Comments on: How to respond when your family asks for money

By: Brandt Smith

Brandt Smith — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:15:19 +0000

@nelson – I’m going to be blunt and just come out and say it. You are not doing your brother a favor by helping him out. He will never take the next step and improve his life as long as he can lean on you. Be there and support him emotionally. Feel free to provide a great example.

But let him live his own life – good or bad!

By: nelson

nelson — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:03:59 +0000

Hi
I am now in a strange situation . One of my elder brother is in a bad financial situation . He has low salary and is struggling to meet his expenses . He is a clean man with no bad habits . Married and has a girl child of 7 yrs old. he is always worried about his life and situation .

Now I am better off financially and really wanted to support him . I am confused now whether helping him straight is right or not . Reason for my confusion is my brothers attitude in his life. Though he has a low paid job , he is reluctant to trying better job , reluctant of trying other ways of making money share trading , agriculture etc . I want him to get this attitude to fight it out , but he is very much afraid and dont want to take risk .
Can some one advice me .

By: SEE

SEE — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:51:23 +0000

My feeling is that if you loan relatives, or anyone for that matter, money, never expect to get it back. You will never feel the pressure or disappointment in someone if this is your attitude. I have been pleasantly surprised by some people who have paid me back, but I never expect it.

All three of the children in my husband’s family are currently “lending” their mother about $350 a month. And with that she is just meeting her bills. In addition, she is still giving money to her church to which I personally object. She is 96 and has given and given. Now we are in effect giving this money. She was a very poor mother to my husband pursuing a career and not caring for him properly, blaming him for being a bad child when in fact he was very ill and constantly being hospitalized. As a nurse, she made a decision to smoke throughout her pregnancy giving him a heart defect that nearly killed him as a child and later as an
adult. Even at this stage of her life she is manipulative and expresses no love for him. If it were up to me she would get nothing. At age 62 he remains working in order to help support someone who was mentally abusive to him. She lives in style while he works in the evening in declining health. He knows that he stands no chance of getting her to pay him back and she has given all her valuable things to a preferred daughter instead of selling then for her own upkeep. She has dropped her small burial policy because she says her church will take care of things. Fat chance. I’m quite sure we will be paying that as well. I love my husband and worry about him. And I have absolutely no guilt about my feelings toward his mother.

By: emma

emma — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:08:32 +0000

I am a 20 year old hairstylist, who’s parents have fallen on hard times. in the past 2 years i have given them close to 4k. they had stopped asking me for the past 4 months, so i had hoped things were getting better for them. this month my mom asked me for 400 cuz they were behind on the rent, by 3 months. i told them when they rented the house it was out of their budget, but they just brushed me off.

its so hard to say no, and i already never expected to see any of it back. but now i need to start taking care of me. i need a car, and my wisdom teeth removed.

i still feel like i want to help them out, if anything for my little brothers sake, but i need to set ground rules. thank you for your article and everyones posts.

By: PFH

PFH — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:09:33 +0000

This article and subsequent posts have really helped me! My mother has been ‘borrowing’ money from me since I was 12 years old…more than 35 years now! (That’s alot of money).

Thank you for this post and your link to the article regarding honoring your parents. I’ve finally made the decision to STOP! I have truly had enough and, while I’m sure my mother will try to make me suffer, I know that I have the strength to stand my ground! I’m not going to feel guilty about working hard and having nice things…I’ve earned it and it’s not my responsibility to take care of a mother who abused me and made my life hell.

By: SNOWHITE

SNOWHITE — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:39:28 +0000

My husband and I turned his sisters down by refusing to help them financially. When they had a lot of money, they spent thme like crazy. They bought eveything they wanted. Even when they had not much, they still buy things they do not have to have such as a swimming pool, their kids go to private schools or dancing class. Why should we have to pay their bills? I did lend them money before, they never gave us the money back which is good since I learned my lesson. They still have the nerves to asking money again or even asked us to cosign a 45,000 dollars loan. LOL. I think they have lost their mind. Yes, we have been working very hard and never buy anything which is luxury for so many years, sure we have 500k cash in the bank, so what? My husband is 60 years old,I am 45, ew have 4 boys from 13 to 6. We have a long way to go and we haven\’t bought a house yet. We will use the money we saved to buy a relatively ok home soon. Smply because we have money, it doesn\’t mean we need to lend my sister in laws money. They need to learn their lessons.

