To expect less well off BIL who get more support to take on more family responsibilities

[Poppyroselilydaisy]

My partner and I are a well off young couple with no kids, and both in high paying professional jobs.
His family are also quite well off (probably upper middle). I get on very well with his family, especially with his parents. They are lovely and treat me as part of the family. Partner has a younger brother, who I don’t know as well but he’s really lovely person as well.
His younger brother and his partner are significantly less well off than us, basically because they are pursuing academic careers.
Partner’s parents have always given them more financial help (which I don’t mind as we don’t need it), and when they came into some inheritance asked us whether we would mind giving up our share to his brother. That is also fine as sums involved aren’t huge and his brother will benefit more from the cash than we would. Not to mention it’s not my family money so I don’t feel it’s in my place to have an opinion about how they share their family resources.
My only grievance is that partner’s brother doesn’t seem very interested in giving back to the family in other ways - not out of malice but just classic younger brother habit/ mentality. Less is always expected of him.
Everytime partner’s parents need support/ help/ someone to talk to they always come to my partner (and sometimes me), and very little is expected from his brother.
I don’t mind that his brother gets more financial help from his parents, and don’t even mind if my partner decides in the future to help his brother out financially if he chooses to do so. However is it unreasonable to think that because brother is getting more help from the family he should be asked to support the family more? And if so how do I say that gently to partner? He is classic big brother/ elder son type.

YABU and transactional. You insist you don't mind the brother getting extra financial help, but you keep mentioning it. IMO the finances are irrelevant. Both brothers should be expected to do the same (all other things being equal, i.e. excluding childhood abuse etc). Why are his parents needing so much support/help/someone to talk to, though?

Could you not engineer way that bil is 1st point of call and you are unavailable for xyz help?

Not your business. If there are times you don’t want to help them asked then say no, but it is not your place to decide he should support the family more and therefore something should be done about it.

It's none of your business how much help the brother receives.
Caring/helping should ideally be shared equally, and shouldn't be based on who got more financial support. 🫣

From observation over 35 years, my in laws always sought help from my husband, as the eldest, unless the thing they needed help with was something one of the other siblings had expertise in.
I think it’s pretty normal within families.

How old is your BIL? Our youngest is 21, our SIL is 30. I tend to ask our SIL for advice sometimes rather than our son simply because he has more life experience.

“I don’t mind that his brother gets more financial help from his parents,”

Oh that’s good of you.

However is it unreasonable to think that because brother is getting more help from the family he should be asked to support the family more?

More? No

Equally? Yes, although not related to finances in any way - just to the fact that he's an adult.

I think you have a strange view of how families that love each other should support each other.

Actually I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all and I think there’s a slippery slope here and that if you and your partner get married and have kids a) you may well want some financial help from them, especially if one of you ends up reducing your hours. (v common after kids) and b) because you’ll have less time to help. Depending on how serious you are with your DP, I would gently bring it up with him and see how he feels. You’ll then know if you’re going to end up with a future “DH problem” as it’s termed around here rather than an IL problem.

My DH and his sibling are treated very differently both in terms of financial assistance and also being relied on. We have discussed it at length between us and he agrees it’s not right and therefore we have taken a step back when necessary and been less available to protect our own family unit. I think that’s perfectly reasonable.

I also personally think it’s outrageous your DP was asked to hand over some inheritance to his brother if they were left equal shares.

None of your business how much financial support your partners parents give your bil. As you say you don't need it. So it's not necessary to mention it.

YABU to be transactional about it.

Ideally they should equally help. But if your partner is the first one his parents come to then its hardly his brothers fault. If your partner has no problem with it, why do you? If you, personaly dont want to help, are you able to say so?

@Poppyroselilydaisy how long as bil been studying for?? why do in laws think he is more deserving of inheritance than your dp? is this a warning of what is going to happen when in laws pass away, do you think? bil gets the house etc and your dp gets nil??

