I AM NOT YOUR SCRUBBING BUBBLE!

I AM NOT YOUR SCRUBBING BUBBLE!

Remember those old bathroom foam cleaning commercials with the little scrubbing bubbles calling out “We work hard so you don’t have toooooooo……” as they spun down the drain?

Think about them the next time a person in your life, be it an adult son or daughter, sister, brother, lover or husband tries to force you into the role of “enabler” in their life.  Just conjure up that image in your mind, think of yourself being sucked down the drain of codependency, and say “NO”.

They might be asking you to add them to your cell phone plan, lend them money, clean their apartment for them, let them use your car, buy them groceries, forgive them for not holding to their word for the umpteenth time, or any one of the thousands of manipulative forms of assistance they seek when they are just too dysfunctional to behave like responsible adults.

Codependent relationships are not limited to substance abusers and their kin, they are real and alive in every relationship dynamic out there.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with helping your loved ones, nothing at all, the question is, is your loved one doing the work required to help themselves?

Are they just a little short on cash, or have they been unemployed for a lengthy period of time, or unable to manage their cash flow or hold a job?  Everyone comes up short on occasion, especially in the current economy, but some of us are scrubbing bubbles and some of us are not.

If you are working diligently every day and using your resources wisely, why should you take your hard earned cash and hand it over to the adult child who has not been gainfully employed in six months?

When you saved regularly when times were good and paid all your bills on time and your significant other played and partied and scattered his funds to the wind without setting up a reserve, why should you add him to your cell phone plan when his is shut off and increase your monthly debt?

When your husband golfed all summer and bought himself new clubs, a new bag, nice equipment and turned down overtime to do so and finds himself short on the car payment, should you take money out of your pocket and make up the difference?

Absolutely not!

Taking care of yourself and your own responsibilities and ensuring that your resources are allotted as you budget is not selfish, it’s wise and healthy.

Will your loved one have problems because you don’t help them out?  Probably, but if they are an adult, they need to solve their problems for themselves, you are not their “rescuer”.

It is not your job to make them happy! That is a job that every man (and woman) must do for themselves!

Stop being an enabler!  Will you lose the love of your significant other if you do not let him borrow your car and use up all of your gas to run errands?  NO! If you do, you never had it!

Remember, “I am NOT your Scrubbing Bubble!”

You work hard so that you can enrich your own life, you don’t work hard so that your adult child, lover, husband or friend DOESN’T have to!

Please do not make the mistake of thinking that providing your loved with their own private “bail out” is going to make them grateful, thankful or respectful.  Quite the opposite is true.  When a normal healthy adult knows that they can come to you and just dump all of their troubles on your doorstep and you start “scrubbing them away” for them when they should be cleaning up their own mess, the only thing that is going to happen is you will find yourself endlessly scrubbing that doorstep as more and more and more problems will find their way onto your stoop.

The loved one now knows that he or she can manipulate you.  Your adult daughter can’t afford daycare?  Grandma will either babysit or pay for it.  Think about it.  If she has the money for a weekly manicure at the beauty salon, why should you pay for her daycare expenses?

The boyfriend who has lost yet another job and still can’t pay his half of the rent happily takes a few weeks off to “chill” before launching his next job search is perfectly comfortable sleeping until noon and playing video games and surfing facebook all day while you are up at six to leave for your full time job that you’ve had for four years?  He never seems to quite “catch up” with his half of the expenses.  Why?  Because YOU WORK HARD SO HE DOESN’T HAVE TO! Is that why you are working so hard?  I think not.

Hold your adult loved ones to the same standard that you hold yourself.  No exceptions, no excuses and you will find yourself having happier and healthier adult-to-adult relationships.

Copyright © 2009 Brigid Bishop

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