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How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists
HurtNoMore, you may want to research the option to become an EMANCIPATED MINOR. I believe you can do this without paying a lawyer. This is like a divorce from your parents, at school it might help you qualify for aid, to keep your assets in play but not your parent’s assets. I don’t know all the answers here, I just know that this COULD be a step for you (and I don’t know your relationship with your parents). It’s a hard road, only you can decide if you need to do THAT or keep engaged with your dad.
If you can find it, babysitting jobs CAN pay well, and aren’t visible to the tax man. When I was in college, I slept every night at a woman’s house, and she paid me for it. She worked the night shift in a factory and needed somebody to sleep at her house because of her kids.
Athena,
I don’t think hurtnomore is a minor. She is at least 18 and in college, but still being considered as a dependant on her father’s taxes. That’s why FA wants her to get loans.
This is so unfair because she is supporting herself and yet he is taking the deduction!
I think, if the divorce demands that he pay for her college, then legal council is in order. It’s considered child support and he can get in lots of trouble for not paying it. All kinds of bad things happen to men who don’t pay child support.
Hurtnomore,
Getting someone to “co-sign” for the loan ASSURES the lender that someone BESIDES YOU will take responsibility if you fail to repay the loan.
If your relatives are not good credit risks, then the lender may not accept them.
Speak to your student aid department and tell them what is going on…find out WHY your father is “required” to pay for your college, and if he IS REQUIRED by any law or divorce decree to pay, then you will have to find an attorney to go to court. Finding an attorney to do this for FREE is probably going to be DIFFICULT or impossible.
Your only options may be:
1) do what your dad demands in order to get him to pay (down side is you have to put up with his shiat)
2) quit school for the spring semester and go to work, and set yourself up independently, support yourself and save your money and then reapply for school in a year or so with grants as an INDEPENDENT adult. (down side: some grant programs won’t consider ONLY your income until you are 25, this will also mean that it will take several years of part time school to finish your degree.
3) consult with your mother and find out what information she has about your dad being required to pay your schooling. See if she will help you enforce it if he is required by divorce decree.
The thing is Hurtnomore, you have known for over a year now that your dad is a controlling person, and he is NOT GOING TO CHANGE….your whole culture and family situation is not going to change, it is all about control of you, making you do what your family expects, and you have two choices, and only two really, and that is to become financially indpendent and on your own or continue to knuckle under and do what they want in exchange for them supporting you financially.
The “golden rule” is that HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES. So if you accept their money, you have to go by their rules. You are legally an adult, so that being the case….it is your choice but not an easy one because independence requires YOU be responsible for your own support.
Dear OxDrover,
Its not that I’m willing to accept the money. Its just that if he’s legally bound, what can I do? I mean I know plenty of students who work 2-3 jobs to go to school here. I’ve been looking into that for the next semesters. But for right I need a loan for this semester which is coming to a close soon.
Skylar- I’m going to look into a few scholarship websites and apply.
Callmeathena- Im 19 going on 20.
Thanks everyone!
Hurtnomore,
You still have not explained WHY and HOW he is “legally bound” to financially support you through college.
You say “what can I do?”
First you have to determine IF he IS LEGALLY BOUND TO Support you, and secondly if he IS LEGALLY BOUND to support you, and is not willing to do so without being compelled by law, then you will have to find an attorney that will get a judge to compel him to do so, but IT WILL NOT BE ANYTHING THAT WILL BE IMMEDIATE…it will take months if not years to get him into court and make him give you the money even if there is a contract that says he is legally bound to do so.
If you are wanting him to sign a loan or give you money for the REST OF THIS SEMESTER Which is probably about another 6 weeks or so long, I can almost tell you THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN unless he does so voluntarily. Legal things take TIME and if someone wants to DELAY they can DELAY DELAY DELAYYYYY for a long time.
As I remember he was giving you grief about driving you to school at the start of this semester and in delaying the money for the classes last fall at the START of this semester. THIS IS NOTHING NEW….he has been doing this kind of thing since your senior year in high school…and at the start of your freshman year.
The school’s financial adviser is going to be the best one to help you figure out a way to get money for the rest of this semester and for your next semester….but one thing that you need to learn I think, is to PLAN IN ADVANCE FOR SEVERAL MONTHS AHEAD for your financial needs. Know how much it will cost you for a place to stay, for food, transportation, and school expenses, etc. so that you have these things lined out.
I can’t tell you from a distance how to plan these things because I don’t know your situation, but I suggest that you find someone older that you can trust (not any of your family or family type friends as they seem to be like the woman last summer that you stayed with that betrayed you) and see if they can help you, maybe the parents of one of your friends, or even call a domestic violence shelter and see if they have someone who can ADVISE you. It is obvious to me that you need someone to give you some PRACTICAL ON SITE ADVICE about how to manage your finances etc.
Hang in there Hurtnomore, and keep on working toward your independence in a logical, methodical way. Get some real life advice and help in how to finish up the semester if you can, or if you must, drop out of school with “passing grades” at least, find a place to live and a job to support yourself. It is a shame that you don’t have a supportive family, but hopefully some of your friends have parents or older sibs that will give you some advice and mentor you. Good bless! (((hugs)))
Ox and everyone,
I only know a little about this topic, because I have just started looking into it for my own daughter who is 15 and refuses to have anything to do with her spath father/my ex, and this extends to financial support… he has stated he will not pay for college unless she returns to “a full relationship” with him.
So I looked into this and was very dismayed to learn that “legally bound to pay’ is not anything to do with the divorce agreement — it is how the law views parental responsibility to pay for their children’s college! So, this is universal, and the law is fairly recent.
