Background on this - my younger brother (36 yo) asked me (39 yo) for a loan of £60 in January. I made a transfer via a method that was going to take too long to go into his account, so made another faster transfer and asked for the original to be returned once cleared. Instead, I was asked for another 60, on top, making the total loan 180. Ok. That was January. I’ve had lots of excuses each month since then, and I even offered to halve the debt. This month, today, is the first time I’ve chased him to pay me back, because I’m desperate!
He offered me £40, I asked for 50 as I do have a bill to pay (I am not a rich person and tbh if I’d known I was giving away £180 in January I don’t think I would have been as generous….!). When I asked for 50, he got shirty, telling me he’d offered what he can afford and we’ve all got bills to pay, but he’d pay 50 anyway and I’d just have to wait for anything else.
He has two kids, and he refers to having ‘2 extra mouths to feed’ as a reason not to repay me. However, he has a girlfriend who has an income to help them, I know this because we’re friends, and she gets them food shopping, I know he goes to the pub and buys marijuana to smoke, which is fine, I don’t judge him on this as it’s fairly harmless, but I do feel he prioritises getting high over repaying this small debt to me. It’s been bugging me. I haven’t told his girlfriend about this money issue between my brother and I, and don’t plan to. My account has been overdrawn and I’ve even gone without shopping myself, and it’s been frustrating to know he’s still spending money to smoke and get his haircut and this kind of luxury thing…! He even sold his car (which was my dad’s old car which dad gave to him before he died last year) and still didn’t offer me anything to repay the loan from January.
I also took out a £2000 loan for him last year, to pay solicitor fees for him for a driving court case he was involved in. I pay for this loan every month and have never asked him for a penny towards it. I will be paying it for at least a year. I reminded him today that I make this sacrifice for him every month and that I’m not a monster to request he pays me 50 instead of 40. He got extremely upset, telling me ‘you have no kids only a dog to pay for!’ which has hurt me deeply. My dog is my world. And even he is hungry atm poor little sausage…!
I was expecting my brother to come back today with a ‘oh yeah, thanks sis, love you and no worries’ text, but I am now blocked on WhatsApp, and things have become even worse. I’ve been borrowing his garage to work in, to use his internet temporarily for my job while my new house is connected, which is why I suggested halving the debt as both a way to pay him for the space I’ve been borrowing and to help him financially. He has now told me ‘use someone else’s f**king garage!’, and blocked me, which means he would not receive any further messages from me and that I now have nowhere to work, at least for the rest of the week while I try and find a solution, so I’m losing a lot of money, and am emotionally drained….
I am just kind of…in shock about his reaction. It feels very callous, as I’ve always been there for him and helped him with money and emotional support without question.
My older brother advised not to loan him any money, but I ignored this advice. I feel for the kids, I don’t want them to go hungry, but also have a suspicion this excuse is used as some leverage to illicit sympathy from me (I’ve loaned him money for food shopping in the past, only to discover he’s used it to pay a parking ticket instead….!) and using the excuse of the kids didn’t work this time which I think is why he got angry.
So, am I being unreasonable for requesting the money back in this case, and am I being unreasonable for reminding him of what I do for him every month after he got shirty with me about asking him to increase his offer of 40 to 50?
This is my first ever post 😅
Thanks for reading, hope it hasn’t been too boring! Any help or advice welcome. I will really welcome some outside opinion on this! And gladly answer any questions…