Is this going to cause a massive family rift?

[Whatdoyoudowiththedrunkensailor]

Sorry for length of this -

I have an older brother who is a little bit of a moocher - I’ve posted about him before under a different name. He has had a great education and many opportunities in life and has ended up, in his mid 30s, with no money and financially dependent on my mother. He never pays for himself and works a couple of hours a day, and that’s it. He is always feeling sorry for himself due to having no money, and therefore my mother/other siblings bank roll him as they worry he is depressed. I think he’s just playing on their emotions/using them (but I can’t be sure of this).

He is always asking us if he can do odd jobs for cash. We let him dog sit last year whilst we were away - fridge full of food for him at ours, 25£ a day etc, and he fucked off for 10 hours a day to see friends and left our dog crying (we could hear on camera after neighbour messaged asking if dog was alright)/had to get mother to intervene as we were abroad. Came home to a fruit bowl full of rotting fruit and fridge full of off milk etc.

Anyway we are expecting and he’s due to be god father as he is an extremely fun brother/uncle. We offered him 200-300£ to paint a wardrobe for the baby as he’s very talented artistically and his hobby is art related. He agreed. We set a deadline of 1 week for the work to be finished. 3 weeks later. 3 weeks of him lying (I can’t do it today as I’m working - turns out he was just at home chilling etc), showing up hours after he said he would, us waiting around for him….what he has painted is shockingly bad - he didn’t put the tape on properly and it needs totally clearing up/the non painted bits will need to be repainted to fix it. Anyway we basically said “if you don’t want to do this please just say as we had another person lined up”. No, he’s sorry but he’s not motivated. Ok, fine. So we have to get the other person to undo all his shitty work and the deadline was weeks ago and this has been a totally maddening experience.

Today he messaged asking for money for the time spent on it. On one hand - maybe he is depressed (although he is never too depressed to see his friends and do the things HE wants to do - dinners, lunches, cinema trips, gym etc) and he did spend some time painting. On the other hand he totally fucking let us down and it’s going to now cost us MORE money than the other person originally quoted as she’s not starting from scratch.

I don’t want to cause a huge family argument if we don’t pay him so do we just pay him something? What’s fair?

Yes, it is about that.

I am inclined to agree with you re the MH “excuse”
being presented but obviously it’s not possible to know for sure!

Jeez if anyone treated my dog like that they’d be out of my life permanently. They’d be lucky to have the full use of both legs.

That has really upset me, but your ‘last straw’ is a fucking lump of wood.

Your priorities are absolutely fucked up.

And that’s without going near the godfather shit.

I know and he has acknowledged that but there is a level of guilt here.

DH is also very successful and I am a SAHM. DB very much thinks therefore that things have fallen into my lap (DH was young and didn’t have any money when we first met). He’s made many comments about DH being “lucky” or said things like “if I won the lottery I would pay for everything”. I have recently explained to him these comments are quite offensive / DH hasn’t “won the lottery” and he’s not “lucky”, he’s worked 100 hour weeks for over a decade to be where he is financially. There’s probably some low key resentment going on regarding my life and the fact I’m not working but financially comfortable.

I’m not trying to eschew all responsibility here because I agree it’s not a great reflection on me - the comments on this thread have been eye opening re my dog. It’s quite hard when the immediate response of people around you (family) to something are just to massively downplay it. It was very much “he’s now taking him for long walks and lavishing him with attention/he made a mistake it’s all fine” and I basically just had to drop it at the time.

I’m sorry but that just wouldn’t wash with me. I honestly would have flown home, chucked him out on his arse and never spoken to him again. No matter what anyone else had to say about it. No one treats my dog like that. Ever

What’s going to happen when your mum is no longer here? Your other brother will get sick of having to sort him out? Is everything going to be left to you? Will mum leave him the house so he can drink it into the ground ?

if people are pushing you to pay , send him a £1 , it’s all it’s worth

it would be interesting to see what the real stories is of the all the boring jobs he “left”

I don't want to include too many details here, but the poster who identified that your mother is building herself a would-be husband is absolutely bang on. My mother always favourited my GC brother out of the four of us. He could do no wrong, ever, no matter what. If any of us ever pointed it out, we were childish and ridiculous. Ultimately, everything my mother did to help him was reversed, becoming expectations on him. Suddenly he was married, trying to start a family, functioning with my mother as a dependent child.

