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?

That's a very measured response from your DH.
You may very well be right that in a week's time your DH gets another message from your brother but do you know something - it's not your problem any more. Let your DH deal with it and you concentrate on not getting your blood pressure up and looking after getting that baby to full term and have a wonderful 3rd trimester!
He is not your problem to fix. If your brother starts texting you, hand him off to your husband and simply say "I cannot deal with you at the moment. I'm pregnant and you have caused terrible upset in my family. DH will speak with you shortly"

This will pass and again, I think you need to rescind the offer/request for him to be your new baby's godfather if he's causing so much disquiet about a bit of painting.

when he comes back , I’d ask him whether he thinks he actually deserves to £100 for what he did, or whether he just wants it and feels you should pay it.
Whether he thinks anyone else would pay him £100 or just thinks you should because you’re related.

"I don't know what that would really be other than charity."
Your DH is a star and you should back him up. This is easily done by not discussing the matter (and, going forward, any other transactional matter!) with DBro and telling him to speak to DH.

I think this is the crux of the matter. Your DB really does believe that you should pay him because he wants the money. And this has been happening all his life.. because nobody has ever told him no. And he can’t understand why you won’t give him the money as you are well off. He just doesn’t get the reality of working hard to earn.

Let DH deal with it, and if your family get involved just tell them to talk to DH as you are no longer prepared to deal with your brother and his entitled behaviour.

The tragedy of this is a grown man who truly believes that everyone else should support him because no one has ever told him anything different… the family pandering to him have effectively ruined him.

Couldn't agree more.

A much used phrase but never truer here

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

I get it's difficult because he is your brother. It's up to the OP if she can deal with her changing her thought process and actions around the brother.

This man has no conscience. He will absolutely push for the money and whinge because it "should" be more.

OP if you can, mute him and let your husband, who doesn't have the emotional familial connection that you do, nor the guilt foisted on you by your mother and other brother, deal with this. Focus on your mental and physical health and the health of your baby. Next to that, he really doesn't matter. 🌹

I think it's quite telling that when your husband spells out how shitty your brother has been & asks what would be fair, your brother's response is a sum of money.

Not an apology.

He doesn't deserve anything & if he does ask again I think that your husband should say that.

I often think MH particularly in men gets played down on MN. But you describe him as a 'fun' uncle. In my experience when you are depressed the last thing you can be is 'fun'.

This is extremely well phrased, thank you. As is @diddl ’s point re him not actually apologising. I am just letting DH deal with it (to the PP who said he’s a legend, I agree, obviously!)

just thought I would update people as you’ve been extremely helpful and it’s good to get some outside perspectives as the sense of obligation is quite ingrained in me.

Your DH is a legend! I couldn't have worded a reply more perfectly than he has here!

Offer him a payment plan to pay you what you need to pay to have the job re done.. If he still insists you owe him suggest you will go ahead with a payment plan TO him.. And offer 50p a week.
He can't get pissed on that.

I agree that he has been enabled in this.

But he's obviously OK with it also.

He must know it's not the norm.

@Whatdoyoudowiththedrunkensailor I'm 100% in support of how you want to handle it. He's extremely out of order and taking advantage of your bond as siblings. I don't think you need to worry about embarrassing him, he doesn't seem to have any shame going by the messages with your DH. My advice was purely to avoid calling him out this time and having any drama at all from it, so you could just never let yourself offer him jobs in exchange for money again, but if it'd bother you to let this go without confronting it (which it does) then your DH has done that perfectly. Your DB doesn't seem to have got the hint or feel any way about it but at least points have been made and next time he asks it can be a firm NO! Life's to short to fall out with family, even when they do behave below your expectations of decency and lack any consideration. Xx

I’m so sorry for you @Whatdoyoudowiththedrunkensailor this has been an awful time for you and with the added bollocks coming from your family you must be so disappointed and let down by them all.

it’s like they’re all looking at you to be the one that pays their way in future and it doesn’t matter what they do, how irresponsible they are and how ridiculously stupid and entitled your brother is, you and your h will just blithely carry on picking up the tab. It’s like because you have money, that you have a role to fulfill in keeping them and their shitty choices.

very few will understand the pain that comes from knowing that family/friends view you as a mark because you have money now.

You and your h sound like nice and kind people, who are able to be generous and kind but are being taken advantage of by your family. The worst of it is that you don’t WANT to be harsh or push back or worse upset anyone, but these are exactly the things they use against you to manipulate you into giving them your money.

we’ve had a lot of it from OH kids and their mothers, but once you show them that there are limits and boundaries and you are very firm on them, these people often do give up and stop.

your brother has never had this kind of pushback until now, so it’s a learning curve. Now you’ve pushed back, all your DH has to do is either ignore any future messages from DB or be clear, we agreed, you owe us tbh, and I’m not giving to charity by paying you for a really bad job.

DN wanted money ‘for his time’ well his time isn’t worth anything if it achieves nothing. Perhaps your H can suggest that by not getting paid for this, perhaps it’s a lesson that will actually stick and his non-payment is an ‘investment’ in db’s development. 😆😆

Yes. Agreed.

OP you're absolutely right. Your brother means 'OK I will accept a contribution from you'. Your DH is being naive. I still have no idea why you'd give him any money.

Any more begging txts from your brother OP?

Actually 1) he hasn’t asked again and 2) he did this very kind thing for me where I asked for a specific snack on the family chat as it was sold out in local shop and wasn’t sure if anyone had it - he then walked to 5/6 different shops to try to find it. I suspect he is trying to make amends/I did appreciate the gesture!

Well that is very good news! Maybe DH telling him no has given him a shock. Let’s hope the nice person stays!

He's hoovering you back in by making you think favourably towards him!

Once he thinks he's earned enough brownie points he'll ask for the money again.

I agree. You absolutely can change your mind and have someone else as godfather.
I can’t believe you still indulge him after he left your poor dog to cry alone for hours every day when you were away and he was being paid.

My thought too!

Wanted to just add to this to moan a little and say my brother injured himself - pretty outing but fuck it - by dislocating his shoulder. He tried to call an ambulance and they wouldn’t come (understandably) and so he messaged on group chat that he couldn’t afford an Uber.

I am quite proud of myself as my response was to suggest the bus, rather than automatically offered to pay. My mother of course paid. I don’t believe for a second he doesn’t have 20-30£ for an Uber; he wants to use that money for things he WANTS to spend it on - beer, seeing friends etc.

sadly, a friend of my mother’s has a child who recently took his own life. Therefore she is now more convinced than ever she needs to “take care of him”. I’ve said it’s doing more harm than good in the long run but it’s hitting my head against a brick wall.

To be clear - the sadly is about my mother’s friend. Awful situation. But not comparable here

Oh dear!
I’m sorry for him hurting his shoulder, and would have been more likely to give him a lift than send him money.

And I’m sorry for your mum’s friend. It is a terrifying thing.

I do wonder whether you are still accidentally ’bought in’ to the situation by being involved at all- simply in having an opinion on it. You are also babyfying him by worrying about your mum’s indulgence of him!

You know what he’s and she are like, just leave them to it. He’s getting a lot of attention, still. The world doesn’t revolve round him.