Emotional Abuse - What to do?!


Question: Emotional Abuse - What to do?
I found an article that caught my eye because of how my boyfriend's family treats him. I never knew that there was ever such a thing for it to be called that was legit to what it was. Everything this article says is happening to him from his parents. He is 17 now and will be turning 18 in September though.. But his parents are constantly putting a toll on his well being. This has been going on his whole life and he almost committed suicide 3 years ago, right before he met me in person.

What do you suggest we do?

Article: http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-…

Here is what his parents do:
- Favor his sister over him
- Degrade him with things like "Why can't you be like you sister?!"
- They do not praise him in anything
- They threaten to take his only communications to me away from him. (We live 4 hours away so we can only speak through phone and internet.)
- No matter what he does for them they never appreciate it. (He is practically their slave, he does almost all the chores in the house for them while they sit and watch television.)
- They call him a liar


I will give more details if needed.

Answers:

This sounds a lot like what my life used to be like. I had tried to kill my self once during that time. I was emotionally abused my mother. She reminded me how much of a burden I was on the family regularly. I felt like a modern day Cinderella because I was always doing chores and getting yelled at for my efforts not being good enough. When I found my self raising her youngest daughter at the age of 14, I knew I had had enough. I loved my sister but it was wrong for me to be raising her.

When I graduated high school my mother sabotaged any chances I had for working and I dropped out of collage because I couldn't be successful in school and raise a child at the same time.

It took me five years of asking for help for me to get out of that situation. When I was 19 I was placed in a transitional living program. They helped me get out of my situation and learn to provide for my self. It was hard living in a shelter for a year in a half but it was better than the life I had been leading before. They helped me go back to school, build my confidence, get an apartment and the best part of all was that they showed me that there was more to life than the abuse I was suffering.

I don't know where your friend lives but these programs really help! The one I was in took people as young as 16 and as old as 20. Is there any where like that in your area? It sounds like to me that your friend needs to move out of the parents house.



They need to get arrested. Since he is turning 18 he can have the right to love out. So he can crash with you. If you love him you will accept him to your home



It is time for your boyfriend to grow a pair and start to deal with Mommy and Daddy.

-He can't help it is they favor his sister over him but he has a right to respect, autonomy and independence.
-He can't be like his sister because he is a unique and individual human being with real value and unique gifts. He is not a clone of his sister and never wanted to be. And so the question in reverse is why would he want to be his sister?
-He can't help it if they don't praise him for anything so he has to learn how to praise himself. If he gets a good grade or if he does a good job he needs to talk about it out loud in front of his family. And while he is talking about his accomplishments he doesn't have to take any criticism. Period. He has a right to be proud of his accomplishments....let them deal with it.
-He can't help it if they take his communications away because they own them and pay the service fees on those devices. However, there are computers for public use at his local library free of charge. And he could always borrow a friend's phone (with unlimited calling) to telephone you. And there are always letters which can be sent to your address for a mere 44 cents.
- If they do not appreciate what he does for them, he cannot make them. But he can stop doing some of the things he does until they ask him politely to do them or he can make up a list of everything he does, all the chores and all of the responsibilities he has and post them on a wall in his room or on his mirror. Or give the list to his Mom and Dad and tell them that he is working on getting up a resume for college or a part time job and he wants people to know how effective and responsible he is in his private life.
- Liars require proof. And so, perhaps he should start documenting by journaling whatever he is accused of lying about. Let him write down and work out the truth for himself.

In short, the boyfriend needs to develop two important adult life skills: He has to learn healthy way of asserting himself to others and he has to develop healthy self esteem. To do these two things, he needs to get books from his local library on these subjects, read them and do the exercises or he can go on websites that teach this.

I wish him and you all the best.
Now is the time to get healthy.




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