I'll be honest, the worst sounding person in this story is you.

hahaha, you are missing some basic family dynamics. Your in laws come to your DP for the very same reason they don't give him financial support - they see him as the competent, together one who can handle stuff. My parents have specific things they come to each of their children for based on their perception of our skills combined with their perception of our ability/time/resources to get things done!

What's more concerning is I can see in 20 years time that you might get resentful that the younger brother perhaps doesn't take on as much care and support when your in laws are older. You better figure out how you feel about this now.

I don't understand how these people's private business concerns you?

Don't worry about a boyfriends family dynamics, I'm sure they're fine.
Life is easier when you don't choose to take on concerns of other people.

You're not married OP, you're not part of the family. As such, this family's financial arrangements are absolutely nothing to do with you.

You sound very controlling. Stop trying to dictate who your in-laws contact for help or support .

OP you're going to get a pasting for her simply for being well-off. MN hates higher earning women.
There are plenty of similar threads about the 'golden child' getting more and everyone agrees that it's unfair. But you're getting a bollocking.

Having said that, PP are right in that you're not married so have little say however you need to be quite clear about your approach. Husband's family is similar, and we're both in agreement that we'll help accordingly.

It's not about the money. It's about unfair treatment.

Fair enough if the BIL needed more help due to unfair circumstances (got a relative with a severely disabled adult child for example and all siblings agreed that the former should receive more inheritance).

But asking your DP to give up inheritance is very brazen.

You're right to reciprocate accordingly.

BTW I'd strongly advise you not to marry a man who won't stand up to his family for you.

Your post gives the impression that you think being poorly paid as an academic means someone is less successful than if they were in a private sector job making lots of cash. People go into academia as it's infinitely more interesting work than most "high paying professional jobs" in the private sector. The trade off is the pay.

Academia is also insanely competitive to get into, as there are so few jobs in the academic sector, so if your BIL has actually managed to get a permanent academic post, that means that he's doing better the vast majority people who get PhDs these days.

There are loads of people (myself included) who had to move to the private sector because we couldn't make it in academia post-PhD.

It’s not like a vending machine, OP — put more money in, get more services out.

Imagine your shock if you were in my and DH’s families. Not only did we both become ill-paid academics, we’re by far the highest earners in either of our families, and our family members chiefly work unskilled manual jobs.

Either the academic is rightly financially 'unsuccessful' and so completely deserves all this financial support at his brother's expense.

Or, he's successful, therefore doesn't need any help. Therefore the parents are behaving unfairly and showing blatant favouritism.

Either way success isn't something implicitly mentioned by the OP. The main question is the difference in treatment between siblings.

@DriedHydrangeas. Do you thinks it's fair for one sibling to take and take? And not give back? It's not Ultimately about the money as you made out. It's about the parental attitude and golden child dynamics.

Also adding @PinkPolkadotFlamingo it's not the OP that has said anything about the bother needing help. It's the parents.

Just to add that we are actually engaged and have been together for 10+ years.

I guess it is really about a sense of responsibility and contributing to the family in different ways. Partner and I work extremely long hours so can contribute more financially but brother is an academic so has a lot more time flexibility. I agree it doesn’t affect us much right now but his parents have various health issues (although doing relatively fine for now) and it worries me a little that we would end up taking on a lot of caring responsibilities as well if brother in law is pretty used to being treated as the golden child

So good of you that you 'don't mind' parents helping out their actual offspring! 🤣🤣

None of your business really.

It's not cool to marry into someone else's family and think it gives you the right to interfere.

ETA: Cross posted.

Christ, you haven't even married into the family you're trying to interfere in? 😳

Look OP you cannot control what they do for his brother but you can control what 'you' do. I'd make it very clear to your husband that you both won't be taking on any caring responsibilities. Or at least you won't. If he wants to that's fine but you have to be aligned on the amount of time you spend on this

Nobody can make you do anything you don't want to.

Also since they have so much money to give BIL freely, they can definitely pay carers etc.
Ignore everyone else piling on.

If you end up becoming roped into 'primary' caring SS will try to dump everything on you BTW. Be very careful not to go down that road unless you're both on board. Obviously his career taking a hit will have an impact on your family finances