Backstory: I am pretty sure we all know/love someone like my little sister...someone with no personal responsibility. You know, nothing is ever her fault, she is always the victim etc. I mean, I am addicted to MDC and I read about her or her male doppelganger on several threads a day. The specifics:
she is 29, never married and living with my Mom and her 6-year old son. She acts about 13. I am not being snarky, many of my friends have thought she has developmental delays because of the way she acts. She and I have the same IQ. She supposedly has ADHD. She never did well in school, but passed all here classes with no problem. I have offered for the last few years to pay for her to see a psychiatrist/psychologist to see if she could benefit from meds.
She has no hobbies or interests other than hanging out with friends, drinking, sex and eating. She does not appear to be "addicted" to any of these things. Her behavior is not particularly destructive. She is reasonable law-abiding. She spends plenty of time with her son and cares about him, but she isn't into "parenting" She treats him like a little brother she is allowed to spank and yell at, but also takes places and plays video games with. She would never put her son's needs before her own. Ever. Luckily my mom picks up the slack and my nephew has a pretty stable home life (he sees his dad every other weekend) We are sending him to a private kindy where one of my best friends can be his teacher. He is engaged and possibly gifted but already having major behavioral issues. My sister doesn't pull her weight around the house and thinks of herself as a young teenager who's parents have a responsibility to take care of her. My mom works, shops and meal plans...but my sister will regularly act pissy if she doesn't like what my mom is making for dinner etc. You get the picture.
We were poor growing up and my mom still works hard to make ends meet. I started making my own money at 11 and put myself through college and all that jazz. My sister has always felt like I got everything and doesn't recognize that I worked for it. When we were kids she would come into my room and steal stuff that I earned with my own money because it wasn't fair that I got stuff etc. We weren't close. In one of my "personal growth" kicks about 10 years ago, I decided to let go of the past and do my best to have a close relationship with my sister (and my dad, who couldn't/wouldn't support us and would be out of touch for years at a time). I kept at the goals I set at the time and now my sister and I are as close as could reasonable be expected. I see or talk to her 4X a week. I accept her and I she is fairly open with me about life stuff.
My sister is terrible with money and terrible at keeping a job. She has a bad attitude, is always late and pushes the limits, like calling in skipping work just because she has one sick day accumulated, etc. So, she is always the first to go. She is usually competent at the job itself. She has been out of work for a year. She won't get a job because unemployment pays more. She gets several traffic tickets a year and doesn't pay them. She is usually thousands of dollars in debt. She is supposed to pay a little rent ($400 a month or so) and has few bills.
I am skipping some major drama for brevity, if you can believe it! Suffice it to say it involved driving her to and from work for 6 months and her son to and from daycare while I was pregnant/had morning sickness and her needing our help while our 25-weeker was in the NICU. Not because she was "bad" but because she can't/won't take care of herself.
When she lost her job a year ago we started thinking about helping here get medical training for a stable career/profession. A few months she was pulled over and arrested and her car was impounded (for 30 days) because her license was suspended and she had warrants for various tickets. I've spent the last 6 months fronting the money and spending time getting this stuff cleared up. Also I payed off most of her collection accounts so she could have a clean slate. She has been decent about paying me back all these years. This help involved hiring someone to drive her to another state to face a judge about a warrant. My sister gets tickets and promptly stuffs them in the glove box or throws them away. She doesn't then drive more carefully
I've paid off about $8000 in tickets and fees in the last few months for this last mess. She supposedly hit rock bottom, wanted to turn her life around etc. In this time frame I encouraged her to find a radiography program, study for the placement test and she did and passed with a high score etc.
For perspective on how this affects my life: during a break from my husbands rigorous grad school program we went on vacation. I was just posting on Facebook that I was taking my first bath in 2.5 years (cuz my husband could hang out with DS while he napped and you can't catch up on housework/bills/cooking while on vacation and the hotel bathtub is way bigger than ours
) when I get an emergency call from my sister from the courthouse and I have to pay more fees and tickets off for her. It's not the end of the world, but I have really been there for her emotionally and financially.
So...she owes me thousands and is supposedly paying me back and paying my mom rent and paying off a couple of tickets that she has payment plans for. She hasn't been paying my mom, she hasn't been paying me and she continues to get notices from collections. For her (29th) birthday she took a road trip (sans kiddo) to California with a friend who has family there. The big highlight was Knott's Berry Farm. I gently (or possible not gently) reminded her that she doesn't have the money for that...she told me her friend was paying for it since she had to go visit her fam anyway and the park entrance was her birthday gift. She went and brought home thoughtful souvenires for all of us. She needed help fixing her suspended license last week because she paid her car insurance late and she is on such thin ice they suspended her license immediately when her insurance lapsed. Something snapped in me and I realized that she has been full of BS again and she grudgingly let me look at her unemployment card account. I never knew the exact amount of her bills or the exact amount of her income. Well, not counting the rent she never pays or what she owes me, she takes in 4X what she needs to pay in bills. She spent her last two weeks of income on her trip to California and couldn't pay any bills. She just spends the money (not a huge amount) on little things and has none to pay her bills and tells us she is paying them and can't pay us cuz she is saving. I know this is so predictable and boring. For years I have been trying to help her budget and show her how it's done and encourage a cash budget etc. She is never willing to really show me what she brings in or what she spends. Now I know that she doesn't want to lose the ability to spend willy-nilly. She has been lying for years and wanted to keep pretending that she is the victim of too little income and too many bills.
