To think it sounds like this person is in trouble?

[ElektraLOL]

My dp's son (aged 21) keeps nagging him to take out a loan because he supposedly needs £2k to go inter railing this summer. DP says he doesn't have that kind of disposable cash because he's just bought a house, has health problems and understandably doesn't want to take on more debt.

Apparently, every time he tries to spend time with his son, the son gets aggressive with him if he says he doesn't want to borrow money for something non essential like this.

He keeps saying to me how distressing it is. I'm wondering whether the son could have a drug problem or could owe a loan shark money or something 😨 as he has no history of this sort of nagging.

I don't have sons, I have daughters but this sounds odd to me.

It does sound odd. As DP has said no. A trip inter-railing when you can't afford it, isnt an essential.

I wouldnt have dreamed of telling my parents they had to pay for me to do something like that. I worked PT during school and uni holiday times, to pay for what I could afford including trips. So unless DP had promised to fund it, his son is BVU.

So I think you are right to be worried there is something he isn't telling his parent, if he's not usually like this.

i certainly wouldn't be funding this at all the ds sounds a bit petulant and entitled, is he working and if so finance it himself ? if the money is needed now then i would suspect something underhand was going on.

I would wonder if he’s got himself into trouble with drugs. And needs to pay off a dealer. That’s a fair sum of money to be demanding

I do not think you are BU. Do you have any sort of relationship with his DS? Maybe someone asking him astraight "what is really going on here?" sort of question might open him up?

When I had debt issues at the same age, it all seemed so overwhelming I literally hid all letters I got and ignored all my creditors. It took my DF finding the letters ( hidden in the freezer!) and setting them all out on the floor to get me to talk about it.
I have to say not once did I ask him or DM to help by asking for money.

You can speculate about possible causes and come up with loads of ever more dramatic ideas; especially if this is not his usual behaviour. However until someone bluntly speaks to him and tells him that an inter-rail trip is hardly any essential and not worth bullying your father for, so either he is is being a spoilt CF or is lying and needs to open up with the truth.

The son will just have to get a job, won't he? Like anyone else. Or get a loan or a credit card. If he can't or won't, tough shit! CF!

Could he have been encouraged to do this by his mother?

Although DSS was 17 when DP & his ex split, and she had an income well into 6 figures while he didn't even have a job (she took over their business), she was always on about DP not contributing enough financially and trying to get DSS to get DP to spend/lend/give money to DSS for various things. £2k for interailing is exactly the sort of thing they'd dream up.

He's tried to tap him up for money for a car, a motorbike, college fees, money to do his house up and all sorts, and whenever we met up, it would involve a meal out at which DSS would order the most expensive thing on the menu, drink loads and never offer to contribute.

It was only after he'd split up with DGD's mother, who we are close to, that she told us that the ex and DSS used to treat getting DP to part with money as a huge joke and a challenge.

DP was really upset. DSS is far better off then we are, had a trust fund and bought a house at 21, has lodgers and has a lucrative business of his own.

So yes, while the son may well have debt issues, he may also have a manipulative mother who thinks his father should stump up money simply because!

Apparently he has a job which starts in April. But his dad has had to tell him he has to get a job - last year he didn't (he's still a student)

So yeah I think it sounds potentially worrying.

If I was dp I'd say that there was no way I was funding an interrail trip but would encourage my DS to tell me if there was something else wrong that he needed help with.

It could be debt. I took out a £2k overdraft at age 18 and spent the whole thing, I naively didn't understand what an overdraft was and I thought it was "free money." It took me years to sort out the mess.

Although he could also just be greedy and entitled.

the job can help pay for it then. he's old enough to sort his own life out, make mistakes and learn from them.