AIBU to tell my brother to stick himself?

[fallenninja]

OK so brief background. about 10 years ago my DB got himself into a quite sticky financial mess. He had what should have been a very profitable business but he kept "borrowing" money to fund his and his DWs lifestyle. Cue massive debts, and verge of bankruptcy.

I very luckily had a house with a fair whack of equity in it, due to inheritance / buying cheaply when my parents divorced. With a whole host of conditions and reservations and following massive conversations I agreed for DB to raise a loan secured on my house (idiot) in order for him to sort this out. This was for £150k (i know even bigger idiot). Arrangement was simple. DB repaid the loan, over the 20years that it was for. DB didnt. Massive family falling out. I ended up remortgaing and obviously am now and will be forever paying the stupid loan off.

Over the last 5 years or so we seem to have repaired the family rift, and whilst it still galls me, I suppose in some ways ive let it go.

So now ...
DB yet again has got himself in a mess, there is to be a family meeting tonight to dicuss how to help him. Hes in a deep depression, his wife has left him (money issues - he can no longer keep her to the style she expects) and he obviously is in debt again. He tried to commit sucide last weekend.

Now obviously i am concerned about him, I love him, and dont want anything terrible to happen to him, but i have no interest in helping him financially or in any big commited way, which is where the disagreement is coming in.

Suggestion 1. I have a parcel of land which I know a builder would purchase to develop, so option is that I sell my plot of land, give the money to DB, and then his mum/DB will pay me a monthly sum up and until the value is met (including interest), so Ive not lost out as such.

Suggestion 2. DB IVAs and we as a family help him with the payments and also with the running of his business, I as an accountant seem to have been signed up for the massive brunt of this. Set up budgets/monitor expenditure/blah blah blah. However I know my brother and he wont pay any attention to me saying no, so i think it wont work

However if he did do something stupidly stupid because I didnt help i would struggle to forgive myself, but this is how i got guilted persuaded to help last time

So AIBU to say get lost? Or is DBs mum in asking me to consider this?

(Im off on the school run then popping to town, so shall return at lunch for the verdict)

and what hamster said too. . .

And as your self-appointed MN lawyer I also advise you to say EXACTLY what shoutyhamster just said!

His death will not be on your shoulders! Anyone who says that to you is vile beyond contempt.

He may have MH problems but that is not your fault and your first responsibilites is to your children not a greedy selfish man hard as that may sound

He has decided to live the life of Riley and done it funded by your money already. £150k is more than 15 years of my salary! That is just gobsmacking to me. How someone could steal that of a family member with dependents is foul.

You have had it easy? BS you have had his debt almost losing your house when you were pregnant.

Hold onto these thoughts and to not agree to ANYTHING!

hehe, 4 horses ... i am tempted ... no no ninja, time constraints .... cost .... no.

Lol when quizzed i am just going to say kungfupanda says no. I suspect i will sound deranged enough that they will leave me along

I am off to bed now though. I appreciate the time everyone has spent on here though. I know I am doing the right thing,and i have many posts backing me up when I start to waver and consider helping!

shoutyhamster, please will you be my personal life coach?

Wavering is not allowed! And I just love the idea of you reeling off a bunch of nicknames to back up your rational thoughts

OP, I've come to this thread late but just read the whole thing and am shocked. YADEFINITELYNBU. You sound lovely. I wish I had a sister like you. I wouldn't ask for money; I'd just give you a hug and say thank you for being so caring, thoughtful and kind.

Please don't give them anything.

(oh and I like cuddlysmurf's idea; I particularly like that all of the nicknames could be animal related. "kungfupanda says no. shouty hamster is my life coach...")

What ShoutyHamster said. Brilliant post. Please memorise that speech, OP! Otherwise your DB and his DM will drag you down into that money pit. Money won't solve his problems. And you are being much nicer to them than they deserve.

I am with kungfupannda - in fact, I think you should cut and past ShoutyHamster's excellent statement, and email it to your MIL. Yes, she is going to go ballistic, but that's her problem not yours - and I don't think she's going to be a huge loss in your life, given the way she's treating you at the moment.