Friday I snapped. I told her that she isn't getting help for school or financial help from me unless I see everything and we set up a budget and I save money for her and limit her discretionary spending to a tiny amount. I spelled it all out in an email and I told her I didn't want to fight about it and it was her choice. Well, she sucked me into fighting about it all weekend via text. My fault, I fell for it. She said so much ridiculous stuff. The clincher was that I was focused on the past and she was focused on the future. I said "do you really feel like the last three months of spending considerable time and effort bailing you out and arranging for all your debt and legal problems to be fixed so we can help you go to school is the PAST" and she said "yes, I want to focus on the future and I don't need you to monitor my spending". Well, she finally agreed to my rules. I was sick and stressed over the whole thing all weekend. Monday morning my toddler was sick and my husband was sick and I realized that I am done. I don't need to be trying to control my sister's life or finances. Being more controlling is not something I need to cultivate. And yet, my new boundaries with my sister had revealed themselves: in order to help her financially I needed to trust her or monitor her every transaction. Well, I tried trusting her and she can't manage on her own and LIED to my face constantly about her finances. And I don't want to monitor and control her every move. I realized that I can't help her financially. I let her know in a very simple, straight-forward loving email. I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
I can just be her sister and not grill her about her fancy new sunglasses (which she said were a gift but then I saw she bought them, they cost enough to pay one of her bills, of course)
Fine. Except it turns out my mom has been "outsourcing" money-monitoring to me. My sister is on thin ice with my mom because she is abusive and terrible to live with. She isn't the greatest mom, is always swearing and being obnoxious, sleeps all day and goes out at night etc. My mom puts up with it to help my nephew have a normal life AND because I am there to vouch that my sister is doing okay and I am helping my sister get her life in order etc. I thought my sister was being remotely honest and now that I'm
"done" my mom feels done too. It doesn't work to talk to my sister. My mom deserves better than to live with a terrible situation. But what about my 6-year-old nephew? I don't know what will happen if we cut my sister off. Will she get her act together or will she fully self-destruct and destroy my nephew's life too? I feel so sick and like my mom and I have no choice but to support this lying, manipulative person forever
she is 29, never married and living with my Mom and her 6-year old son. She acts about 13. I am not being snarky, many of my friends have thought she has developmental delays because of the way she acts. She and I have the same IQ. She supposedly has ADHD. She never did well in school, but passed all here classes with no problem. I have offered for the last few years to pay for her to see a psychiatrist/psychologist to see if she could benefit from meds.
She has no hobbies or interests other than hanging out with friends, drinking, sex and eating. She does not appear to be "addicted" to any of these things. Her behavior is not particularly destructive. She is reasonable law-abiding. She spends plenty of time with her son and cares about him, but she isn't into "parenting" She treats him like a little brother she is allowed to spank and yell at, but also takes places and plays video games with. She would never put her son's needs before her own. Ever. Luckily my mom picks up the slack and my nephew has a pretty stable home life (he sees his dad every other weekend) We are sending him to a private kindy where one of my best friends can be his teacher. He is engaged and possibly gifted but already having major behavioral issues. My sister doesn't pull her weight around the house and thinks of herself as a young teenager who's parents have a responsibility to take care of her. My mom works, shops and meal plans...but my sister will regularly act pissy if she doesn't like what my mom is making for dinner etc. You get the picture.
We were poor growing up and my mom still works hard to make ends meet. I started making my own money at 11 and put myself through college and all that jazz. My sister has always felt like I got everything and doesn't recognize that I worked for it. When we were kids she would come into my room and steal stuff that I earned with my own money because it wasn't fair that I got stuff etc. We weren't close. In one of my "personal growth" kicks about 10 years ago, I decided to let go of the past and do my best to have a close relationship with my sister (and my dad, who couldn't/wouldn't support us and would be out of touch for years at a time). I kept at the goals I set at the time and now my sister and I are as close as could reasonable be expected. I see or talk to her 4X a week. I accept her and I she is fairly open with me about life stuff.
My sister is terrible with money and terrible at keeping a job. She has a bad attitude, is always late and pushes the limits, like calling in skipping work just because she has one sick day accumulated, etc. So, she is always the first to go. She is usually competent at the job itself. She has been out of work for a year. She won't get a job because unemployment pays more. She gets several traffic tickets a year and doesn't pay them. She is usually thousands of dollars in debt. She is supposed to pay a little rent ($400 a month or so) and has few bills.
I am skipping some major drama for brevity, if you can believe it! Suffice it to say it involved driving her to and from work for 6 months and her son to and from daycare while I was pregnant/had morning sickness and her needing our help while our 25-weeker was in the NICU. Not because she was "bad" but because she can't/won't take care of herself.