I hate to say that I have to see them on the holidays because my mother in law lives with 1 of his sisters. I did it only because I want to make my husbnad and my mother in law happy, my mother in law has lung cancer and is in stage 3. I buy her anything she wants since I believe she is my husband\’s mother, but his sisters are another story—I am not responsible for them. They try to make me feel guilty by not talking to me on Thanksgiving at their house. Ask if I care. Once my mother in law is gone, we will NOT see them again. That is me.

By: Bree

Bree — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:17:59 +0000

Thank you so much for this post! My mum & brother squandered mum\’s rather large inheritance from my dad passing, are now both enormously in debt & my mum is coming to me to pay her mortgage which is double the cost of my own mortgage. After 6 months of saying she needs a job she hasnt got one or even looked properly & has not put her house or my brothers on the market to sell. A \"gift\" she gave me for my birthday is now going on paying her mortgage for the next few months but after reading your post I realise I\’m becoming an enabler which I\’ve always despised my parents for being with my brother!
Thanks to your post I now know it\’s ok to say no because she is not doing anything to help herself. Now I just have to try to be strong while watching the fallout.

By: angela

angela — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 05:17:33 +0000

This was an interesting post. My parents were poison. I left home when I was 16, got a job, went to college, got a graduate degree (with out a cent)and earn a sucessful living. My parents and siblings have been \"borrowing\" money in the thousands for twenty years. To make a long story short, I had a recent catastrophic financial event (wont go into to) and needed help. A grand to be exact. NOT ONE of my family members would help. Two of them have lived with me for two years each rent free on separate ocassions. So now I know to only ever depend on myself -all all of those times \"rent\" \"medicine\" \"car notes\" \"insurance\" \"groceries\" count for NOTHING. Thank goodness I have a couple of good friends.

By: Jarrett

Jarrett — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:21:03 +0000

I love this post it really forced me to rethink things. I’m in the military and I’ve been on my own since I turned 18 and now I’m 22 and my family is really holding me back. Throughout those years I haven’t once asked my family for money because I’m very independent, but the same cannot be said of my family. I’ve given out handouts left and right to the same individuals (mom, dad, sisters, brother, uncle) and I’ve gotten annoyed with it because it’s stressing me out and, me being the youngest, should not be. I just returned from a tour in Afghanistan and not even three days of being back I’m already asked for money. I can’t seem to relax considering I think everyone views me as an ATM. I should not have to second guess whether or not I should answer my phone when family calls. Just about every conversation with them ends with “Oh I was wondering if you could send me some money…it’s just $blah $blah $blah!” I’m starting to believe they’re all selfish and it certainly is not my job to take care of everyone, but I always feel guilty. I’m at a good point in life, I own a 2011 sports vehicle, I’m staying on my own in a nice house, I have a degree in business, and I have a nice savings account. I don’t want my family to ruin all that I have, so I’m one phone call away from getting my number changed and disassociating myself with them!

By: Frankly

Frankly — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:15:40 +0000

Mandy, I\’d like to recommend an outstanding book called Leaving Home: The Art of Separating From Your Difficult Family. My sister cut ties to my mother and I wanted to better understand her position. It helped me see it so clearly that now I fully support her decision, though I never ridiculed her or tried to make her feel bad about it. In fact, my mother is so ugly to my brother, and he\’s just endured the abuse, never returning verbal firepower, that I will give him the book to read when he visits. (I\’ve created a different relationship with my mom, and I have to be vigilant about boundaries — it\’s exhausting.)

The book might give you the courage, and to a degree the permission, to distance yourself from some destructive personalities in your family. I wish you well with your health and finances and with enriching relationships.