If you are feeling generous, you could tell your db about the job with accomodation that you can get for him - frankly that is an amazing thing for someone to do for another person, especially in the current job market, and any half-way decent human being would be grateful to you for this.

You have already done so much for your db - you are a very special and loving person to have done what you have, and forgiven such a big debt in order to foster a relationship with him - so hold onto that fact, and don't let them make you feel guilty *when you have done nothing to feel guilty about - quite the opposite, in fact.

This is going to sound like psychobabble-whoo-whoo, but give it a go. Imagine the guilt is a piece of black paper. Crumple it up, attach it to the string of a balloon, and let it go. Visualise it floating away, out of your life. It's gone. If it sneaks back, get another balloon, and visualise it floating away again, until it is a speck in the sky, and eventually disappears altogether. Take a deep, cleansing breath, and feel the lightness inside you - hold onto that.

Psychobabble-whoo-whoo all over now. As you were.

Damn - cut and paste.

Ha yes! 'Kungfupanda she say no' PHONE DOWN!! They phone back:

'Kungfupanda she say no, she say no, she say no. We only lend to panda folk, panda panda folk' PHONE DOWN!!

You'll never hear from them again

YES umf of course. Let's start now. GO FOR THE BURN!! CRUSH THEM LIKE BUGS!!! NO PAIN NO GAIN!!! TALK TO THE HAND!!!! AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH etc. etc.

Seriously though fallen - if DB's mum starts along that line, you just say, 'No, it won't be my fault. For a start, that's a horrible, blackmailing thing to say. Secondly, it's not the way I see it. I bailed him out ten years ago - only to see him make the same mistakes all over again. If bailing him out will solve his problems, why didn't it solve them the first time? What I did last time has only helped him get to the point of suicide. He cannot manage money and he never will, and the way I see it, giving money to DB is like giving heroin to an addict. YOU are the one not helping him, by refusing to see that the answer to his problems is NOT to keep giving more and more money every time he spends the last lot. YOU are the one risking his health - you should be trying your hardest to get him to give up the business and to stop creating ever more financial mess. If you get him bailed out again, this terrible cycle will continue. I won't help to mess him up further, and that is what I believe I'd be doing.'

Turn it back on her.

And if that fails, just SHRIEK down the phone 'I have PANDAS, HAMSTERS, SMURFS and GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE from ALL OVER THE COUNTRY on my side on this AND I AM NOT BUDGING YOU GRASPING HECTORING FREAKAZOID!!!'

and then gently replace the phone on its hook.

i am afraid you have to do tuff love , i no its hard but you wont be helping him if you keep giving in .good luck x

Well - I happen to be David Tennant's girl and that means I could turn up with cybermen and daleks. They are very pacifist and diplomatic, and I am sure they would gently help db's mum see sense.

fallenninja 'I have it in my power to stop this for him'

No you don't. You could of course make it even worse for him by enabling this behaviour.

Throwing any good money after bad at him is just going to reinforce his idea that he has no control over or responsibility for his life. When it all goes tits up again, and it will, it will be all your fault and to a certain extent that will be true because he will not have had to stand on his own two feet yet again because you have tried to buy his way out again.

Support and love and caring does not need to be financial.

Someone having mental health problems doesn't mean they can't also be a selfish dick, walk away, Ye is an adult, stop treating him like a child.

wow just read the whole thread!

op Well done for sending the second email. will x-post with everyone, but DO NOT get pulled into your DBs money pit again. Just practice saying "No, I wont help financially again." then silence. Do not engage, silence is your friend, you owe no more of an explanations. Someone very wise said on here no is a complete sentence

Ninja none of this is your problem. You are not responsible for your brother, or his mother, or the feelings of his wife's family. You don't need to apply your able brain or your kind heart to solving the problems they've made for themselves. Please, please stop.

