My husband and I are new listeners. We’ve been married for 34 years and have no children of our own, but he has three adult daughters. They grew up 2,000 miles away from him, and we had limited visitation over the years. We are financially stable and the girls often call for financial advice. We give it, but they seldom listen and follow through.
One of the daughters recently broke off her engagement. She was living with her fiancé in a home she couldn’t afford on a single salary, so when he moved out, she had to sell (she also had overwhelming credit card debt). She cried and asked for our advice, but balked at our suggestions every step of the way.
Then, one day, we heard on your show a parent in a similar situation, and we heard your message loud and clear: this was not our problem. Since we had no influence on her growing up and instilling good sound financial practices in her, why were we expecting something of her that she wasn’t willing or able to do? So, we removed ourselves from the nagging. We needed to let her be and keep our opinions to ourselves. We do provide supportive comments and don’t offer advice, unless she specifically asks.
Although we find this a bit unnerving, we realize that this is HER life, HER business and we need to butt out. We can’t make her live the way we think is best. We can love her and listen to her, but that’s it.
Thank you for your advice to that parent. It rubbed off on us!
Susan
We Had to Butt Out Of Our Adult Daughter’s Life
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