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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Should I pay up?

117 replies

blahblueblah · 04/03/2016 22:31

I've name changed to protect my identity.

As a family of 6 siblings we have contributed on average at least £500 a year towards my parents cars, new kitchens, bathrooms, doors, floors - the list goes on to projects desired my mum. Each year we get asked by one excited sibling to contribute, everyone else works and earns high salaries and they readily agree, I feel awful because as a SAHM I do not earn money and although my dh is lovely about it and we are not very short of cash I still feel guilty/bad about it.
On one occasion I was asked for £1500 for a new car to pay immediately and I was unable to agree as we were in the middle of a major building project, I was unable to contribute, I was assured this was absolutely fine.

So now my dad has lost a lot of money in a scam, lost all his savings and he has also borrowed secretly from his siblings and my brother and my sisterand I am now being asked to contribute towards the settling of these debts and given I have been a SAHM for 10 years I am feeling very uncomfortable about expecting my dh to cough up again, my siblings think I'm being tight - they have all massive houses, no mortgage and no financial issues.
Tonight my lack of contribution to the car has been brought up - 4 years on - my lack of enthusiasm for paying back my aunt who gave cash to my dad and doesn't want anything back because he basically brought her up. I'm not convinced I need to pay back my siblings for the money they lent my Dad either - if he'd asked me I would not have agreed - we simply wouldn't have had the money but now it seems that everyone else's financial decisions are my financial responsibility.

I need some perspective...

OP posts:
Spandexpants007 · 04/03/2016 23:17

DHs money is actually family money. You both contribute to the family unit in different ways.

Just say no. No you can't pay off mysterious surprise debts when you had no say/input at the time the money was borrowed.

Tell them to stop asking you for cash as your financial situation us different.

Original poster
blahblueblah · 04/03/2016 23:18

My two oldest siblings think it's not fair that my mum and dad live the rest of their life in poverty - mum had just repapered the hall at a cost of £600, there was nothing wrong with the old paper....there's Catholic guilt comming in hre somewhere and I keep feeling I can't be right - the other 4 think I'm wrong - the other one doesn't care about money and is putting no pressure on me - she'd write a cheque to anyone!

OP posts:
Spandexpants007 · 04/03/2016 23:20

Tell your siblings that you need to think of your children's future and they are your priority

Baconyum · 04/03/2016 23:21

Think your parents AND your siblings need to grow the fuck up!

Your parents are responsible for their own finances and lifestyle, your siblings can choose to finance their idiocy if they so wish but they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have the right to even ask you to do the same! Certainly not expect and bloody outrageous to guilt, manipulate and demand that you do!

I'd be telling em all to fuck right off!

NoSquirrels · 04/03/2016 23:21

I've come across this when people are from a culture where helping out relatives financially is the norm, and as a PP says revering "elders" etc. I have talked through these sorts of situations where it seems bewildering to me from my own background that a) anyone's parents would behave this way and b) my friend/s would go along with it. So I understand other posters bafflement but can see totally how it can happen.

Regardless though of complicated family dynamics, it boils down to the fact that other people are trying to spend your money, and that's not OK, as SkiingGardener said.

You do not choose to spend this money. You do not have this money spare to give. So don't. Hold firm, ignore the carping.

You didn't enter into any agreements. None of this is your responsibility.

As the lovely saying goes, not your circus, not your monkeys.

Original poster
blahblueblah · 04/03/2016 23:26

Someone come along and tell me my siblings are right because at the minute you are all giving me a head fuck. Grin
It's five of them against me I can't be right to say no more. Mind you I don't know why I care, I have little affection for half of them.
Yep the Irish catholic guilt know no bounds.

OP posts:
Original poster
blahblueblah · 04/03/2016 23:29

Siblings are saying that money paid out will be recovered from equity in the house once mum and dad have passed so the money is really mum and dads anyway, that and we owe them!

OP posts:
Spandexpants007 · 04/03/2016 23:33

That's if they don't use the sale of the house for care home fees.

