licoricemoratorium ( )

Date: March 22, 2013 06:43PM Posted by:Date: March 22, 2013 06:43PM

My husband is the oldest of six adult children born in the church to TBM parents. There are two TBM daughters, who are the obvious delight of my inlaws, and three absolutely non-Mormon sons who are utterly marginalized. My in-laws manage somehow to spend 50x more time with relatives in another state than they do with all of us who live less than one hour away from them right here in this state.



Oh, but I forgot to mention the youngest child. A boy. A man. 21 years old, their youngest. I remember when he was born.



While his parents were merrily planning his future for him as an Eagle scout and missionary, he turned to drugs right under their noses and they were able to ignore the reality of it for quite a while which is their only mode, ignoring anything that isn't Perfect Mormonism.



Fast forward 4 years. He has been convicted of strangling his girlfriend. He has been in rehab four or five times. He has gone to jail repeatedly.



He has stolen checks from his parents and siblings and committed check fraud and identity theft.



He has now admitted to police that he has upgraded to residential burglary, robbing the homes of LDS family and many members of the church, WHILE THEY WERE AT CHURCH.



This entire time, my in-laws have run around cleaning up his mess and forgiving him and going to court and crying about how he's a poor baby, and it's not his fault, it's that evil girlfriend of his. After many, many incidents, they told the courts they threw him out, when that was a lie. They continued to let him live there.



He spent two weeks in jail recently, and upon release, was let out of jail and my in-laws went and got him and moved him right back into the house. The house they are rarely at, because they spend so much freaking time in Idaho.



Today, we got this email. We might receive four messages of some variety from my in-laws per year. They do not ever call, they do not ever write, they do not invite my husband (their firstborn) to lunch or ask us to come to dinner, or have anything resembling a relationship of anything more complicated than Facebook with any of our four teenaged children, nor have they ever.



Hello kids,

>This just seems to be the easiest way to let everyone know what is going

>on. We think you all knew that R_______ turned himself to the Police a

>couple of weeks ago and was arrested and detained in the County Jail

>since then. Today, he had his arraignment and was " Released with

>Conditions" and will be living with us while the justice system decides

>what his punishment should be.

>While he is out, he will be attending drug counseling classes

>all day Monday thru Friday. Will be drug tested randomly. If he is ever

>late or misses classes or misses his random drug tests he is immediately

> returned to jail.

>We did not pay bail. He will not have a cell phone or car while he is

>living in our home. We told the attorney and R______, he would be treated

>like a 12 year old, basically. And R______ agreed that it was best that

>way. We have visited him in jail as have a couple of the victims. We

>have talked to him daily, and while concerned ourselves, we have seen the

>seeds of change...hopefully for real this time.

>Sitting in jail gives a lot of time for reflecting on how drugs have

>affected his life and he truly wants to change.

>His next court date is April ______. It is the Case setting. He is charged

>with Burglary, and Trafficking of stolen property. There are 5 cases.

>The court is looking at possible 3-6 months extensive in house addiction

>therapy as well as some jail time and restitution. We are

>encouraged by the thoughtful and deep things he has expressed to us and

>he would like the opportunity to share those things with those of you who

>have been hurt by his actions.

>That of course will take time. He has acknowledged and apologized to a

>couple of the victims that were ready to hear it.

>We just wanted to let you all know why we felt this was the right thing

>to do.

>He has hurt family members and friends of ours. We feel deep hurt for

>those betrayals. Truly, we do. Many of victims themselves feel as we do

>that with restitution, rehabilitation and change, the real R_______ can

>return to our family.

>

>We cannot tell you how to feel or act about this, we can only explain

>what we have done and why.

>

>Love, Mom and Dad





Bear in mind, this is not the first time things have come to a head. This is approximately the 20th time things have come to a head. They continually act like R_______ is a little boy and that he wants to turn his life around, and he says things that make them know he really can change, and they continually give him free reign in their lives while he has shown that he is full of you know what by committing any kind of crime he needs to to get money for heroin.



He says he uses 1 gram of heroin per day.



My in-laws absolutely never mention this situation in person. They just smile and giggle and pretend life is adorable and then twice a year we get these messages about R_______. It's like we're not allowed to talk about it. Like we're not allowed to talk about anything else "not nice".



My question is two-fold.



1. Is it just me, or do these folks prefer heroin-addiction and crime to decent law-abiding people like us whose only crime is not being Mormon anymore? I have teenagers. I know how much they drive you crazy and make you worry. But my in-laws are professional elephant-ignorers.



2. Is there any chance that R_______ is going to recover from drug-addiction and begin to change his life while being treated like a little boy and allowed to live rent-free with the people who have allowed him to rob their home, steal and forge checks, moved drug-using strangers into their home in their absence, beaten his girlfriend in their driveway (there is a restraining order that both parties ignore), robbed auxilliary family and no fewer than five ward members' homes? My mother-in-law has no backbone whatsoever in any situation and cannnot BEAR confrontation. I have no doubt at all that they are simply unwilling to leave their comfort zone. That this is more about them than him.



For those of you who have dealt with heartbreaking situations like this, what DOES work with an addict? My inlaws believe anything said to them with sincerity which explains their Mormonism, their pantry and all the praying they do in lieu of thinking. We all think they need to absolutely shut him out. But we haven't been there. They keep doing the same thing and things just keep getting worse and worse and worse.