I've been slowly integrating more responsibilities (objectives) into her daily/weekly routine. I've been handing over things like bills, cars (registration, maintenance, inspections, etc), etc for her to manage. She's faltered in some areas, with consequences, but she's getting there. She's correct in her assessment that she would be lost if something were to happen to me. She's put all the bills (mortgage, utilities, etc), financial planning, vehicles (which I'm slowly turning over to her), insurance, medical, etc in my court. Could she do all of this stuff? Sure. Does she? No. Not minimizing what she does, but her responsibilities are the kids and keeping the house clean/organized. I know that's a lot of work, I did it when she was in the hospital for two weeks. It's tough, but it's not impossible, I acknowledge that her job isn't easy.
She's not so good with time management and criticality assessment. Unless she has an ordered schedule without any pop-up targets that require immediate attention (deviating from the planned schedule), she is pretty unorganized. I'm trying to help her with the time management portion and she's getting better, but again, she's highly scheduled driven. As any Marine will tell you, initiative is our bread and butter. Better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Part of those issues stem from her parent's social dynamics, it's hard to break bad habits that were reinforced by 30 years of parenting in that environment. We usually work as a team (my wife and I) on helping her sister (younger sibling) to overcome those same bad habits. That actually helps her see some things easier, even if she doesn't have the severity of issues like her sister does. Their mother has put this fear into them that is extremely hard to explain, but it's like the baby bird that refuses to leave the nest for fear of everything. Know "Finding Nemo"? Marlin (the dad), is like their mother, overly protective but with a strong streak of martyrdom/masochism/manipulation. So, in a way, both have been crippled with regards to asserting their independence.
......she did what you asked her to do....you just didn't like the answer
.....if she doesn't understand how the detector works (besides needing new batteries) she doesn't know what questions to ask. She might tell you to blow your hot air on the detector to see if it works again.
and I really don't like a good fight. But hindsight is 20/20. He made me FEEL like I was dependent, that whatever I did was never good enough or enough for that matter.