When she lost her job a year ago we started thinking about helping here get medical training for a stable career/profession. A few months she was pulled over and arrested and her car was impounded (for 30 days) because her license was suspended and she had warrants for various tickets. I've spent the last 6 months fronting the money and spending time getting this stuff cleared up. Also I payed off most of her collection accounts so she could have a clean slate. She has been decent about paying me back all these years. This help involved hiring someone to drive her to another state to face a judge about a warrant. My sister gets tickets and promptly stuffs them in the glove box or throws them away. She doesn't then drive more carefully
I've paid off about $8000 in tickets and fees in the last few months for this last mess. She supposedly hit rock bottom, wanted to turn her life around etc. In this time frame I encouraged her to find a radiography program, study for the placement test and she did and passed with a high score etc. For perspective on how this affects my life: during a break from my husbands rigorous grad school program we went on vacation. I was just posting on Facebook that I was taking my first bath in 2.5 years (cuz my husband could hang out with DS while he napped and you can't catch up on housework/bills/cooking while on vacation and the hotel bathtub is way bigger than ours
) when I get an emergency call from my sister from the courthouse and I have to pay more fees and tickets off for her. It's not the end of the world, but I have really been there for her emotionally and financially. So...she owes me thousands and is supposedly paying me back and paying my mom rent and paying off a couple of tickets that she has payment plans for. She hasn't been paying my mom, she hasn't been paying me and she continues to get notices from collections. For her (29th) birthday she took a road trip (sans kiddo) to California with a friend who has family there. The big highlight was Knott's Berry Farm. I gently (or possible not gently) reminded her that she doesn't have the money for that...she told me her friend was paying for it since she had to go visit her fam anyway and the park entrance was her birthday gift. She went and brought home thoughtful souvenires for all of us. She needed help fixing her suspended license last week because she paid her car insurance late and she is on such thin ice they suspended her license immediately when her insurance lapsed. Something snapped in me and I realized that she has been full of BS again and she grudgingly let me look at her unemployment card account. I never knew the exact amount of her bills or the exact amount of her income. Well, not counting the rent she never pays or what she owes me, she takes in 4X what she needs to pay in bills. She spent her last two weeks of income on her trip to California and couldn't pay any bills. She just spends the money (not a huge amount) on little things and has none to pay her bills and tells us she is paying them and can't pay us cuz she is saving. I know this is so predictable and boring. For years I have been trying to help her budget and show her how it's done and encourage a cash budget etc. She is never willing to really show me what she brings in or what she spends. Now I know that she doesn't want to lose the ability to spend willy-nilly. She has been lying for years and wanted to keep pretending that she is the victim of too little income and too many bills.
Friday I snapped. I told her that she isn't getting help for school or financial help from me unless I see everything and we set up a budget and I save money for her and limit her discretionary spending to a tiny amount. I spelled it all out in an email and I told her I didn't want to fight about it and it was her choice. Well, she sucked me into fighting about it all weekend via text. My fault, I fell for it. She said so much ridiculous stuff. The clincher was that I was focused on the past and she was focused on the future. I said "do you really feel like the last three months of spending considerable time and effort bailing you out and arranging for all your debt and legal problems to be fixed so we can help you go to school is the PAST" and she said "yes, I want to focus on the future and I don't need you to monitor my spending". Well, she finally agreed to my rules. I was sick and stressed over the whole thing all weekend. Monday morning my toddler was sick and my husband was sick and I realized that I am done. I don't need to be trying to control my sister's life or finances. Being more controlling is not something I need to cultivate. And yet, my new boundaries with my sister had revealed themselves: in order to help her financially I needed to trust her or monitor her every transaction. Well, I tried trusting her and she can't manage on her own and LIED to my face constantly about her finances. And I don't want to monitor and control her every move. I realized that I can't help her financially. I let her know in a very simple, straight-forward loving email. I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
I can just be her sister and not grill her about her fancy new sunglasses (which she said were a gift but then I saw she bought them, they cost enough to pay one of her bills, of course)Fine. Except it turns out my mom has been "outsourcing" money-monitoring to me. My sister is on thin ice with my mom because she is abusive and terrible to live with. She isn't the greatest mom, is always swearing and being obnoxious, sleeps all day and goes out at night etc. My mom puts up with it to help my nephew have a normal life AND because I am there to vouch that my sister is doing okay and I am helping my sister get her life in order etc. I thought my sister was being remotely honest and now that I'm
"done" my mom feels done too. It doesn't work to talk to my sister. My mom deserves better than to live with a terrible situation. But what about my 6-year-old nephew? I don't know what will happen if we cut my sister off. Will she get her act together or will she fully self-destruct and destroy my nephew's life too? I feel so sick and like my mom and I have no choice but to support this lying, manipulative person forever
he would never do anything without my approval, though. There have been time when I'm done with my sister and help from us was negotiated and done just by him. I didn't really specify that, because I think of us as a unit. But that's what's up with that. He just thinks that family with means doesn't just let siblings live on the streets or prostitute themselves and he is convinced that we will bailing her out somehow sometime and we might as well just maintain what is going on now. Like I said, he will respect my decision.