What this means is that no, my daughter cannot become independent or emancipate herself (exception: if she gets married!) until something like age 25 or 26… until that age, the parents are LEGALLY OBLIGATED in the eyes of the schools/FA people to pay. That means that no, she does not qualify on her own for any tuition breaks. The decision makers do look at the parent assets/income (I have little or none, and her dad is extremely wealthy).
What I am learning is that schools may qualify her for financial aid based solely on my income, because she lives with me full time (though we technically have joint custody; I cannot afford the legal battle of trying to get official full legal/physical custody… he would fight me endlessly and bankrupt me. He has the funds to abuse me financially in that way. Even though she has not lived with him for 2 years).
However, schools/FA do retain the right to “consider” his income… and to deny her financial aid based on her dad’s assets/income. And we have NO recourse in that — I mean, the burden falls to me/my daughter to pressure him to pay (either cajoling (haha right, yeah?) or taking him to court (which costs money we do not have).
So it is really a tough bind that people like hurtnomore and my daughter are in — and while my ex-husband is “legally obligated to pay” for her college — how do we get a spath to do that?
I mean — he gleefully enjoys dangling this carrot to her, and dancing around the answer — will he pay? won’t he pay? if she returns to “a full relationship” with him (whatever that means) he will pay? What if she isn’t respectful enough? Will he then withdraw the funding again?
It totally sucks.
And is ABUSIVE.
And… so no, it is not (unfortunately) quite so simple as JUST TELL YOUR DAD TO PAY BECAUSE HE IS LEGALLY OBLIGATED TO or, TAKE HIM TO COURT, or, TELL THE SCHOOL HE WON’T PAY.
That last one is the kicker: just go talk to your FA office and explain the situation. I know that is well meaning advice, and I would have once given in myself before I started looking into this and discovered that no, this really is a no-win bind.
The only answers seem to be:
1. suck it up to your dad to get the money
2. go to school slowly, work your way through.
3. work first, save up as much as you can, then pay for it yourself later or once you turn 25 or 26 (whatever the age is) or can get your own loans
4. get married and thus “emancipated” from parents
Bottom line is — it seems that there is no loophole in this law that covers cases of abusive spathness of parents who refuse to pay or attach abusive strings to the money.
And the cost of college being what it is these days, and the number of cases of student loans that are excessive and cannot be paid of or discharged in bankruptcy — if one of the parents actually DOES have the money but refuses… well, the kid is pretty stuck.
i hope my info is incorrect, but I fear that it is not.
4.
20 years,
Okay I hear what you are saying, it isn’t really a “law” so much as a financial aid REGULATION, or requirement. It is for the kid with a parent who refuses to pay a “catch 22” that they can’t get around except by WAITING to go to school.
Now, what Hurtnomore is saying makes Sense—she is caught in that “catch 22” and sounds like your daughter may be caught in that.
As far as your daughter is concerned, I ADMIRE her resolve not to be “bought” by her father with school money. That takes a STRONG young woman to stand up and say NO!
I’m glad that your daughter has you though for advice and support. Hurtnomore doesn’t even have that, instead she has pressure from family and friends to conform to daddy’s demands, as well as no support from anyone to help her get set up independently in an apartment etc.
Good luck to you and your daughter I think she is gonna do just fine. Any young woman that strong will make it in this world!
20years:
You don’t HAVE to enter into the power and control game! What it says is that she could start at a community college for her first two years and then transfer and you could skip this whole load of stress and crap altogether. Find out which community college feeds into the university of choice and start her there. It doesn’t even have to be two years, can be just one, but all colleges require those lower level courses that easily transfer so skip the jumping hoops phase and save money!!!
And it is “easy” for me to say at age 49, years go by in the blink of an eye, so waiting it out might be the best option in cases like this… if at all possible… move to another city, get a job, try to take a few college classes (even at a community college), pay as you go, then get your degree later.
So hard to know what the right answer is or advice to give. Or, apply for scholarships. That seems a very smart approach.
I can see that Hurtnomore is in a terrible bind right now, already enrolled in school, the money is due, and in order to get the money from her dad, she is expected and pressured to go along with something that goes against who she IS.
Hurtnomore, you sound like you are at a threshold of something, decision to make about your dad/money. This is not easy. Whatever choice you decide upon will be the right one for you NOW. You can always make a different choice later, if you are not comfortable with the results. Life does seem to be trial and error, for many of us.
Even if you do not have support of family and friends, you are in a college setting where, perhaps, there are new friends to meet who might offer you some encouragement, ideas, opportunities, support. Don’t give up!
I wish you lots of good luck!
Ox, thanks — I do think my daughter is going to be fine — she amazes me with her strength and resolve. The tough part for me is that because she is a minor she still needs some protection from me. Minors do not have enough legal rights to protection from their parents (particularly spath parents who lie and fool most everyone). So, I try to do what I can to provide a buffer and shield, but make that as invisible as possible. I don’t want to unwittingly diminish any of HER power.
(don’t you think, sometimes, we forget our personal power? I think it is designed that way — the spath doesn’t so much steal our power as cause us to forget that we have it — always did.)
20years
Can I offer you some perspective.
I just went through the process with my oldest child. He applied to, and was accepted to more than 8 excellent schools.
Some were public. Some were private.
I have joint custody with my ex-husband, who is a an idiot, but my son lives with me. Not one school tried to get my ex-husband to pay up. Not one school asked me for his 1040 or W2s or anything. Not one school asked me for copies of our divorce decree. My son lives with me, and that’s all that matters. And yes, he’s getting plenty of financial aid.
I was all worked up too, years prior, worrying about this.
But when you think of how many thousands of other people are in the same seat that you are in, you realize, it’s gotta work, and, in fact, it does.
Athena