Spandexpants007 · 04/03/2016 23:34

No other family I know has this financial system in place

GiddyOnZackHunt · 04/03/2016 23:34

You don't have to keep up with your siblings
You don't have to finance you parents' whims
You don't have to explain to them.
It is some weird race for the approval of disfunctional parents.

whois · 04/03/2016 23:35

WRF???

6 of you have been spending between £500 and £1500 a year on your parents? That's £3000 to £9000!

Tell your siblings no, you can't afford it, you aren't comfortable reimbursing siblings who gave money of their own free will.

Are your parents really shit with money or something? Why do your siblings feel they need to provide so much?

Or you could suggest you all contribute according to earnings. And as you earn zip, you'll be contributing zip.

Lynnm63 · 04/03/2016 23:35

Sorry blah I too think you need to tell siblings and parents to jog on.
As to you get it back when they die well not if your dad keeps getting scammed or mum keeps repapering the hall at £600 a pop.

Matilda11 · 04/03/2016 23:36

Poor you, sounds very stressful. I'm afraid I agree with the others

TheSilveryPussycat · 04/03/2016 23:36

They can think whatever they like. You beg to differ.

expatinscotland · 04/03/2016 23:37

'It's five of them against me I can't be right to say no more. Mind you I don't know why I care, I have little affection for half of them.
Yep the Irish catholic guilt know no bounds.'

NO ONE is going to tell you your sibs are in the right. And they're being total twats to try to guilt you, bully you and manipulate you into handing over money you cannot afford to give to bail out your profligate parents. That is utter bullshit.

Lynnm63 · 04/03/2016 23:39

You could tell siblings it five of them against you and all of MN so they are obviously wrong.

whois · 04/03/2016 23:39

Also, alcoholic abusive parents... Why the fuck would you give them anything??? Surely the only thing you own them is a big 'fuck you'.

HeffalumpHistory · 04/03/2016 23:42

What if they have remortgaged the house or negative equity & no money for you all from it anyway...

Redglitter · 04/03/2016 23:43

Sorry bit I think your parents are totally taking the piss. You're all paying for bathrooms and kitchens etc for them?

Time to put your foot down and say no

SoThatHappened · 04/03/2016 23:44

You do not exist to support the parents who chose to bring you into the world.

I wish someone had told my mum that/

MyFavouriteClintonisGeorge · 04/03/2016 23:46

Ask yourself why they so desperately need you to contribute, given they sound wealthy enough to cover your 'share'?

Could it be because contributing is a tangible sign that you are still toeing the family line that denies the past and says everything in the gardens rosy?

Please don't give any more. Just stop answering the 'phone to your siblings for a while.

SistersOfPercy · 04/03/2016 23:47

Personally I'm more stunned at the parents who would happily accept this situation.

Tell them to jog on.

lorelei9 · 04/03/2016 23:48

blah "the other one doesn't care about money and is putting no pressure on me - she'd write a cheque to anyone!"

introduce me please Grin

NoSquirrels · 04/03/2016 23:50

It's not as if your parents, though no fault of their own, are living in abject poverty.

You've been subsidising them for years. Redecorating the hall for £600, buying cars for multiple £000s, new kitchens etc. You don't need to do that for your parents. Mine would REFUSE, they'd be bloody mortified. Your parents are adults, as you are - they're responsible for themselves. You're not the reason they haven't made great decisions, it is NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. And the loans your siblings have paid out are also NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. Their decision. The contract created for that debt is not yours.

Stuff 'em. They sound horrid, all of them. The "equity in the house" doesn't belong to any of you, it belongs to your parents and they can liquidise it and piss it up the wall if they so choose, by selling the house or getting an equity release loan - but they can't continue to live above their means whilst you all pay out for it in some demented advance loan system.

Not your circus, OP. Not your monkeys.

MyFavouriteClintonisGeorge · 04/03/2016 23:54

Sounds as though they swapped alcohol addiction for a shopping addiction.