I've had to do this with my own DB. He has ADHD and very severe dyslexia. My parents were crap with him and he was in foster care for part of his childhood. He's also always been selfish and unreliable, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt for years. I've helped him, had him to live with us, looked after him, homeschooled him when he was expelled, taken him to hospitals, bailed him... But last year, just as I was expecting DC2, it all blew up AGAIN - he'd borrowed 1000s (10,000s?) from our stupid, lovely father and spent it all on hard drugs, lying all the while. Enough. I love him, I wish him well, I give him encouragement and advice when he phones and wants it, but his problems are his problems, even if - as did indeed happen briefly - they leave him homeless. Actually, the briefness of that episode is indicative: once I stopped figuring everything out for everyone, it was remarkable how quickly DB pulled his own socks up and how my parents stopped whinging to me and got on the case themselves.

(Shouty I feel stronger and more motivated already. I've probably lost weight too. What are your rates?)

Fallenninja- I concur exactly with what ShoutyHamster said.

And would add:

• You cannot afford to run his business for him; this would involve you giving up your day job, which you cannot afford to do while you have responsibility for the £150,00 loan.

• In order to be reasonable and offer your support, you'd be willing to defer repayments on the £150,00 he owes you for another year to give him the chance to sort himself out, and you'll forgo interest payments.

(I know you've written off this debt in your own mind, but it allows you to assuage your guilt and make an offer to help which is on your terms. And if they say it's not enough, keep re-iterating that it's all you can afford with a 150grand loan hanging over you).

I'm a bit lost wrt your brother's property- why can't he sell that to raise the money he needs to pay off his business debts? Why the hell are you getting pressured to sell your land when he owns property?

You are doing so well, Congratulations. Hope you get a good nights sleep and are still strong in morning. Tying up field for dcs sounds a great idea if you are sure you won't want it yourself as an asset to help dcs sooner?xx

stay strong ninja.

his mum wants to bleed you dry for him.

your kids miss out here - think of them when they can't go on a school trip while your db buys yet another flash car - with YOUR money!

just read the thread YAsoNBU!

My advice for what it's worth is NO WAY is suicide anyone else's fault! There is always a choice. Don't give him any more money - he can go bankrupt and start afresh. You have already given your DB and his wife too much.

Shoutyhamster and the others have given you very good advice. Your children are your responsibility and priority now. Your brother is not. Would he have done the same if the situation was reversed? I think not, especially as you would have been homeless when pg because he defaulted on the mortgage secured on your house. That says it all - you (and your children) are not important to him or his mother.

Do not take over running his business and give up your day job - you have children and a mortgage to pay.

In fact, in your shoes, I would look at putting a charge on the buy to let house and/or business to get some of your money back. Maybe you can link your loan to the purchase of this house? I would deffo document the loan and get some kind of written acknowledgement if not already done so. Even response to an email could be proof.

You have nothing feel guilty about, you have done too much for him already.
Hang in there and be strong for your children. You are all they have got.

Cheers!

umf only 20 sunflower seeds an hour - I'm pretty reasonable in the hamster life coach world

morloth is right on the money there fallen- you don't have the power to change anything, only to provide the means for his chaos to continue for a bit longer.

i am so late to this thread

please, please, please take KFP's advice. my own brother is a feckless idiot with money, and it only stopped once i realised that all of my money would never be enough to save him - he'd run through it as easily as his own. and yes, got the same stuff about why can't you look after db. in the end, cut him off, and it helped him sort himself out, eventually. well, actually, his wife told me to stop "interfering in their lives", so i did stop managing all his creditors and then all their furniture got repossessed. she didn't know how had it was. she's now an ex, but we're friends now. weird, the way things work out.

your assets are for your kids. your post made me so angry, i can't believe your DB's mum. . KFP gave you exactly the right advice.

doh! how bad it was.

Get a magazine with nice long interesting, demanding, absorbing articles in it, or a very absorbing book. Put reading material (and note pad?) by the phone. When the call comes, make yourself comfortable and start reading. At each pause repeat "no, I will not be able to do that", continue reading. Do not engage. DO NOT LISTEN, READ.

If call becomes intrusive, say "I have to go now, I am making notes on actuarial whatevertheyare/thingies, goodbye." Hang up.

Do not apologise. Do not explain.