My sister financially benefitting from our parents AGAIN.

[QueenofmyPrinces]

There are 13 months between me and my sister so we were very close growing up together and we are still close now, I love her and she’s one of my favourite people to be around.

Growing up we were very different, I was the typical ‘good sensible girl’ whereas she was more the type who took each day as it came and having fun was her main focus. At the time, I was envious of her character and spirit and wished I was more like her.

I did well at school, went to college, then university and have a professional job, whereas she didn’t really try at school, dropped out of two college courses and eventually ended up in a job that our neighbour found for her.

Fast forward to now: we’re in our late 30s and still very close. We both have two children although she is no longer with the father as he turned out to be a complete shit. He’s active in the children’s lives though and he provides well for them financially and helps my sister out too in ways he isn’t obliged to. I don’t particularly like the man but I can’t criticise him for the way he still provides for the children and the things he does to help my sister.

In our teenage years and through our 20’s my sister was frequently financially helped out by our parents because “she didn’t have a well paying job” and they paid out a lot for her. They paid for things to be done around her house (luxuries as opposed to necessities), paid her phone bills and store cards, paid for things for the children and paid for her driving lessons too when she was in her mid 20’s.

At the same time as they were paying for her driving lessons I was having to pay for my own lessons even though I was a student and they were charging me rent, compared to her being in full time employment and not even living in the family home anymore.

I could list lots of ways my sister has financially benefited from our parents over the last 10-15 years and although there has always been potential for resentment because of how differently we were treated I never felt it, or if I did I have no recollection of it and it didn’t impact on my relationship with my sister.

Fast forward to the last 12 months or so and my sister started going out with her friends a lot more, going out frequently for meals and drinks, going away for weekends, having new clothes etc and at the time I thought nothing of it. I was just glad to see her enjoying herself now her children are older (10 and 14) and that she was getting her life back as it were.

Recently me and DH have put ourselves out quite significantly in terms of finances in order to do something to benefit her children in order to allow them to experience something they’d never be able to if me and DH didn’t pay for it. Initially we had spoken about her paying 10% of the cost but after thinking about it I told my sister that no financial contribution was necessary as I was happy to treat my nieces and that I knew every pound counts to her and that even a small contribution would be difficult for her. She said thanks, she appreciated it and that was the end of the discussion.

Anyhow - I found out a few days ago that for the last 12 months my parents have been giving her £200 every month “just in case she needs it” and it’s actually really pissed me off. Our parents are divorced and they each give her £100.

I now feel a little put out that she so readily accepted our offer not to contribute to what we are doing for her children (which is costing us nearly £1k) when she’s getting £200 each month from our parents that she doesn’t actually need.

They (particularly my mom) also give her children money quite frequently whereas mine don’t get anything.

Inside I feel like the “special treatment” of her is still going on after all these years and I think that throughout her life it’s paid off that she didn’t get a good job because my parents have paid out so much for her and still do. I’m also in disbelief that at our age she is still taking money from our parents because as adults shouldn’t we be taking responsibility for ourselves?

I haven’t told my sister that I know about our parents giving her money each month and my parents don’t know that I know either. I won’t say anything to either of them though because it won’t serve any purpose. I only found out due my mom’s brother accidentally letting it slip when he asked me how I was spending my £200 each month as he had assumed my parents were doing it for both of us.

Im just venting. I know it’s my parents choice how they spend their money but after watching them pay out for so much for her over the last two decades this has been a bit of a blow to know they’re still doing it.

I was talking to DH about it and in my frustration I said that I wished I’d made her life choices instead of my own as maybe then my parents would have paid my way in life too and funded my lifestyle choices. I didn’t mean it, I just said it in frustration. I don’t want money from my parents, I wouldn’t accept it if they offered, but I feel a bit hurt that again my sister is getting money from them for no real reason whereas their generosity wasn’t even offered to me.

AIBU to feel a bit pissed off? Has anyone else been in a similar position and found ways to deal with it?

Has anyone suggested that if your sister saved the extra money she was getting from your parents instead of going away for weekends or socialising with friends, that she would be able to pay for a holiday herself (or at least provide the spending money)? You are all enabling her to continue to be irresponsible..

It certainly seems that pp's have hit the nail on the head when they say you should stop enabling her. It seems to be the family dynamic to help her out financially and you can break this cycle, from now on, by not offering any more financial help.
I think now that you've learnt about the £200 / month, the unfairness will fester. You can either accept that your parents have done you a greater service by ensuring you are financially independent, or if you think that knowing about the extra handouts will sour your relationship with your parents or sister, then perhaps you need to find a way to let your parents know that you find it unfair that she gets extra help financially, after all we could all do with an extra £200/month, however much we appear to be managing!

It’s even things like childcare....

When my sister’s children were young my dad changed his working hours so he had two days off a week (which then meant he had to work on Saturdays) so that he could provide childcare so my sister wouldn’t have to pay for it.

He’s retired now and I’ve asked if he can provide 4 hours childcare for me of which my oldest will be in school for two of them. He knows that my reason for asking was to just help
a little with childcare as it would save us about £80 a month but he said no.

