I have this situation going on. I’ve come up with a way to explain it. It is all a metaphor, but it works.

Say I have a friend who is terrible at driving on the freeway. She gets all flustered and upset with all the racing traffic. She needs to go downtown, so I tell her the best route to take that doesn’t use the freeway. I’ve taken that way myself many times. I give her my GPS with the route programmed in. I give her a map.

And she takes the freeway anyway. Then she gets frustrated and upset. Then she freaks out and just stops her car on the side of the road on a freeway overpass. Then she expects me to come rescue her. She expects me to leave work and drive to where she is and take care of her.

She’s created the problem. She had a perfectly acceptable way to get where she needed to go and refused to use it. She doesn’t try to take care of the problem herself. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a surprise. It was the logical result of the situation, because that is what always happens when she drives on the freeway.

Even though I did my best to prevent the problem that she is experiencing, she’s created the problem by ignoring me. And now she wants me to rescue her.

And I refuse.

And I’m seen as the bad guy.

She’s not acting like an adult. She’s not acting in a responsible manner.

If she did her own thing and got into trouble, but rescued herself, then it would be fine.

But that isn’t the situation. My plan is always to prevent the problem before it is a problem. And if I rescue someone when they ignored me to start off with, I’m enabling their bad decision making.

If someone keeps doing this, then I stop talking to them at all. They want me to help them, but only after they’ve made the situation infinitely and unreasonably worse.

I have no problem with helping people who try their best. I have a big problem with helping people who cause their own problems again and again. I feel that I’m aiding and abetting if I help someone who refuses to take care of herself.

If I wanted dependents, I would have had children.