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?

He owes you money for not looking after your dog properly in accordance with what you agreed, so tell him based on that you'll call it quits. Sorry you're having this aggro.

I wouldnt pay but just say that the other person will is fixing the fuck up is more expensive so you can't afford to.

Don't let him be god parent. He hasn't even been a good dog parent!

Yes, but very real

He's got you all over a barrel and he knows it. Making excuses for his behaviour, bankrolling him, he's got no motivation to stand on his own two feet! He's not depressed enough to not have a grand old time out and about with his mates, none of which he pays for. He neglected your dog and still everybody is making excuses for him! I am hugely sympathetic to depression, I've been there myself (as a lone parent with a disabled child) but you still have to pick up and get on, seek help and meds. He's just a waste or bloody space and you're all enabling him! He must have a right old giggle behind your backs!

@Floralnomad pay him something for a shit job and thus continuing enabling his behaviour? Are you insane?

I wouldn't pay him. He didn't complete the job.

I'd be texting back something like 'even for you that's hysterical, good one' and never asking him to do anything ever again. Least of all godparent. What kind of example is he to any child?

I'm also wondering why the hell you want him to be godfather!

Give him nothing and bin him off as the godfather ( he'll probably want paying for that!!) Depression my arse, he's a bone idle grifter who's taking the piss
Don't fall for it

I would pay him a token amount just to keep everyone off my back and then never, ever, ever agree to pay him for something again.

You wouldn’t pay anyone else for doing a bad job so why pay him? If it upsets your mum tough. He’s an adult and needs to start behaving like one.

OP are you aware of what being a godparent actually means?
Traditionally someone guiding the child's spiritual development. But in 2024, it's someone of good character who can be another trusted adult.
Not this waste of space! Goodness.
What a bad example for the children.

The whole family are enabling this behaviour and the DB is doing FA to address his depression (if indeed that's what he has). Just stop it all now. Csll his bluff and say you're taking him to see the GP. I bet he wriggles out of it with a lame excuse.

Also I know he's already been promised the Godfather role but if he can't look after your dog, HTH is he going to cope with looking after a small human?

Tough love is needed.

YABU to keep giving him chances!! After the dog incident, I wouldn't have trusted him with anything else. People like that don't change.
And a god parent is normally someone who you would trust if god forbid anything happened to the parents. He can't look after himself, let alone children.

Being a godfather comes with responsibilities which it doesn’t sound as though he’s up to. That aside l wouldn’t pay him whether it caused a rift or not. Stop enabling and bankrolling him. If he’s this irresponsible you’re not doing him any favours.

He's going to be a terrible god father, he'll forget xmas and birthdays and will always be compared to the other more reliable brother.

If you do keep him as godfather you'll need a decent backup god person to be there for your 2nd child.

Give him half the money, call it quits and never expect him to do anything ever again.

Depression doesn't make you a lazy unreliable knob , and you can get treatment for depression

He's obviously got away with it his whole life. Maybe a rift is what's needed for people to wake up to the fact that he doesn't do any work because he doesn't want to. Definitely don't pay him, he's taking advantage. I definitely wouldn't ask him to do anything again. As for your poor dog. .........

Have you posted about him before? The dynamic is similar to a previous thread about a brother who never pays for his share (for example at family meals).

My ex had diagnosed depression.. Refused meds.
The fine line between a mh condition and just being a twat. He wobbled on it every day.
His condition enabled him to play pool and golf and go out drinking at football matches..
Didn't extend to school runs, shopping, taking ddog out or any household chores..
Easy to figure out why he was single with 2 ex dw's behind him.
And a terrible df..
Thankfully we didn't have any together

I understand why everyone is focussing on the godparent parent thing but he is there for every child’s events and christmases/birthdays etc and he is a wonderful uncle. I know he’s not responsible but my other brother (who is extremely responsible) has never had to have the children alone etc so I don’t particularly expect DB to have to carry out any actual responsibilities - I think it’s more of a ceremonial role these days. DC1’s godmother moved abroad and has seen him once in 2 years and DC2’s godfather has seen him once in his life. It would be really very nasty to just remove the role from
him, as he really wanted it. Having said that, I mentioned it as I think it does make it even more upsetting that he’s just “not motivated” to have done this. It would have been easy money for him and, as a PP said, many uncles would have just done it for free.

I will just wait for the finished quote when the wardrobe has been fixed and deduct it from the agreed amount and explain to him/my family we are X out of pocket. I’m so surprised (but not, if that makes sense) that he even asked.

i do just suspect years of not having to do anything has rendered him incapable of bothering to do anything that’s not 100% what he wants to do.

this post and the answers have made me consider carefully how I feel about my family never taking my side on stuff, even when I think it’s pretty clear what’s right and wrong.

If he did half a job - pay him half the money. If he took ages to do it badly, pay him half the money ...in a few weeks time. In a few inconveniently annoying installments. And dont ask him to do anything ever again. When people show you who they are - believe them.

I have suffered from depression when much younger. I couldn’t leave my bed/go anywhere at all. There was no “able to go partying” but not able to do my uni work, it was just a blanket depression and I dragged myself to the doctor and got some meds until I had my shit together and could come
off them. I realise mental health is different for everyone but this looks like your ex - very convenient what seems to set off the depression!

But he did half the job so badly that I have to get someone else to fix it which is going to cost money too.

Yes, yes I have. He’s the brother from
the swimming trunks story.

That’s an ABYSMAL paint job.
He hasn’t even bothered to use masking tape properly- or even better, to have a steady hand which looks much better.
That is a shocking job.

Don’t pay him for that- Awful.