To cancel Christmas for 18yr old DS?

[Mothership6]

My DSS has been living with my MIL who is disabled for a couple of years now, as his relationship with his DM isn’t great. We found out a couple of weeks ago when MIL was taken into hospital with heart failure and given weeks to live, that DSS had been stealing money from her bank account on a regular basis. Whilst she was taken into hospital he had emptied her bank account of several hundred pounds and sold some of her belongings. He spent all the money on himself and his GF.

AIBU to cancel Christmas? We haven’t bought him any presents and said what we’d usually spend on him can go towards paying his Nan back. Others have said this is harsh?

He hasn’t even apologised and shows no remorse.

I hope to goodness he is now out of his GM's house and has no access to it.
Stealing from a frail elderly ill person multiple times, let alone the fact it's his GM, is about as low as it gets. There's something seriously wrong with his moral compass.

I think Christmas is the least of your problems OP. I would strongly suspect drugs.

It goes without saying really that he gets nothing from any of his family for Christmas. He wouldn’t be welcome in my home again anytime soon either, and I’m another one who’d call the police on him. Your poor MIL. It’s bad enough having someone you don’t know steal from you but when it’s a) your relative and b) you’ve done everything you can to help them it’s truly awful.

I hope the stuff he’s stolen and sold is replaceable and wasn’t of any sentimental value like jewellery.

Yes I think it’s a police matter. Let him take real world consequences. I lived with my Nan when I was 18 and I can not imagine doing this. I use to collect her pension in cash in on a Thursday from post office and then go get her shopping for the week and return home. I would have been mortified if it ever crossed her mind I would even take a penny from her. I was so grateful she provided me a home when my life at home was difficult with my Mum and I would never have repaid it by stealing. I loved and respected her and her providing a home enable me to finish my A levels and go off to University for which I am eternally grateful to her. Makes my blood boil what he had done to his grandma.

My dbro did the same thing. He was taking a lot of cocaine

People are jumping to so many conclusions here. You can spend lots of money without it being drug related.

Yes I think 100% go to the police. One poster above said a criminal record won’t help but he deserves a criminal record as he is a criminal! He is an adult and made the decision to steal from her.

Does the reason even matter? He stole from a vulnerable elderly lady - simply call the police and let them deal with it. And I would not want him in my home at Christmas he can not be trusted.

Definitely. Put his grandmother first, not him and his girlfriend. He needs to be arrested for this and the locks changed on his grandmother's house.

Why would you post at 140am on Christmas day about taking away his Christmas presents? Surely this is much bigger and more serious than losing his new trainers or Aftershave

DSS and its Christmas nail the little shits ass to the floor. Stealing, period is a big no no and even worse from someone who is old and disabled. The little rat needs to learn a very big lesson and fast. Might he be shoving things up his nose or swallowing none prescribed items? Sorry for me here there are no second chances irrespective of the fact he ends up with a criminal record he needs dealing with without mercy. There are no excuses for this behaviour.

Call the police on him. I wonder if he's into drugs?

No that's not a problem with impulse control, it's just called being a selfish arsehole.

A perfect Christmas present would be to call the police

First thing, MIL needs to be protected. He has to immediately leave, locks changed, bank account cards cancelled etc.

Then the damage has to be assessed, how much has he taken totally.

Lastly, if you do not want to report this - he needs to be sat down and understand the seriousness of this. He has to understand that he has to put right what he has done wrong or a theft/fraud report will have to be made. He has to be made aware that it all has to be paid back fully and how this is should be done. I would move him in with me and work out a plan ie. If he earns £2k pm then 500 rent, 1k theft payback and he only has 500pm to live on until the fraud is paid back. It has to be brutal and he needs a few financially difficult months to learn the lesson.

There is a fork in the road here and he has to make the decision which way he goes.

Why haven’t you reported this to the police?

You could call the police - but there's no going back from that. And it's hard to do for a DS/DSS.

He needs to know, this gets paid back in FULL, ASAP. This kind of behaviour needs to be shown serious consequences as follow up.

And somehow needs to be drilled into him that this cannot happen again. This behaviour manifests and people like your DSS will only take it a notch further each time, and will likely try it on other vulnerable people... and get away with it like he has this time (as far as I'm aware from the thread).

In truth, he sounds like an asshole. A selfish asshole, maybe it's partly to do with how he was raised but that doesn't in any way give him the right to do what he did. Sounds like he has a shit ton of other issues to lead to doing something like this. And his girlfriend is part of the problem here too, assuming she knows where he's getting his money from.

You already know this from the other comments but it is disgusting behaviour and 'cancelling Christmas' really is the least of your worries. He has deeper issues that need fixing. And he's a grown lad it sounds like, so cancelling Christmas probably won't mean anything to him next week.

This might be a stupid question but you said he had been “stealing money from her bank account on a regular basis” but also that “He was getting money for running errands and helping out around the house”

So in looking at MIL’s accounts how were you able to identify which payments were stealing and which for running errands?

Of course she needs to report it to the police. An elderly woman is being robbed blind. The quicker he hits rock bottom the better - the more people protect him the longer it will take him to get there. You're not doing him any favours at all by protecting him.

This is fraud and embezzlement and potentially carries a custodial sentence.

Also, what DON'T you know about? How long has he been ripping her off? £20 out of a pensioners purse a couple of times a week, a missing gold bracelet.....

He's scum. I hope she never has to be exposed to him again.

What Helen says!

This is elder financial abuse.

First things first I hope you have removed him from your mils home. He needs to stay with you and I'd personally contact police. What a scummy thing to do when someone is at the most vulnerable. This needs addressing. Definitely no christmas presents.

Another stupid question:
Has MIL confirmed the money and her items were stolen?

This is terrible - you must feel horrified and ashamed.

However, I did just want to add that my own DSS did something very similar to this, when he was just a little younger than yours. Startlingly similar in fact (I can't go into any more details).

Well over a decade on, he is now one of the most sweet, altruistic, loving people I know, and even tho I am no longer with his dad, DSS and his lovely partner remain two of the first people I can turn to in any crisis.

The key is, I think, to understand what is behind it. Why has he done it? If it is simply desire for money, and he just doesn't care on way or another about his nan, then yes that is almost psychopathic. But often there is much more to it. Is he being threatened by someone? Scared, possibly? Would his girlfriend have known about this and been getting involved?

Please think very carefully about telling the police. Well frankly I just wouldn't do it, ever, to a member of my family. Not over a theft (however callous and disgusting, as I agree this is).

As for cancelling Christmas - his gifts, certainly, should be returned and the money used to pay back as much as possible of what he owes.

I do think, however, that ostracizing him would be a potentially disastrous choice at this time, in terms of his future outcomes. As we learnt with my stepson, these were the times when he actually needed the most love from us. (And yes, it was very hard to show it). When it all came out what he had done, the shame was very very intense (tho he masked it with anger, self-medicated it with booze and drugs, etc) - we actually became quite scared that he would seriously harm, even kill, himself in the depths of his self-loathing and despair. He still to this day sometimes requires reassurance from his sister's and I that we don't still hate him for it.

So if you can force yourself to, I would try to spend time with DSS. Show him that you still love him and that in time you will forgive him, once he has done everything in his power to put this right. He needs more than anything to believe that change is possible.

Good luck. So sorry this has happened. And sending all best wishes for the health of your poor DMIL, who sounds like a lovely, trusting person.