To help my niece

[Holoqueen]

This is long but I don’t want to drip feed.

My Sister in Law is very controlling, very dramatic, very manipulative. Can not stand her. However my husband and I love our niece.

We do as much as we can for her and yes my husband and I constantly get accused of only doing the nice things but her mother has not worked since she was born and her father left before she was born. We have a good lifestyle and have no children so have always doted on her. She is looking at going to University next year. We have taken her to a few university’s and really tried to encourage her to live on site. At first this was a no go for her as she has always been kept on a very tight leash. She has no friends. Her mum controls everything about her life.

We took her to uni an hour and a bit away and explained she could still go home regularly. She fell in love.

This was months ago. Her mum seemed excited about the prospect it was local enough and she could go home. Even talked about what she would do when niece was living in halls. We found out about what niece is entitled to money wise and all was good. She is a very very clever girl and the degree is very intense.

Niece rang in tears today. Her mother has now decided she can’t live out. She has told my niece if she goes then she will lose the house as her benefits etc get cut and so she has to live in and give her mother her loan money. She has also told niece that if she goes then she can not come back and stay as she won’t be able to afford to feed her and have her at home if niece doesn’t give her the loan money. My niece is absolutely beside herself.

Her uncle told her we would help her if she really wanted to live in. We didn’t say how and we didn’t commit to a amount because we will not pay her mothers way but we were thinking we would do the whole year accommodations and then she can help her mother with her loan if that’s what will make her happy. She has obviously then told her mum that her uncle and I will help her live in so that she can still help her mum and come home.

Her mother has gone ballistic at her daughter for talking to us and at us for sticking our noses in. She has again told niece she has 2 choices. Stay with her or go but she can’t have it both ways. I honestly don’t believe it’s about benefits, house etc it’s about losing control of niece and not knowing what she is doing. Niece is now saying she can’t go to uni at all.

My niece is torn between her dream and her mother. AIBU to push her to her dream by giving her the means to live away and help her mum with her loan or should we just stay out of it and let niece make her own choice. I don’t want to be held accountable for breaking her and her mum up but I also know if we don’t offer the money for accommodation then she will stay at home with her mum and miss out on uni life.

I’ve tried to find out before as I was nosy about what she gets but I didn’t get very far. I assume she gets tax credits. I know she has a very small rent bill as the council covers it. I think a lot of it is centred around DN from what I know. Father has never paid a penny. He tried to have contact a few years ago but he refused to have anything to do with sister in law and she said he could not have contact with DN then as they are a package. I don’t know a lot about him. I’ve never heard of her being on job seekers but she does clean a few hours a week for cash. That’s all I know really. No one really knows a lot about her money just that she doesn’t have a lot of it and constantly lives hand to mouth so if it goes when DN leaves compulsory education then yes she will be in a not very nice financial situation. But it’s not DN responsibility to fund her mother.

I doubt Dn’s loan will cover the lost credits then.
If she is able to physically clean then she can physically get a job which is encouraging.

Sounds tricky.
Great that you are there no matter what.

Today my friend at work told me that years ago, one of her brothers won a scholarship to Oxford. Her dad wouldn't let him go. Said he had to get a job and bring money into the house.
Apparently he's never forgiven him. l suspect that's what will happen if your niece if she feels that she can't leave her mother. lt's wonderful that she has you and her uncle for support. l have no answers but l hope you can find a way to resolve the situation for your niece. She sounds lovely and it's such a shame if she doesn't go and gives up the chance of much better job prospects in the future.

Tell her to escape now and that she can live at yours when needed around uni.

There is no chance I would be handling over the loan or paying her mum money. If she loses benefits then so be it.

If it's an intense course as I think you said OP, she'll need to be at uni to use library at all hours, study outside of lectures with friends etc, not travelling back and forth to her mums.

Her giving the loan to her mother would just mean she's basically having to pay back her mother's living costs, with interest, for the next umpteen years. What kind of parent would demand this is beyond me.

As a PP said, she should access uni counselling as soon as she gets there. Is there counselling available through her school? Or at least they should be able to give her a referral? Her mother does not need to be told about this.

It's great she has you both to support her. I'd say you paying her way would do more damage in the long run though as it "allows" her to stay more entwined in this mess with her mother.

Is there anyone else in the family - I saw you said PILs not much help - who can support and help her to see what this unhealthy dynamic is doing?