When she died, he was away working - which she'd asked him not to do. Can you imagine the trauma he's endured since? He's so messed up idk what to do anymore.

Anyway, I had several thoughts as I was reading this.

1. You said your mum ignored your messages, and I wondered why you'd messaged her at all. Try to keep her out of it as much as possible. Don't be hoping she'll validate your actions because she won't.
2. I never tell women to hide behind their spouses, but in this instance, I think your husband might actually give you enough space to be a bit brave here, since all you have to do is say 'I've tried but he won't budge/ not going to ruin my marriage over this.'
3. If the whole thing erupts, drop this thread in the group chat. Every member of your family has been sheltered from the utter dysfunction because they have been isolated from the real world by engaging only with the family about family matters. They need to see the family through other people's eyes. I know this might feel like a scary move, but I promise you, nothing is more ultimately validating than the knowledge that your family know, categorically, that most rationally minded people agree with you, and not them.
4. You would be okay without the lot of them, you know. It would be sad, there would be lots of crying, and lots of wishing it had turned out differently. But you'd be okay, and you wouldn't be continually desperate for someone you care about to see you, recognise your needs, and treat you equally. I'm not sure that prior to this thread you've ever really stopped to see the damage it's causing you to continually come second (or third, as you mentioned your eldest brother is the GC!) or what it's going to do to your children to see you treated that way. I'd bet my right arm your husband is hopping mad and biting his tongue for your benefit. No way is he enjoying watching you treated so badly, and whilst expecting?! No.
5. I can pretty much guarantee that the moment you put your foot down, you'll catalyse a domino effect. When I left home and went no contact with my mother, the entire family followed, except for my GC brother. His decision to stay was complicated and ruined his life.
6. I have been a chronic depressive since I was 15. I am now in my late thirties. I have never behaved the way this man is behaving. It's not depression, it's entitlement, and it is learned behaviour. You can't stop your mother (or anyone else) from coddling him, but you can be brave and start the ball rolling yourself. If anyone challenges you, you have two options here.

a.) Hide behind DH. b.) Repeatedly tell them it is between you and your brother and you will not argue with them over it. Change the subject as many times as you need to in order for them to get the message that it is frankly none of their business. He doesn't need an advocate. He is a grown man doing business. Imagine this were an actual client. He wouldn't be able to hide behind them then!

Best of luck with it all, OP. Let us know how you get on.

Ok well I am not as good a dog owner! By the time it reached such a horrible peak, my mother had stepped in and come to have the dog late at night/he was sleeping in the bed with her/he was fine. We were on a 10 day family holiday with a 10 week old baby and a toddler, it’s not that easy to just fly home, and everything seemed resolved, DB agreed to step up.

Oh well that was all fine then. Just forget about it, as you seem to have done quite happily 🙄

Unbelievable

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a helpful and thoughtful post. I am sorry to hear that you have had a similar experience, and I’m also sorry to hear about your struggles with depression. Can only imagine the damage done to your brother too - what a guilt trip to carry around for life!

i agree re hiding behind DH. And I agree re my own damage and taking a step back from DM and not engaging with her on it. I actually think though that showing them this thread would enrage them completely. I’m slightly worried that they may have already seen it which is why I’m receiving the silent treatment - I don’t think they would see it and feel like they have done anything wrong. I would be in the wrong for “airing dirty laundry” and, despite my having presented facts entirely honestly as they are, I’m sure they would not accept all of them (DH read through and was like “this is exactly what has happened” but then he is a reasonable and relatively objective observer). I think it would be too much for them to see all the truths in black and white re enabling.

