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A 31-Year-Old woman who has never really had her own place

posted 4 years ago by SaltandLimes (154)
32 replies | jump to latest

There's this girl that I've known since she was 14. She is now 31 and has never permanently moved out of her parents' house. She has moved to different apartments, but keeps getting kicked out. There have been times where she had to leave in the middle of the night, because her landlord demanded that she evacuate, immediately.

She's also never had full time employment. Whatever job she does get, she quits it or gets fired. She's now married to a man who I guess doesn't make enough money to where they can afford their own place. She can't work because she has several kids that she has to take care of. It's just so crazy to me. I will never understand why she hasn't made the effort to get her own home. Does anyone else know someone like this?

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 4 years ago

No I don't. It kind of makes you wish you had a bottle of tequila.

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 4 years ago

The guy who cuts my grass is 31, and lives next door with his parents. But he's a super nice guy, and it works great for me!
He also takes care of my house when I'm traveling, and I do a LOT of traveling. I've been to 33 countries on five continents.

Not bragging, though. Okay, maybe a little.

😎

[–] Forky (1739) 4 years ago

DAYUM!

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 4 years ago

😎

[–] Kowalski (64193) 4 years ago

COUGHPATIENTZEROCOUGH

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

lol

[–] db20db (16574) 4 years ago

I agree. That's pretty damn funny, especially since I know that jerk's history on three different forums.

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 4 years ago

😎

[–] Eric56 (4580) 4 years ago

Does he have a wife/girlfriend and any kids?

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 4 years ago

No, he's single.

😎

[–] Eric56 (4580) 4 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Kowalski (64193) 4 years ago

YOUR POST AND ITS WORDING IS VERY TELLING...YOU SEEM TO WANT THE "WOMAN"

[–] SaltandLimes (154) 4 years ago

Huh?

[–] Kowalski (64193) 4 years ago

YO BRAH,YOU SUPER JELLY AND SHIT.

[–] pjpurple@verizon.net (5552) 4 years ago

I think I can beat the OP's story with someone even more immature. A long time ago I started corresponding with a woman who belonged to the same science fiction club. Okay, it was nerdy, but we were a bunch of sci-fi fans. This person and I shared interests in music and other things.

Over the years we exchanged many letters. She was living with her mom and didn't work. But her mom had a job. She also refused to learn how to drive. Her excuse was always, "I was afraid I'd wreck the car." Her life revolved around pen pals and watching TV. She was home all day, but her mom took care of their animals, cut the grass,etc.

Her mother must've had some major rocks in her head. She never insisted that her daughter learn to drive and get a job. Even when the mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, my pen pal wouldn't learn to drive. Her mom drove herself to a lot of her doctor appointments or else paid someone to drive her.

After her mother passed away it didn't take long for pen pal to move into a group home, abandoning all their pets. Over the years she referred to them as her "furries", her "fur babies",etc. She just "loved" them but apparently not enough!
The last time she wrote she said that she was applying for SSI. I wanted to write back, "Forget about SSI, how about applying for a J O B!" By then she was fifty and never had a job.

[–] Keelai (32800) 4 years ago

She's living n a group home and is applying for SSI. That sounds like she has a disability and can't work. She may have been to embarrassed to discuss it.

[–] pjpurple@verizon.net (5552) 4 years ago

That would seem plausible if you didn't know her. But I did! I mean, we corresponded for about twenty years. Aside from letters, we used to send tapes to each other. She certainly could read and write and talk. She liked to send me photos of herself (and a lot of her cats!). In one of her early photos when she was in her twenties, she was wearing a riding habit and posing with a horse her mom owned. She and her mom shopped endlessly at yard sales, garage sales, flea markets,etc. So she had no problem getting around.

If she didn't want to get a job, it was no problem for me personally. But over the years I came to realize that she suffered from that dreaded "L" word that people don't like to mention, namely, laziness.

She actually did have a job briefly. She mentioned it inadvertently. I don't think she meant to tell me. But she said that she was watching a certain movie on the TV in the office that she was cleaning. I was excited for her and asked when she got a job (finally).
I guess the rules vary from state to state. She lives in Texas and she told me that she applied for the "Lone Star" card which is their version of food stamps. And she was require to pay it back by working at a job for a while. I'm sure she only did it for as long as she had to because she never mentioned it again! And I've never known anyone with a real disability who has had to work to pay it back for receiving food stamps.

She wasn't disabled, just totally spoiled by her mom. Her late father insisted that she get a learner's permit. But he died when she was a teen-ager, so she would never go for her license.

In a way I felt sorry for her. Her mom seemed to like keeping her in a permanent childlike state. Some people are really tied to momma's apron strings. I'm not a psychologist but it seems to me that she had a social phobia and a lot of anxiety. Her mom should have gotten her help instead of letting her stay at home alone all day. I mean, in all the years we wrote she mentioned many, many penpals but never once mentioned a friend or boyfriend or even a neighbor. She and her mom had virtually no contact with anyone but each other.

I don't buy the "disabled' excuse. That's who I work with. I work for a company that supports those with physical and intellectual disabilities and a lot of them work. They don't have high paying jobs. But they work. If people in wheelchairs can, so could she. It was just plain old laziness.

[–] Keelai (32800) 4 years ago

"she had a social phobia and a lot of anxiety."

What type of group home? Is it for people who have mental illness? Her mother likely made a bad situation worst by not getting her help when she was younger.

I know plenty of people like her who outwardly appear normal, get around, and worked at one point, but they're mentally ill and can't work anymore.