The mother sounds as selfish as can be and needs to just get a flipping job rather than try and scrounge off and poison her already twisted relationship with her daughter!

Ohhhh this makes me so angry on your/her behalf!

Her mother prohibited contact between father and daughter because she regards herself and her daughter a package?

Please, help your niece to get out!

God what an awul woman! Im a soon to be single mum with an absent father and I'd want my DC to have all the amazing opportunities they could grab! Even if it means me going without or working extra hours to provide that. Why can't this woman get a job if her DD is of uni age ? I think you need to get your DN out of that toxic house asap and into uni as her mother sounds unhinged and a lazy sponger wanting her daughter's money for herself!

Your DN NEEDS to go, for her own wellbeing. I CANNOT stress this enough. Offer her your spare room for the holidays and any top ups on the loan, but make sure she keeps the loan to herself. Have her access uni counselling the minute she steps through the door.

At no point should you feel guilty about breaking them up, rather congratulate yourself on saving your DN.

As for your SIL, words fail me. Let her clean up her own mess for once. Greedy CF.

YES to all of this.

Your utterly despicable SIL is emotionally abusing her daughter. For her own mental health she needs to escape this abusive relationship ASAP. By insisting her daughter hands over her loan money, she is also financially abusing her.

If this was a partner treating Niece like this, then the advice would be to RUN! as soon as she can and start up her own life safely away from her abuser. This is no different.

But let's say Niece does give up her chance of escape uni, or goes to one closer to home to appease her abuser 'mother' - what happens at the end of the course? Or Niece meets a boy and wants to move in with him? Have children? Is she supposed to put her entire life on hold for her 'mother'? I've seen that happen, and it totally destroys the victim.

This is your niece's chance to escape this abuse and make something of her life - please do everything you can to help her.

Does DN know how bad DM is? Could she / would she move in with you now? Away from her toxic DM it sounds like she would fly. How PIL and others have allowed this to go on is beyond me. At the very least, sed her regularly so you and DH can be the voice of reason. DH is having issues with DSS and ex which are not dissimilar and we've found that knowledge really is power. Even a brief chat about college/uni/careers has put him a much better position

Wow!

A lot of people happy to take op's word for this families situation here.

You ever been on benefits op? Doesn't sound like it.

For starters it's not really your business anyway, and even if it were you clearly don't have the full info to assess the situation.

Aside from that I can assure you it's incredibly rare for someone to be able to stay on benefits now without proving umpteen times over you have a damn good reason to be so!

From the little info you've provided of sil it sounds to me as if what the situation is, actually is as follows;

Sil is on disability benefits as she is mentally ill. A DX is massively helpful, but some conditions are very difficult to DX, you don't need a DX to claim, your claim is based on how your ill health affects you daily. Or else she is (as she is perfectly entitled to) choosing not to tell you the DX. Given the usual reaction to certain DX by those with no experience of mental illness that's not unusual.

Sil is anxious and concerned about BIG changes to her family and income. If it's just been sil & niece for years I can tell you as someone in almost exactly the same position it is MASSIVELY stressful. My dd is 18 and working full time. She and her best friend have started discussing getting a place together next year (personally I think they'll end up wanting to kill each other, but they're adamant they'll be fine - hope I'm wrong. They are close and get along well BUT they have different attitudes to things like housework), I'm encouraging and happy to support her to organise this but quite honestly I'm going to miss her like mad and it will be an incredibly wrench.

Re the finances, sil could well (depending where you all live) as a result of her dd moving out be subject to bedroom tax being applied. In addition ANY change in circumstances often results in dwp etc cocking things up and it's VERY rarely in the favour of the claimant! It can and does take many months to sort out. Having an adult child who is both living at home and not living at home I can absolutely see causing the dwp to go into meltdown and not know how to calculate everything. Your sil's household status changing every 6-12 weeks will in all likelihood totally fuck with her money and could even lead to her wrongly being thought to be claiming fraudulently, I've known of this happening! So her saying niece either needs to stay home or move out and not come back (except as a guest) makes perfect sense to me, and should to anyone who's dealt with the benefits system.

You don't sound very sympathetic towards sil so I would say you are not really the people that should be helping sil & niece sort out what THEY want to do.

You've been very...proactive in "encouraging" niece to do X y z THINKING that's what's best for her when she's not your dd!

