We have ourselves a situation….
After what seemed like a whole month or so since the last boyfriend we never knew, the youngest of our twin daughters (miss lovelorn…patron saint of all lost souls) finds herself a fellow. We’ll call him Clyde for reasons that will become more apparent later on. We learned of his existence like we usually do, because of a casual mention…nothing big, just a name drop so we all know she’s “talking” to someone, Through the generations we’ve gone from “going with” to “seeing” to “talking to” someone as we describe the initial phases of a budding relationship. I’m cool with it, I just try to keep up with the lingo…I guess as long as it doesn’t transform into we’re “groping”, I can live with it. I’ve come to recognize the name drop as the start point of the classic pattern our daughter has. Never once has there been a bouncing into the room, hey guys I met this great boy. He’s cute and smart and funny, he likes me…he’s a manager at Best Buy (just an example) and I think you’ll really like him! I’d like for you to meet him. That would be so awesome if that happened…but no…instead I’ve come to recognize that she is inserting a guy into conversation….Then she always leads to some revelations about why he’s another project. I know that sounds kind of crappy. But if you’d been through as many of these as I have,…and by the way every one of these broken boys has hit the road in a relatively short time. That’s been either because they get what they need or want, find another sucker or the most common reason thus far given, she’s found out that surprise…he’s seeing someone else also! At least as far as we know she doesn’t put up with that.
Revelation one. He’s a little older than me. If she’s to be believed by 4 or 5 years. Revelation two. He works construction…so sometimes he doesn’t work. Revelation three. His car is on the fritz. Revelation four. He lost both his parents when he was very young..(ok that one is sad)…revelation five. He lives rent free in a house that belongs to his roommate’s Dad but they don’t get along and he’s about to get kicked out. Revelation six. He had a good job at (local manufacturer) but they messed up on everyone’s W2s so he owes backtaxes and so he quit, he says. Okay….Revelation seven, he has a dog and if he gets kicked out he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, he loves that dog! Revelation eight. He thinks he might want to go to school someday but he isn’t sure what he wants to do. Impressive. As these roll out I can’t help but glaze over I’m sure….as I wonder why it is that our daughter doesn’t think she deserves better and why has she taken it upon herself to rescue everybody. She meets most of these characters on-line…I haven’t really looked because I’m afraid I might really find out that there truly is a website called something like goodfornothing.com or needywebe.com….anyway, rolling forward. She lays on me one day in the kitchen that she’s so happy because they have just had their one month anniversary, I don’t facebook regularly ask anyone…but I am friends with a few people this daughter being one of them. When she posts things I get an e-mail ping. Most of the time I glance at the tag line and just ignore it. I really don’t care that much about her every thought…sorry. But this one got my eye because it had anniversary in the tag line. So I bite and open the post. In it she is going on and on about how much she loves this guy, is so happy to have him in her life, can’t imagine life without him. Really? One month. Her sister contacts me and says did you just see that? Yes I said. We agree it’s sad. He got made fun of later a little bit about that by her Mother and her older brother and sister…it concerned me and told me that this one totally gives her heart in like 5 minutes, holds nothing back and then puts herself out there…guys sense neediness don’t they? Why don’t girls? We are often missing the neediness detection gene I guess.
So one day my husband isn’t feeling well and actually ends up in the ER with what turned out to be a very severe ear ache and the accompanying vertigo. Awful. After a harrowing day there, I get him home and laid out on the sofa…armbands still on his wrist and in she walks to introduce us to Clyde. Complete with hunter’s cap, camo jacket and pierced ears…there he is, I stick my hand out as she introduces him to me, at least he has a handshake! So hubby there on the couch looking like he’d been run over by a truck and sporting the latest in hospital arm bands…do you think our daughter put two and two together that this might not be the best time to drop by unannounced with her new friend? Nope. Hubby sticks out his hand says hello and lays back down. They then proceed to the basement with no real interaction. I set about taking care of my husband, as I am worried about him and he’s still feeling poorly but a couple of times I find a reason to go downstairs. Both times this guy is off to himself behind the bar talking to someone on his cell phone. I can’t explain why but it made me feel uneasy. I pulled our daughter aside and explained to her a little about her Dad. Her reaction was that they had planned to stay downstairs….to which I said I don’t think it’s a good time to have company period. I went back upstairs and after about another 2 hours she brings him upstairs and they finally leave.
Roll forward a little. This fellow hasn’t returned to our house, with us home, since that day. Might I say, not a way to ingratiate yourself to your new girlfriend’s family. We pick up on indications that our daughter is funding the relationship and all they do. She drags herself home (Winter break) at 3, 4, 5 and a couple of times 7 or so in the morning. Always with a good story of where she’s been, why she’s so late etc…..which we don’t believe at all unfortunately, here is the rest of the situation.
