Some close friend. She lies, steals, manipulates…Oh, does that sound familiar?
Daughter abuse
Thief with infant needs consequences—for the sake of the baby
Dear Doug:
A close friend lets her infant son play with toys she puts in the bottom of her grocery cart taken from the store while shopping. She “forgets” to pay for these items. I’ve warned her about this, but she hasn’t been caught. In addition, she and her husband are maxing out their credit cards on jewelry, sporting events and fancy dinners intending to file for bankruptcy. I had to take a second job to make ends meet and pay all of my bills. I’m jealous. What should I do?
Signed,
Envious
. . . . .
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists would rightly suggest you drop her as a friend because she is a cheat and a thief and lacks integrity. No question about it. However, they wouldn’t take it a step further and contemplate the idea of setting her up for an arrest at the next store she plays her little game with.
While such a tack might seem intrusive and would be risky, there’s a fly in the ointment with which you should be concerned: her infant son. There is at least an 80% correlation between her felonious behaviors and alcoholism. Therefore, she and her husband are possible co-alcoholics. The longer they get away with such immoral but ego-inflating behavior, the worse their behaviors will become. Neglect if not abuse of the child could easily be occurring behind closed doors.
You say she’s a “close” friend. If you really care about her and her family, you will do anything you can to assist her in experiencing appropriate consequences for misbehaviors, even if that means loss of parental rights for a period of time. Only when pain has begun to strike is the stage set for an intervention. If you’re close enough, you should have access to other close friends and family. Plan accordingly: begin to educate them (as well as yourself—my books would be a terrific start) and get a qualified interventionist involved now.
(Source for story idea: Annie’s Mailbox, June 26, 2009.)
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And, because I really can’t resist and a particularly important point is made, we’ve got another bonus Dear Doug in this issue, in the next post.