What's needed is someone/people who are at worst neutral who can speak with both sil and niece. Find out what THEY want to do and help them achieve that. I would suggest that a welfare rights officer could help them find out what sil's income will be if niece leaves home to go to uni, if there are other things she's eligible for that she's perhaps not already claiming or could claim after niece leaves, if there's a way to balance niece being home during holidays etc without sil getting into difficulties or inadvertently falling foul of rules. Student support might also be able to advise, so might shelter and organisations like Christians against poverty or turn 2 us.

But you're clearly biased against your sil, whether that's warranted or not, turning niece into a rope you 3 play tug of bloody war over is the WORST thing you can do.

Some understanding, compassion and consideration of sil's position in all this could go a long way to niece being able to have options without dealing with guilt.

I think the most important thing, is that your niece is able to concentrate on her current educational stage , now. If she is waiting to do her final 'A' level year, what she needs to be doing now, is resting, to get ready for a new term of work- degrees are important but so is any work she is doing now.

She might not go university at all , if  she fails all her exams because she is so distracted by you and her mum arguing down the phone- or through her, by proxy!      (Or, she probably would still go, but it would take longer and be a bit more difficult to do )

Then, even in considering university, the most important things for her to look at is- Is it a course she likes? Is it in keeping with her (not your or her mum's even) , but her goals and talents, and does she have a reasonable chance of getting in.

After she's decided what course she wants to do, what she needs to do then is fill in the application forms - and then forget them- because she has her current studying to attend to. Where you live is not part of the application process! She can worry about that when she's got an offer-

When my daughter went to uni, we always knew she would live in halls the  1st year- but we were messing about picking where and which, in the summer holidays before she went,  (i.e only weeks before she was due to go)  and the university terms don't start till October.           

People every year are still getting places, right up to the last minute so it must be possible to decide where you're going to live fairly last minute , too.

 Even though it wouldn't be desirable - you could theoretically   change where you lived half way through a term-sometimes people have to- the important thing is, to get in somewhere!  I don't really understand why she is being pushed -to be making firm accommodation choices, for a university place she doesn't even have yet! 

Where she lives isn't a decision that needs to be made now, now, now, I'm not surprised she's feeling she can't face going at all.

I wonder, also, if you don't mind me saying ,if you are being quite fair to her mum. Your niece sounds a good, clever , sweet girl- so I can't help feeling that the woman who brought her up, (alone and in poverty, as well) must have been getting something right! I could't help noticing some things like- you said she's very controlling and doesn't let her daughter do things- but at the same time describe taking your niece off to look round several different universities, ( I felt that was without her mum?). Also, at the beginning,you said her mum had never worked , since her daughter was born, but then later said she does work a few hours a week-so she does work a bit.

Anyway, I hope your niece is able to go to university-where she wants and to be happy and I hope she's able to keep the support of different parts of her family.

If you pay for your nieces accommodation she will still need her loan and grant money to live for food/bills/transport/clothes etc. How else do you think she will pay to live? She would be a student (not seeking work) and have been given student finance so she won't be entitled to benefits.

You describe her course as intense so a part time job with enough hours to keep herself sounds unrealistic and why should she need to work loads of hours to support herself, compromising her studies, when she has been given the money for her support?

If I were you I would not be promising a years accommodation and signing as guarantor etc if your niece is in turmoil and unsure as if she quits uni after a few weeks you could end up still paying a years rent for nothing. If you do pursue this check the terms so you know what you are liable for - maybe halls of residence will release you from the contract with a terms notice? Your niece quitting could mean she still owes a chunk of tuition fees and also affect her being able to borrow the funding for undergraduate tuition fees in the future. Make sure you and she research and understand the consequences of going and then quitting on her future choices.

I would be very wary of "pushing" your niece to go - although I wholeheartedly agree it is a great opportunity for her. If she doesn't have the resilience to stick with it in the face of new challenges of making friends/being independent and her mother's guilt tripping and she collapses under the strain and goes home to her mum then you will get the blame for her collapsed confidence for pushing her.

Instead I think you would be wise to help her explore her options and let her know that you will support her whatever she chooses to do without pushing your own agenda.

Her options include college/university (living at home or away) working, apprenticeship/on the job training/ year out/working abroad etc - effectively delaying the heavy decision making to a later date when she has more confidence.