My own situation is eerily, eerily similar, very similar ages etc.

Younger sister is 3 years old, has in her life worked for maybe 5 years' full time equivalent, all in relatively low paid jobs but has very expensive tastes in terms of nights out, foreign holidays [I'm not talking about a week in Benidorm], music festivals, etc etc and has an incredibly careless, wasteful streak.

My personal lowlight was when we somehow got talked into buying DS a fridge/freezer and DM [who I daresay quite rightly feels a fair of guilt over an unusually laissez-faire parenting style during our teenaged years] vetoed my preferred white model [with lots of emotional blackmail] because DSIS wanted [more expensive] stainless steel. Towards the end of the negotiation DM suggested that DSIS would end up selling or throwing away the white model if it was bought for her.

Countless hours of hand-wringing over the years tell that there are no easy answers - all I can say to OP is to stay strong & to try to keep some distance where possible.

Also, £110 a month is nothing like what it would have actually cost for you to be living with your parents.

I appreciate that but I think that if your child is a student at Uni it’s a bit harsh to take 50% of their income off them whilst subsidising your other child who lives with her partner and is in full time employment.

I'm not surprised it's getting to you. I think raise it with your parents - it's ok to upset by it and to ask them about it.

OP with the greatest respect please let it go. This is clearly a toxic family dynamic. You need to distance yourself and put your own family first. Don't let it consume you. You can't control other people's actions, only your behaviour and reaction to things. You have all fallen into roles and you too are enabling her. She is co dependent and your parents sound narcissistic.

I really think you need to rethink the holiday I know it’s letting your nieces down but you are feeling resentful because of your DSIS and this could be worse by then and you may end up forking our for clothing and swimwear ‘as you wanted to take them’ etc.
DS had a school friend both parents worked full time. Well paid jobs. She would often say how poor little x her daughter didn’t have any nice dresses she only had one dress given to her by x. I used to feel sorry for her DD as my DD has loads and I was only too pleased to pass on DD’s clothing when it got too small and I would often see her wearing it. So all was good. Then one day I saw her toddling into town with two massive bin liners. I was passing in the car in the other direction. Next time I saw her I said blimey you had your hands full the last time I saw you. Yes I was taking lots of clothes to the cash for £ place. Lots people have given us lots of clothes for the kids (so I wasnt the only mug who fell for her stob story) and they can’t possibly wear them all so we’ve sold some on eBay and I take the rest down to cash for £. Needless to say my donations suddenly stopped. In the last three years they are forever going on holidays to fabulous destinations and their DC brag about it. I can’t believe your parents are only taking you to x place on holiday that’s not a holiday etc in front of me and my DC etc. I don’t believe their fortunes changed because of my clothing donations but people will take the pee for long enough if we let them OP.

Sounds like I'm reading about my own younger sister. Parents pandered to her a lot in her 20s as she had no partner and this meant she was loads worse off than me?
Cue meeting very lovely partner and she immediately gave up a well paid job as "too stressful" and he bank rolled her. She's now "self employed" essentially doing a hobby job with a 2 year old at home whilst he literally breaks himself keeping them afloat financially. She doesn't even break the tax threshold, constantly complains of being skint refuses to get a job and my parents bail her out all the time.

I've worked hard, including in jobs I've actively disliked in order to pay our mortgage and give my family a decent life. I feel her long suffering partner and my parents essentially enable her lifestyle choices as she "can't cope" with working for an organisation. She's spoilt in brief!

Everything is given to them, cots, clothes, pram, the lot. She has a network of friends around her who just gift her everything. It is probably petty of me but I no longer give her our unwanted stuff, I donate it all to a charity who support local families living in poverty instead!

I've withdrawn from her considerably in recent years as a way of coping and am a lot firmer with my boundaries. E.g when she comes to stay rather than eat me out of house and home I suggest we all chip in for a take away ! Interestingly she stays somewhere most weekends and gets fed!!
Hope you reach a resolution soon op, the resentment can eat you up...I can empathise!

OP I actually would say something to all of them

tell your parents you know

tell your sister you know

see what happens. apart from anything else, surely she should now offer to pay for the holiday.

going forward, I think it's going to be weird if you don't speak out about knowing. I appreciate there will be an initial reaction, but you haven't got to say anything more than "I know you're all set for money so that's good isn't it".

Perhaps you could write your parents a letter telling them how you see the unfairness, not in an accusatory way, but just to get the feelings out there. It might be useful for you to know their motivation for seeming to help your sister more. Some of the pp's points are valid that perhaps your parents think they've helped you in other ways, but you are not aware of this.
My sister, I know, thinks I was allowed to get away with murder, growing up, but I do not see it that way and suffered in different ways.
I look at how I treat my own dc, and I do treat them differently... They are different people, so where one needs help in one way, the other needs something different. I worry that when they grow up and look back, one of them may feel that they were treated less well, but realistically I do my best to give them both what they need, but their needs are different.
For example, one of them does a lot of after school activities that cost money, the other doesn't want to do these activities. We bought that one a laptop so they could pay a particular computer game, so financially we have probably spent the same on each of them, but will they see it that way? Or will one of them think, the other had it better? Maybe they'll focus on the fact that the activities one had the time and money spent on them, whereas they had nothing (conveniently forgetting about the laptop, as it's a different type of spending).
I think a conversation to find out where your parents are coming from with regard to the handouts will help with any feelings of resentment you may have.

