PIL Issue. Need some perspective.

[NameChangedForPILissue]

NC'd for obvious reasons.

PIL are very well off. Rich enough that MIL doesn't and has never worked. FIL earns a huge amount, and is unbelievably tight with it too (refuses to update 25 year old kitchen, 30 year old bathroom, won't buy MIL a new car even though hers is verging on dangerous, won't spend more than £10 per GC at christmas etc).

They are set to become millionaires with some inheritance that is probably due to come in the next year or two. For now they live on their £200k+ a year income with very little expenditure.

For the past 8 years, they have given us money every month to help with our living expenses. It began when DH was at university, before we met, and was the standard parents helping out a child at uni situation. DH always worked PT to top this up.

After leaving uni, DH wasn't able to get a job in his field and so has subsequently had to retrain, and is halfway through that process. This means he is earning low for now as he is studying whilst working so is essentially unskilled. In around 2 years, we hope he will be on a good salary. I am also on a relatively low wage.

We've been married since 2010, and since then they've given us £500 a month to help us out. Obviously, this is very generous and e appreciate this. SIL has had the same.

SIL no longer needs this, as her and her husband have now got high flying careers (lawyer and pilot) and no children, and do FIL has decided to stop all our payments.

We've just moved into a new home, and have a baby due in a few weeks. The timing could not be worse.

DH is so furious he wants to tell him we are cutting him out and never seeing him again. I don't know what to do - is he being selfish and awful? Or is it his money and we should be grateful for what we've had up until now?

Forensic harridans lol.

Lots the OP has said doesnt add up. The wage doesnt match min wage, are bar staff self employed? She states one grandchild but opening post refers to more than one. Mortgage when actually rent. No idea of the qualification her husband is studying for despite it pushing them to financial ruin. New house was cheapest then admits could have gone to cheaper area etc.

I still think its a wind up, especially as the OP was meant to be at work but pretended to be ill to MN all day.

OP, can you look into becoming a child minder? This might solve a number of problems.

I understand that you have been left in the shits by you IL's but tbh having "been on MN for 10 years" I really think you should know better than to drip feed on a thread.
a huge proportion of the people who have posted on this thread would I feel be eager to help. You are snippy in response.

yes sometimes you have had to repeat yourself because most people are incredulous that you aren't entitled to state support when you are clearly in the shits.
there are many people who have never come across anyone who isn't able to get state support. ( I didn't know it was possible)

People would be eager to help you find somewhere to lve in your location but you are not sharing (totally fair enough) but it felt like you were coming asking for help not just coming to rant. if it is just to rant then go ahead but if you want help you need to understand people will ask questions to refine what help they can give.

I don't think your unreasonable. They said they would give you money until your Dh finished retraining then cancelled it without any warning whatsoever. it's not hard to see how that would put most people in a difficult position. Especially when you know your son has a child on the way....I think it's natural to feel hurt and angry regardless of how generous they were being previously.

Op take your full maternity entitlement. Seriously.

We have received no financial support from IL's over the years. Well actually just the odd small thing but no weekly free childcare or cash or a house from IL's. However I can see that the stopped cash must have been a real shock to you, after bing very used to it being there. I second finding a way out of the contract and renting the cheapest tinniest house you can find. Your present rent is very very expensive.

They said they would give you money until your Dh finished retraining then cancelled it without any warning whatsoever.

That's if you believe what the OP has said but I find it hard to comprehend that someone who doesn't know what qualifications her husband is even doing can have been involved in a conversation where her PIL promised to fund her husbands studies until completion.

Op take your full maternity entitlement. Seriously.

We have received no financial support from IL's over the years. Well actually just the odd small thing but no weekly free childcare or cash or a house from IL's. However I can see that the stopped cash must have been a real shock to you, after bing very used to it being there. I second finding a way out of the contract and renting the cheapest tinniest house you can find. Your present rent is very very expensive.

I can see that you work hard and that life is hard going at the moment

And yes your husband does come across as self entitled. It's your parents in law money. They can say no when and if they choose. You should not have decided to have another baby or rent such an expensive home if you couldn't pay your way. It's called being an adult. And we all know what that feels like

No op was factoring in a sum of money her in laws said they would give their son until he finished his exams.

Also I think being given 500 a month is no different to receiving three days a week of free childcare from a grandparent. Many grandparents help for free out in the uk

If there is no recourse to public funds then that suggests to me another country of origin, so potentially a new start? There can't be many places as costly to live as the place OP is so maybe a move back to the home country could make sense?

mrsflorrick

and now you have to stand on your own feet and he wants to disown them because they will no longer fund a comfortable lifestyle for you with their hard earned money shock. Wow. Entitled much??!!

Have you read the op,she is working not one, not two but THREE jobs. She has one child and is heavily pregnant.

Is this a comfortable lifestyle? If we win the lottery is this what we are all going to do ? Take on THREE jobs?

Are you ok mrs Florrick because YOU must be working at least 5 jobs to think this is comfortable living? She has not even had a holiday for 9 years....

Also I think being given 500 a month is no different to receiving three days a week of free childcare from a grandparent. Many grandparents help for free out in the uk

Yes of course...

This thread is quite the eye opener

Maybe she was factoring in that money, however she shouldn't have. There's more going on here I think. All the drip feeding etc. the point is she needs to become the grown up she is. We all have money issues. No matter what her fil said they as a couple should have still downsized etc. what if he had died. Where did she expect the money to come from then ? She called the man tight, yet I would hardly call 500 pound a month tight.

OP, I'm not sure if you'll come back to the thread, but I have a couple of questions for you if you do.

