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Dear Eric: My 30-year-old daughter has been in a serious relationship with her 31-year-old boyfriend for more than six years.

They got an apartment, but she had difficulty finding a job in the city where they lived and so she moved back home with me. But for the past 18 months, she continues to pay half her boyfriend's rent.

She works full time but has to borrow my car to go to work. She does not pay any expenses at my house because so much of her income goes to pay half the costs of the apartment. She did not have health insurance but requires medication for her ADHD. So finally, I enrolled her in a program, but I am paying for it.

I am in my early 70s. I struggle with the fact that my daughter can't afford to help me with expenses at my home, or things that she needs such as a car or health insurance. How can I talk to my daughter about my concerns? How can I help her move forward with her ADHD?

– Giving Too Much

Dear Giving: I understand that your daughter may feel trapped by the choices she’s made and by forces beyond her control, like the job market and her ADHD, but there are too many aspects of this situation that only serve to magnify the bad options instead of anything that will help her move forward.

You can’t make her make different decisions, but you can set boundaries that protect yourself.

Setting boundaries in this way will help to preserve the relationship, because you’ll be asking for what you need – for her to take on a more active role in the expenses of the home and the expenses associated with her life.

Direct her to something tangible like the health insurance. This is a non-negotiable for her, but you should set an end date for when you’ll stop paying for it. Help her set up her budget so that she can take it on. This will probably mean that she stops paying rent for the apartment.

Discuss her options for getting out of the lease, whether that’s simply not renewing with her boyfriend when it’s up or seeing if there’s a clause that would allow them to break it. She doesn’t seem to want to end the lease, and it’s understandable that she would want to go back to the life she was living. But she can’t do that until she starts to establish a better way of living. It won’t happen all at once, but taking one thing at a time will help.

Dear Eric: My roommate and her boyfriend are always hanging out at our place. I don’t really mind because I have a full social life and the place is big enough that we don’t feel on top of each other.

The boyfriend is really nice. Too nice for my roommate, I think. When he’s not around, she will bad mouth him for no reason on the phone or even sometimes to me. I don’t ever agree but I don’t contradict her because I don’t see any reason for us to get into a fight.

She and I are not friends. We both took over someone else’s lease. We knew each other but we wouldn’t socialize if we weren’t living together.

I feel bad for the boyfriend, though. He deserves better. I have been thinking about telling him what she’s saying. Should I?

– Caught in the Middle

Dear Middle: Nope. This isn’t your business and it’s going to invite conflict into your living situation. If the boyfriend was a friend of yours or if you felt he was in danger, then it might be appropriate to intervene. But right now, it’s best for you to stay out of his less-than-ideal relationship.

Dear Eric: Along with your advice for “Changed for the Better", whose parents held an “intervention” trying to get him to move back to the suburbs from the city, I'd suggest he invite his parents to visit him on a semi-annual basis. He could then show them his favorite places, introduce his friends, et cetera.

Our children have done this for us, and it allayed my fears about where their life is taking them and opened my mind to the fact that there are many ways to live a good life.

– Another Worried Mom

Dear Mom: I love this idea! Not only does it help strengthen the connection between parents and child, but it also gives the parents concrete places and people to visualize when they’re thinking about their child’s day-to-day. It’s easy to let imagination run wild, especially with no context, or only headlines as context. Being able to see the actual street where their son lives or the coffee shop he frequents will put them at ease.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

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