Family Supporting Career

[thinkmcflythink]

Hey there Scarleteen friends!
I was wondering if any of you have encountered this ongoing problem I have and how you handle it.

I'm the first person in my family to attend a four year university and actually finish, let alone graduate early. I also have ambitions of going to graduate school and getting a master's later in life. I finished high school early also and was able to start taking classes in college before I graduated. I'm a journalism major and want to be a multimedia reporter later on in life. I've started doing internships with professional papers, working with my university's paper and I love what I do.
However, my family seems to be on opposite ends of the spectrum with support for me. Some are very supportive and proud and others want nothing to do with me. Even the ones who are very supportive, are judgemental in ways they do not understand.

Many of them do not get it, because I chose to get away from my small American farm town and see other things because staying here wasn't for me. I also deal with a lot of guilt because of the financial burden I am placing on my immediate family, who don't understand why I can't get more aid to pay for my school because I'm not a financial need and am average on paper.

How do I get them to understand and take what I do seriously? Is it worth my time? How have any of you navigated this scenario?

[Heather]

Can you fill me in about the ones who are NOT supportive, and your relationship with them, and how much they matter to you?

In other words, of those who are not supportive, who among that group feels like a big part of your life, where that gap is a big deal? Getting unilateral support for pretty much anything from everyone in our family is often unlikely - and there will often be some people where we just learn to accept that and let it go - but there may be a person or two who is a big part of your life and heart where talking about that and trying to turn it around makes sense.

[thinkmcflythink]

I would say the ones that matter the most that do not understand would be my step father. We have not had the greatest relationship since he married my mother. I want him to understand so that I don't cause anymore arguments between them.

He picks fights with her about me and the whole situation. He refuses to help financially and will not come with her when she visits me at school. He doesn't think I'll ever have a real job.

It also doesn't help that only my one aunt is supportive and actually talks to me. The rest of his family dislikes me and expresses these opinions to him, so I think maybe he feels pressured to disapprove.

I don't know how many times my mom has called me while I'm away and said that they have gotten into a fight and it has something to do with me and college. She'll cry and get really angry with me for not getting more scholarships and aid.

Then it cools down for awhile and starts over again. I'm just tired of having to deal with the same situation over and over again.

[Heather]

Okay.

So, I'm seeing a few things here.

For one, I'm seeing a need to set a boundary with your mother and ask her not to share her conflicts in her relationship with your stepfather with you. Truly, that's all about their relationship, and it personally doesn't seem appropriate for me for her to bring this stuff to you, especially if she's making it about you (which it probably really isn't, since again, this sounds like it's really THEIR conflicts to work out in THEIR relationship).

Long story short, if you feel like you're the cause of all their conflict a) that's not likely true, but b) that's because it sounds like they don't have healthy boundaries when it comes to you. If they did, you wouldn't be feeling quite this way, and it seems to me like you're being scapegoated here, and taking it on because of that lack of boundaries parents are supposed to have when it comes to their relationships with each other and any children - including adult children -- involved.

With your stepfather, do you have any shred of a relationship, on the whole, to the degree you could at least ask to have a conversation with him about this one-on-one, with the aim of finding a way to meet in the middle?

[thinkmcflythink]

Well, as far as that goes, we speak to each other maybe a few times a year. We basically do not talk except when nesscessary. We have nothing in common. My mom says things that I think just make her feel better that we do not have a relationship. She'll say things like "oh when your step dad comes with me to visit you," even though we both know that won't ever happen. He doesn't think my career is a "real" job. I kind of feel like anything I say wouldn't matter because it's obvious he doesn't care.

[Heather]

I'm sorry to hear that, and I certainly understand how that can feel.

It sounds like probably the best you can do then, for yourself, is to work on letting go of your desire for approval and support from him, and then just set some of those boundaries I talked about with your mother.

That can certainly include asking her to try and view you and your stepfather's relationship realistically, rather than presenting what wounds like an idealization or fantasy of it. So, for example, when she says something like "when he comes to visit," you can say something like, "Hey, I think we both know that isn't going to happen. That sucks, and it certainly isn't what I want, but for my own well-being, I need us to both represent and think about my relationship with him and his behaviour realistically. can you do that when you're talking with me, please?"

It's on your Mom, again, as the parent, and as the person in a relationship with your stepfather, to be a grownup, as it were, and deal with whatever sad or unhappy feelings she has about the way he interacts with you.