Firstly, what did you do/ how did you support yourself before you met and started living with your now-DH. You mention that your DS's father died, so I assume you were a single mother for some time. Were you eligible for benefits then as a single parent, did you get widow's allowance/ DS's dad's spousal pension (an awkward phrase!)...?

The reason I ask is that you have said you have no qualifications (hence your difficulty in getting a higher-paid job), and I'm wondering why you and DH made the decision that he should study for better qualifications, instead of you taking the chance to study when your DS started school. He presumably got his current job (which I agree is very low-paid for a graduate-type role) with his existing qualifications. It seems unfair that you were unable to have the chance to study (you sound very articulate on the thread) when he already has a degree.

Secondly, you mention in your post of 17.14 that your SIL has provided some information on what you are entitled to - assuming this means benefits you are entitled to, and that your SIL doesn't specialise in that area, why is your SIL finding this information instead of you? I don't want to sound mean, but you and your DH sound a little 'passive' in your own lives - there's a lot of assuming and relying on others.

Is there a reason you couldn't move closer to your son's school, or move him to a school near your new flat? Your life sounds as though it's full of decisions that don't make sense (though I appreciate you are trying to avoid being found out so not telling us everything), and that may be influencing FIL's decision.

I wonder if your FIL has watched his son do a degree (Media Studies) that is notorious for not being a 'proper degree' and not leading to a well-paying job (it sounds as though your DH is from a fairly well-off, middle-class background), watched him meet and marry a single mother with no/few qualifications (sounds horrible but that may be how he views you), watched him take a low-paying job, been asked to subsidise further qualifications, is perhaps not aware than the plan was you would take the opportunity to study after your DH is qualified, then sees you get pregnant, move to a bigger (more expensive?) flat when you could have found something cheaper, and has just decided he's had enough.

EllieQ I may be wrong but I think the OP has an adoptive son, not sure how this changes things or is relevant to the lack of WTC/CTC scenario.

Sorry the OP's husband has an adoptive son, I'm making it more confusing!

Insightful post Ellie

Fundamentally, regardless of all the nit picking and details, the bare truth is that you cannot afford to live where you are given your joint earning potential. Your only real solution is to get out of your contract (and some excellent advice on this thread regarding that) and move somewhere else.

Not easy no, but absolutely possible.

Ellie I mentioned something similar way back but it doesn't really matter why he has stopped the money , maybe he has an expensive mistress?I suspect he doesn't like the op, and has dwindling respect for his son,but op wont give us details and perhaps they are not relevant.

I think whatever his reasons, to cut funding at this time is cruel.

I am no solicitor but I believe there is something called reasonable expectation,and the op has been factoring in this money for many years, and had a reasonable expectation for it to go on until her dh had finished studying.

As OP said many times, If only they had been warned, BEFORE they took on their current flat they would be OK now.

FWIW I started a thread recently and had to change / cover up loads of details to maintain my anonymity. If I had posted the truth I would have been very identifiable and in breach of some of my job conditions. I got in a total tangle with the covering up. Only about 3 people replied, thankfully. If I had been attacked / questioned / challenged as much as the OP I would have cracked.

YANBU to be upset but YABU not to plan for a financially abusive man suddenly deciding to withdraw support, given he used money to control his own wife.

There's more holes in the OP's story than there are in my sieve!

I get that she is upset and worried about losing the £500, but imo they should never have totally relied upon it in the first place.

WRT to the £11k salary in banking/accounting/whatever the funk he is doing, I earned more than that answering the phones in a call centre for a bank more than 10 years ago. And I know for a fact my cousin earned more than that when she was doing her accountancy qualifications.

I feel for your OP, your fil has very generous but to take the money away without telling you is cruel. Why didn't he tell you when he decided rather than wait for you to find out at least.
I don't understand the responses on here, why wouldn't you accept help from pil. That's why most of us work isn't it? To provide opportunities for our children. If you'd said no because you didn't trust him that would have been insulting?
Sorry I have no advice other than suck up and get him to change his mind.

Feel for you
Has been very generous

• what's wrong with me today

I feel very sad for your FIL who has given his son's family £48,000 and is now viewed as the bad guy. I have never actually heard of anyone being as generous before. How could he possibly have done more?

I stand by my belief that to withdraw contact between you and his grandchildren would be both unfair and, no doubt, heart breaking, for this generous family man who has supported his children far longer than most, and far more generously than most. I get that your husband is angry, but to no longer see his parents comes across as vengeful - almost as if cared for only the money and not them - which is surely not the case.

But OP, with taking some of the suggestions here, you WILL be okay. You are obviously very hard working and all the rest of us can all manage without £500 a month hand-outs from our parents, you will too. I am sorry it has come at a difficult time for you, but financial independence is good. Good luck with the baby - and please don't deprive your ILs of the joy of spending time with their new grandchild. As a new grandparent myself there is no greater joy in life.

I don't think the FIL was being generous at all, not in the slightest.

People with that much money aren't always as 'generous' as it appears. It puts people in a huge indebted and obligated situation, so that the so-called benefactor has a strong-hold over them, and can pull the rug from beneath them when they choose. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what he's done. That isn't generous or kind, thats vile and controlling. Shame on him.

FIL should never have started what he couldn't finish. If he was that nice a person, he should have put the money away in trust for his grandchildren and kept his mouth shut about it.

Its just like those ghastly people who make some big statement to The Family about exactly who will get what from their Estate long before they die. They know exactly what they are doing, they just want control and sycophantic rellies brown-nosing for ever more, because they are scared of upsetting them and being written out of the will.

Just sorry the OP got such a mauling, there is always a second side to every story.