentleman is being played. I’m reminded of how geisha houses operate: their clients become romantically entangled, see the mam-sans as abusive and controlling, but its all part of the game. The girls each have multiple men on the string, because of course they do.
If I could put one question to this guy to help him out, it would be “What, realistically, is the end-game here? What is your desired outcome from this ‘help’ you want to give her?” If he persists in insisting that all he wants is what’s best for this girl and nothing more, I’d have to leave him with the old Oscar Wilde quote: “No good deed goes unpunished.”