Ask Amy: Middle son sends folks on guilt trip
Dear Amy: My wife and I have been married for 40 years and have three grown children.
The oldest and youngest always towed the line, graduated college, and have great jobs. Our middle son started having issues in high school with drugs and interactions with the police.
No matter what we tried, it only worked for a short time and cost us thousands of dollars.
After high school he came home late one night with his girlfriend. She was dead the next morning from an overdose. This event led to a three-year prison term.
After prison, things seemed better. He got a good trade job, married, had two children, house, cars, and was doing well.
Then out of the blue the drugs were back. He drained their bank account. His marriage fell apart. He sat in his house for months until it was foreclosed upon and the sheriff removed him.
Now he wants to move into our empty nest. With the drugs and the shady people he has been associating with, we don't want him living here.
He is trying his usual guilt trip to get us to cave.
We are just hitting 60 and getting very close to retirement. Given his situation and history, are we wrong to tell him to figure this one out himself, and that living here is not an option?
-- Exhausted Parent
...continued