It might be that what is best for a "typical" teenager isn't best for someone that has struggled with friendships and has a very intense relationship with their mum. That is for your niece to decide.

Your niece needs to consider that her other options also affect her mum's benefits for example if she works that will affect her mum's housing benefit - unless she settles for a life of claiming benefits and not working her mum's benefits will be affected.

You niece is lucky to have you and your partner. I hope you can her her navigate these very tricky issues. I think it will be a marathon and not a sprint.

What strikes me is that your SIL has mental health issues, is clearly struggling to cope with her daughter moving out, and yet you are pushing as hard as you can for this to happen.
I had a friend who had quite severe mental health issues, much of which was anxiety based and she literally couldn't live alone. She would even go to bed at the same time as her children. One by one her children left home and she appeared happy for them to go.
When the youngest wanted to go to university, my friend confided in me that being alone in the house was unbearable, but that she didnt want to pressure her youngest to stay. She was in a desperate state, yet no one knew.
She had spent many years on anti depressants and anxiety meds but living alone was just too much for her.
She told me that when she was alone in the house, she was terrified. I never could work out what caused the fear but she was genuinely petrified of being alone, said she didnt feel safe and couldn't cope with it.
Cut a long story short, when her dd moved out, she met a man who quickly moved in. He was alcohol dependent and got her into a lot of debt. She also began drinking and her whole life unravelled around her. Her dp died of an alcohol related illness 7 years later, by which time my friend was in deep debt, had no friends and due to the alcoholism, had very little contact with her children.
She committed suicide 5 weeks later.
This was a woman who for whatever reason, could not live alone.
I wish I had known the extent of her fear, but like so many of us do, i put it down to the usual empty nest syndrome. I didnt realise it was an absolutely terrifying prospect for her.
I am far more cautious now of peoples reasons for wanting their family to stay at home.
I would try to find out a little more about her reasons for not wanting your niece to move out before you push your niece to live away from home. Benefits dont pay child related benefits for children who are at university so I think that is a false reason.

I just want her to be happy and it seems like every time we think we can do that her mother puts the pressure on and she is left in a impossible situation

This is not coincidence. I think you need to do whatever you reasonably can to help your niece move out of that home environment, and going to university is the obvious time to do that. Offer a place to stay, and financial advice, though I would not want to be paying for her mother to make that happen. Niece needs to understand that she will be an adult, responsible for herself and that her mother is also an adult, responsible for herself. And honestly, if that leads to a breakdown in relationship with her mother, that may not be a bad thing.

The reason the girl's mother is saying maybe she should live at home -and go to university from home, could be to do with money and it may be reasonable.

At the moment the mum will be getting some kind of benefits and a little money from cleaning- (people are allowed to earn a small amount and still claim). She will get a higher level of benefit because her daughter is at school still, if her daughter goes goes away to uni and lives in halls , her benefits will drop, and if she is in a council house ,she will also have to pay bedroom tax. She maybe aware she (sil) isn't in a position to easily earn more, so she may find ,that the only way she can cope financially, is to move in to a one bedroom council flat- because it would be cheaper. She won't have to pay bedroom tax and would have other lower expenses.

I think the mum is wanting the daughter to go to university whilst staying in her current home and contribute to rent and bills could be for her daughter's sake as much as her own. After all if the mother had to move to a onebed room flat , she , the mother would have a home.

I think the mother is wanting to preserve the child's childhood home until the girl is a bit older- because she is aware that- she will need a place to stay in all the long uni holidays, three years goes very quickly and if the daughter doesn't go straight into a job, she might need to go back home to her mum (or if she left the course for some reason).

So I think the mum's reasons for saying , stay at home and contribute -could be to do with wanting to make sure her daughter still has her childhood home available until she's a bit older, if there are pets that could be a factor too, because a lot of one bedroom flats don't allow pets. So I think it could be financial, but it could actually be that the mother is trying to retain a home for her daughter, until she's finished uni.

How terribly selfish of her mother. You don't put your concerns on your kids, you hope they spread their wings and find something they are passionate about. I'm so upset for your nice to be put in that position. The benefits would stop regardless but that isn't your nieces problem. I would really encourage her to go and not to worry about her mum as it sounds like she will be alright one way or another. What a blessing she has you and hubby to look out for her.