How Do You Keep Your Daughter From Being Hurt By the Felon She Loves?

Reader’s Question

Our 26-year-old daughter hasn’t spoken to us in approximately 3 years. This is mostly because she became involved with a man who has a felony record because of drugs. We tried to warn her about this man’s character to no avail. She eventually moved out to be with him and now won’t even acknowledge any of her extended family members.

We thought that when this man was arrested on a warrant and extradited to Nevada recently that it would open her eyes. It didn’t. This man is very self-absorbed and doesn’t care what he does to others. My daughter, however, says they have a lot in common. I know they don’t, but she can’t seem to see it. This is her first serious relationship, and he is 10 or 11 years older than she is. On Facebook, he openly lists his interests as “women”. He has done this after establishing a relationship with her. We just know he will eventually hurt her, but she won’t listen. Recently we have gotten calls from bill collectors, and it has been so difficult for us. Our daughter just recently got her Master’s degree in teaching (heard it through the grapevine), has her real estate license, and is a beautiful girl. She has always had good credit and paid her bills on time. But we fear that since he has destroyed his own credit he’s on the way to ruining hers as well. We have called her cell phone and sent text messages to her, but she will not even respond. I think she truly hates us.

Do you have any suggestions about what we might do? Are we wrong for trying to contact our daughter? Prior to this man entering our daughter’s life, we had a great family relationship. We are heartbroken and devastated over this. I cry each day and can’t seem to get the fact that we may have lost our daughter out of my mind. I worry that she will be the body they find next. Would I be wrong to send her a letter if I find out where she is? As of right now we are told she is okay, but is she? This man has had nothing to do with his own family until the past couple of years and has 2 children from previous relationships but can’t even be alone with them. He himself has been involved with several women and told our daughter at one point to not leave him because he will not be able to live with it. I am confident that our daughter isn’t taking drugs, so I don’t know why she has changed so much. Please help.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

There are often two dominant factors that trap women into relationships with “bad” men. First, there is the manipulative skill of the man. Such men often know just the right things to say and do to get the woman thinking that they are the answer to their prayers. They seem to have radar for women with a tenuous sense of self-esteem, those who tend to love with passion so deep that it clouds their perceptions and judgments, and those who simply cannot accept the idea that there are people who are radically different in character from themselves. Second, there are the unmet needs of the woman. Women who don’t feel safe unless they’re hooked up with someone they view as powerful, women who admire men who take risks and who have always wanted to take more risks themselves, women who confuse being exploited with being needed, and women who confuse possessiveness with being valued are at the greatest risk.

There are two things you can do. The most important is to be available. You can’t push yourself on your daughter because she’s likely to misinterpret your efforts as a desire to control. But you can, nonetheless, make it clear that you are there for her whenever she might need you. Don’t judge so much as keep your arms open. The other thing you can do is much more painful — wait. Right now, you’ve focused all your negative attention on this man and ascribed all blame for the situation onto him. And you also want to rescue your daughter from the eventual hurt you think she’ll experience at his hands. But as good a manipulator as he may be, your daughter has issues of her own to work through. Besides, she is an adult, and as such is responsible for her own choices and their consequences. In time, some lessons will certainly be learned. When they are, your daughter might feel a huge sense of shame. That’s when it will need to be clear to her that those who really love her aren’t waiting to say “I told you so” but rather to accept her unconditionally and support her as she makes some necessary course-corrections in her life.