"And I've never known anyone with a real disability who has had to work to pay it back for receiving food stamps."

I did. The person had a summer job but didn't report it and eventually had to pay the money back when the government found out.

[–] pjpurple@verizon.net (5552) 4 years ago

No, I can't really say. She was in one place briefly and moved. It all came about a few years ago when there was an evacuation because of a hurricane. She lives in east Texas, close to Houston. When her mom was alive they had to evacuate briefly like all their neighbors. But they returned home soon.

She was paying someone to drive her to the store and laundromat. It was really a shame because she was left with a house and car. But she couldn't take care of one and couldn't drive the other. With the evacuation, she left and went to one of those temporary shelters that they set up in school gymnasiums for such emergencies. From there she went right to a "group home' as she called it. I can't believe she was so irresponsible as to make no provisions for her multitude of cats.

Actually I think she and her mom were collectors,hoarders of sort, with their huge collections of figurines of all types and all their cats. She sent me pictures of her "collections"; cats, dogs, frogs, owls, her mom's horse figurines, pictures, etc. Their house looked like an indoor rummage sale!

She loved all that stuff, so it's hard to understand how she would abandon everything. She said that the SPCA took her cats but wouldn't tell her where. Why would they? She abandoned them. And apparently the house was looted. Someone who works at the group home checked up on the house when he visited relatives nearby.

She wrote, "Well, color me surprised."
No I colored her lazy and irresponsible. What do you expect when you abandon your house?

I don't think this group home is for the mentally ill. She told me about one woman who drove to church and she went along. She would go to their potluck suppers. In all the years we wrote she never once went to church. She actually had no idea WHAT denomination her parents were (or had been).
The potluck suppers, I think, were just another freebie that she took advantage of. That was one thing she and her mom were great at doing. She told me that they didn't pay to have their weekly trash hauled. They would take all their trash and dump it in convenience store trash cans. She never understood it when I told her you can be fined if they catch you doing that. It's illegal.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of our writing and all the letters. She had quite a few pen friends as she called them. But a grown-up's life shouldn't revolve around penpals. I think her mom was totally remiss in her duties as a mother. A parent's job is to raise a child so that
he or she does NOT need you.

My son is grown and has a profession. His has his own home. If he was living with me when he was thirty and just hanging around the house and I had to drive him everywhere, I would feel like the worst failure as a parent. Also, I'd be sure to get him SOME counseling!

[–] Keelai (32800) 4 years ago

Her mother could've been afraid to be alone which could explain the reason why she never helped her daughter. Or she had mental issues herself. Or she didn't want to face the fact that her child wasn't normal.

The ASPCA could've euthanized her cats if they couldn't find homes for them. Better not to tell her.

There are different types of group homes with different levels of support. I knew people who lived in one which was just a normal private middle-income apartment building. There were three roommates in each apartment and they were required to attend therapy. They were free to come and go or leave the program. The people I knew who lived there attended college at the time and tried to work, but continued to have relapses.

I know other people who live alone in their own apartment and are supported with SSI and Section 8 or welfare. They're more independent and had received "help", but they're never going to be cured.

Your penpal doesn't sound like she could live on her own. At least she's physically with other people now instead of isolated.

I agree with you about parenting, but there are many parents with issues themselves which they pass onto their children or they have one child who can't be helped or doesn't want help. Also, the quality of counseling services isn't always good especially for the poor.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

Anyone who routinely gets kicked out of apartments either has a very serious drug habit, is a psychotic who threatens neighbors, or conducts blood-sacrifice rituals in her living room without putting down a tarp first.

My deepest sympathy to her children.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

The tarp is essential. Cleaning blood out of carpet is a beast.

[–] AndyKing1967 (35121) 4 years ago

No.

[–] Kowalski (64193) 4 years ago

THOUGHT PROVOKING.

[–] AndyKing1967 (35121) 4 years ago

I couldn't think of anything relevant to add.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

i have had and have a lot of problems that have made my life worse. some of them are like your girl (i was dependent on others into my 30s, very unstable financially), but not in the other ways.

in many ways, maybe most, we aren't the authors of ourselves. that's my opinion, but i think most of the studies into neurology, areas of free will, support that.

and the things that make our lives go one way or another - iq, impulse control, agreeable nature, etc - are things that we don't really control. regardless of how much of it is hard wired (quite a bit, it seems) and how much is environment, it's the case that by the time you can argue a person is fully developed & mature, all the things that formed him into that person have happened to him, and he had no control over any of those things.

which isn't to say that people should be fatalistic about their own lives, or about anything. you should try to help yourself, all that stuff.

but you do have to be realistic, and accept what you are and accept what other people are.

so without knowing her or anything, i'd say she's almost certainly got a lot of problems in her life, a lot of challenges, deals with things that lots of people don't have to deal with, and that's probably made her life worse.

she almost certainly should be doing more to improve her lot, and maybe people in her life could nudge her in the right direction.

but at least, i kinda feel that she deserves sympathy more than she deserves contempt.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

She has children. They're the ones who really deserve sympathy.

[–] Keelai (32800) 4 years ago

"She can't work because she has several kids that she has to take care of."

She appears to have had serious issues in her past, but now she's a housewife. Hubby needs a second job.

[–] PaladinNJ (20747) 4 years ago

A friend of my family is 45 and still lives with his parents. They don't charge him rent and his mother makes all his meals. He's a nice enough guy but drives everyone crazy bragging about how much money he has saved. He's got no expenses, of course he saves a lot.