One day my husband sends me an all capped text at work that says simply, did you take the money from our cash box? We have, for years, kept a cash box under our bed….probably 4-500$ worth of coin. Various garage sales etc…you know the stash you go to when you need quarters for the car wash…that box! I text back no I didn’t, then I call him. The metal box was visible from the bedroom door, our kids all know its there. Our little one sometimes stacks coins from it, so even he knows it’s there. My husband tells me the box is completely empty except for two foreign coins that had been left. Completely empty. A smart thief would have skimmed…..could have skimmed forever probably because that’s where we dump all our coin and chances are we wouldn’t have caught it. But no, whoever it was actually emptied the box. No small feat. The person had to have had knowledge, access, come prepared with something to carry all that out in and lugged probably at least 50 pounds of coin out of our house. I said you don’t think (4 year old’s name here) could have done that. My husband said no, he couldn’t have lifted it nor would he have done such a thing. I knew he was right. Well since our oldest daughter had been away except for a weekend or two…we started lining up suspects…who could have done this. First we thought about vendors who could have had access. Thing is, my husband is home officed so that wasn’t too likely. Quite a show it would be lugging 40-50 pounds of change past a person. So then we came up with a couple of kids who babysit for us on rare occasion…but quickly discounted them because this was in our bedroom and those kids just didn’t have the knowledge, the time or inclination to do this…besides our 4 year old would have told us, he tells all. Then we looked at each of our kids. Our eldest son is home so infrequently, he wouldn’t have had opportunity plus we just don’t think he would do that. So our eldest twin daughter. She had been making a bit of a stink about money and being broke…has a part time job at her school and earns a pretty good wage. Home far less frequently than her sister…sometimes alone…knew where the cash box was. Could be, we suppose…out of character….most anything she’s ever asked us for we find a way to get…so. Then we come to our youngest twin daughter. Access, frequency, dishonest frequently…has this new friend….still it’s a large leap from lying to stealing. So then we look at the new friend. Well when our daughter is home and we’re not, he has opportunity. He would only have knowledge if a) our daughter told him the cash was there or b) he cased the joint. Remember me saying I just felt uneasy with his behavior that night he was hunkered downstairs on his cell speaking under his breath to someone? yeah..It’s hard to believe your kid would steal from you or help someone else to…it’s such a violation and horrible feeling of distrust….like all of a sudden you have someone in your home and you don’t know who they are anymore. Horrible.
How did we handle it? We haven’t fully yet. My husband who you already know doesn’t mince words, sat both our girls down, and loudly told them what he had discovered. How that made us feel and what the consequence would be if someone didn’t speak up. Of course we got denial from both daughters. Expected that. He gave them 24 hours to fess up. After that he said one of you knows who took our money. No one came forward of course so now what’s going to happen is all codes will be changed and neither of our daughters will be allowed to be in our home without us there. Period. Immediate texts went flying to their Mother. I would urge her to stay out of our business on this, but also to protect herself.
We discussed our youngest daughter as a suspect a lot and I said hey…for all her faults I know this…he’s new on the scene and this happens. My opinion he’s involved. Scenarios. He did it and she doesn’t know he did it. Unlikely. She led him to the money and helped him do it. Maybe. Creepy very creepy…in my bedroom for heaven’s sake, Our daughter took it and gave it to him…possibly intending to pay it back before it was discovered missing. Now she can’t because it’s been discovered missing and she’s implicated now. More likely…that she saw it as helping him and just borrowing from us fits better…but now she can’t come forward, she feels. To me, it’s the most likely scenario. That’s been since right before Thanksgiving and it’s middle of January now. Due to Christmas break, sanctions have yet to be fully imposed but as they go back to school now will be. So you now maybe get why I refer to him as Clyde….she’s Bonnie, he’s Clyde. Partners in crime. How romantic!!! How exciting!!!1 How sad….
We immediately changed our behavior in our own house…which I HATE! I can’t leave my purse out unattended anymore. My husband came up with a new hiding place for his wallet, credit cards everything. It’s a bad feeling, it really is. Now every $10 bill you swore you had, coin that’s just gone from your billfold…now we think…has she been siphoning off funds for a while now? Then it happened, another thing went missing.
We had a Christmas party to attend, so we had a sitter that night. When we got home, there was evidence that our daughter had been home and baked something…turns out it was cookies. Our sitter says that our daughter and her friend came to the house for a while, she baked a couple batches of cookies which she took with them. Hmm. Why only come to our house when we aren’t there? Next morning, I go to charge my phone and my charger is gone. It’s always on the kitchen counter in the same spot. There are only two of us in the house who have phones that use that particular charger, me and this particular daughter. It’s a supercharger with two ports so I can charge my phone and ipad at the same time. My daughter constantly uses it and now it’s gone. My husband calls her and at this point it’s like hey, do you accidentally take my charger? I checked her room and looked around before we called no dice. Her answer was no, but I have an extra one if you want me to bring it by. No thanks anyway though. So it’s missing and low and behold Clyde had been over the night before. A coincidence? My husband said why the hell would you take someone’s charger. I said because you need one. It was missing for about two weeks when out of the blue she calls me and says guess what….I found your charger, it was in my duffle bag. Ok. She returned it…damaged. I can’t shake the feeling that he took it, she found it on him or at his place and took it back.
SO all this is quite unsettling, and there is a talk of epic proportions about to be had between Father and Daughter…..stand by for that! Footnote is that our daughter’s bank statement arrived and unfortunately there is a deposit on there…..looks like possibly our change, the amount is about right and far smaller than her paychecks, also appears she’s supporting him by purchasing groceries from what we can see of debit card activity.
Lessons Learned
Good people do bad things sometimes…I get that. Anyone who would sacrifice family for a relationship with someone has serious issues. Serious issues. Issues that are way beyond being fixed by us. Not only did this impact our relationship with her, but she let her sister hang with her.
Why leave two foreign coins in the box? To us it’s like being flipped off…a big F you. Again, doesn’t really feel like our daughter.
When your kid dates someone and refuses to bring them around it means something. Watch for it.
You can raise your kids to do right, to be safe, to help others etc….still they have minds of their own and make choices.
Whether or not we ever truly find out what happened here, unfortunately it has put a possibly permanent barrier between us and our daughter. Without trust….you just really can’t have much by way of a relationship. We may be relations…but I”m afraid the ship part might have sailed.
GSM.