No you didn't just have to drop it at the time. If your mother had taken the dog home then you didn't have to fly home but when you did get home you could still have dealt well and truly with your moocher brother. If it had been my dog he would no longer have balls....and I don't mean the dog. You know the saying.....madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

so OP, of the possible options ruling out miracles, what do you want and how are you going to go about getting it?

DH is right! Payment is on finish to a satisfactory standard. If you had someone else in and they behaved this way, you would not pay

The fact that it is "impossible" to prove or refute is exactly why it's such an easy excuse for him to use. He can call someone "heartless" and "mean" if they question him.

Spoke to my other brother and it was clear they have all been discussing. Very much “well he did spend a lot of time painting them” and “it’s only paint that he’s got on the white bits”. I said DH didn’t want to pay given we now need to pay someone else and he was like “ok then tell DB that - I understand”. He did also try to minimise though “the worst thing he did was to lie about me it”. The worst thing was everything! All of this mess is the worst. DH doesn’t want to engage and just wait and see if he chases him for money as he’s hoping he will feel to awkward to do that. But I am pretty confident he will chase and think DH should just nip in the bud once we have the completed quote.

Sounds like your older brother is more reasonable than your mum and feckless brother. Maybe build on your relationship with him, along with your dh, to preempt or prevent the whole gang turning on you. A benign version of divide and conquer to protect yourself.

He sounds like a spoilt brat, quite frankly. I would t pay him for this or any other job - & I’d make it clear to the rest of the family that he’s taking them for a ride too.
You can support him if he’s having mental health challenges - invite him round, go for walks, have dinner together - but no more jobs & no more funds!!

I wonder if he has ADHD? Not making excuses, but he fits some of the condition

Many years ago when I was much younger my mother had this sort of issue with her brother.

There were several similar instances where he did terrible DIY jobs for my parents that they paid for and then had to spend money we didn’t have on getting things fixed properly (think no family holidays, no school trips, no new shoes etc).

Eventually my mum had had enough and stopped talking to him, caused a big argument with her mother and a family rift. There were other issues but the money for crap work was the tipping point.

He may be depressed but that is irrelevant in this situation. He did a shitty job, either don’t pay him or pay him part of what you agreed for the time spent and don’t ever ask him to do anything ever again. I would suggest avoiding a family argument over it if you can.

He's ticking a lot of boxes for ADD and / or autism. Speaking as someone who is bringing up 2 auDHD teens.

Doesn’t matter how many internet diagnoses get dished out, the OP is right in not letting her waster brother use her anymore.

every lazy teenager/millenial entitled youngster is now complaining about their mentalelf rather than just getting on with it..... do not pay him or have him as a god parent. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and there was no 'mentalelf' ..... excuse after excuse is not good enough.

This is basically how I feel. Maybe it’s not sympathetic and it’s an unpopular opinion these days - I’m surprised at people on this thread saying he checks boxes for adhd and even autism. You can make any sort of criteria fit, if you want to. I would eat my hat if he’s either of those things - and I also highly doubt he has any sort of clinical depression. I suspect he feels a bit shitty about his life, but equally it’s too comfortable for him to change his ways. It’s like a rut he’s in.

but then I’m feeling extremely pissed off today - it took 2 hours for our handyman to remove the pink paint. 50£ an hour that’s 100£ (and he’s undeniably good/trustworthy/the opposite of my brother so if he says that I believe him wholeheartedly). This is because it’s a water based paint any he basically had to use water and a cloth for a tedious amount of time - any chemicals would strip the paint below.

oh, and the artist would could have done this from the start is away for 2 weeks; so this won’t be done until 2 months after I initially wanted it to be. First world problem? Yes. Irritating and avoidable? Yes.

Christ - missing out on family holidays due to paying for pity tasks to be done right is next level!

Seems you need to send db an invoice not him sending you one...
Bet when it is all done dm tells all and sundry db did it!