"I’ve asked if he can provide 4 hours childcare for me of which my oldest will be in school for two of them. He knows that my reason for asking was to just help
a little with childcare as it would save us about £80 a month but he said no."

And what would his response be if you said 'hang on dad, but you used to work Saturdays so you could give [sister] two entire days free childcare, and now you are retired and saying no for four hours?! Why do you treat us so differently?'

But I appreciate that this kind of direct approach maybe only works if your family dynamic is relatively healthy, which yours it sounds like it really isn't.

And what would his response be if you said 'hang on dad, but you used to work Saturdays so you could give [sister] two entire days free childcare, and now you are retired and saying no for four hours?! Why do you treat us so differently?'

Inside that was exactly what I was thinking but outwardly I just smiled and said I understood.

He’d told me he didn’t feel like he could commit to such an arrangement (even though those four hours could be done any day of the week, not always committing to it being the same day) and I just said it was fine and we’d figure something else out.

I understand OP - A family friend has just found out that his parents gave his sibling £75K and him nothing their justification was that he was already settled in a family home so didn't need it. Never mind that his sibling blows through cash like air

#me2 but I wouldn't swap my life with my brother.
I think the holiday is a lovely idea, but stop bailing your sister out.
No harm in speaking to her or parents, why should you protect their feelings? Just be assertive, not whiny or angry.

All of this would really piss me off, but the childminding issue would really make me angry and I'd have to say something to my dad about it.

But how would he react if you told him what you were thinking inside? Does your ability to swallow your feelings make it more possible for them to continue treating you badly without being confronted with the consequences? In an 'oh, queen doesn't mind, she's never said anything' kind of way? I know my PIL treat my SIL with kid gloves to an extent purely because they know she is more likely to blow her top if they are unreasonable, whereas my DH gets the full 'benefit' of their advice because he just lets it go straight over his head and doesn't challenge.

My suggestion would be to have a chat with your sister about whatever you are spending £1k on for her and if it is an ongoing amount, tell her that from January next, you'll be unable to pay this going forward. That gives her the month of December to decide whether to continue on with it or not. She could budget for it if she really wanted to but you don't have to. You're denying your own kids something either now or in the future because you're giving that money to your sister and her kids.
I'd be pissed off but I'd cut back on the financial support I'd be offering.

Part of me questions whether they actually realise they’re doing it?

We moved away. It's no longer in our face, we don't really know about it as much. It was the very best thing we've done. We keep ourselves to ourselves and don't ask anything of PIL ( we have been rejected before despite siblings getting a yes for the same thing)

DH has also tackled one such incident where his parents gave the sibling an expensive gift, we had just bought our own. I honestly don't think his parents quite realised the value of what they had done and how it looked to DH. It was quite cathartic.

Hi OP

YANBU to feel put out about this- I understand where you are coming from!

My DSis (and her twin brother) is 18 months younger than me and she sounds rather like yours! Over the years it has wound me up endlessly, in the past I tried to discuss it with my parents and her, but it left me looking like the entitled spoilt child.

I am the classic eldest child- well behaved, did as I was told, did well at school, university, professional qualifications etc

My DSis has been spoilt & entitled all her life, she never achieved what she could have done at school and drifted from one job to another, my parents constantly bailing her out from her financial disasters (mainly due to her out of control spending and inability to budget, or earn a living).

She has definitely always had 'special treatment' from my parents, like they did not have the same expectations of her as they did of me.

the turning point for her was when she met her (very well off) husband and I think my parents were relieved she was finally taking off their hands! So now she lives in a beautiful 5 bedroom detached house, 3 kids and barely has to lift a finger in her home or go out to earn a living.

I digress and that is all for another thread!

I would stop paying for stuff for her & your nieces, I know you want to treat them, but stop to think about your own family first. Your DSis is having a total laugh- money coming in from your parents, from her ex and you paying out for treats as well.

Is it possible that your sister thinks you get £200 too..?

My parents used to manipulate the sibling relationships enormously, and none of us realised. We became pretty much estranged. It was only after our parents both dies that we found out the extent of the manipulation.

I think they will, a pp has posted from the other side-:for them the parents were 'helping them out' whereas any money given to their 'sorted' sibling would have been 'throwing money at them'. It's the ongoing sense of entitlement that frustrates me!

nuitdesetoiles

Your younger sister sounds just like mine!

The word PANDER to was definitely created for my DSis!

Could there be some kind of resolution in the will do you think? Perhaps you gain a house whilst your DS has had her inheritance now?

I do feel for you. I have 2 adult DC's, one of which who struggled for a time and one who didn't. Whilst the one who struggled did get financial help at the time the equivalent money was put aside for the one who didn't.
I couldn't dream of treating them differently tbh.