... being angry with my parents?

[RainyWednesday]

Spoilt brat alert

My parents are fairly comfortably off, especially now that my dad has retired (mum is SAHM) and they have few outgoings, and have always been extremely generous with money.

A few years ago now, I set about becoming a lawyer. I already had an English degree (which they supported me through), so this meant doing a conversion course (one year), a further one year course, and then two years in a training contract before qualifying as a solicitor. I set about funding this myself, partly through working during university holidays and partly through a bank loan. Because I wanted to be a legal aid lawyer, this meant I had to cover all my course fees and living costs myself (if you have a training contract with a big rich firm then they will generally pay your fees and give you some money towards living costs).

In case it isn't clear from the above, there was a gap of several years between finishing my first degree and starting my course where I was working and supporting myself - I didn't do them back to back.

I did the first course in London and after a while, as my parents knew I was struggling, they offered to pay my rent (£250 a month), which was a huge help. For the second course, I ended up moving back home to live with them - which was fab

When I moved back home, my dad offered to pay my course fees, both for the upcoming year and for the year that I had already done/paid for. I was extremely grateful for this, as you might imagine.

Skip forward a couple of years. Halfway through my two-year training contract, I decided that there was no point me finishing it. I was desperately unhappy - crying most evenings and calling Samaritans a couple of times from work. I found the work utterly depressing. In case it isn't already obvious from the previous two sentences nor did I seem particularly good at it; I'd gone into Legal Aid because I wanted to help people and instead I was just floundering. Finally, my salary was so low that it cost me slightly more to live and work in London than I was getting paid - so I was effectively paying to go to work. I felt there was no point carrying on and left my job. I still consider it one of the best things I ever did.

My parents were extremely upset and angry that I didn't complete my training contract - not because they wanted me to be a lawyer (my mum has said she didn't think I was suited to it) but because they thought I should stick with it. My mum in particular thinks that completeing my training contract would have given me more opportunities, whereas in fact it would, as far as I know, have qualified me for nothing except being a solicitor, which I didn't want to be. I hate upsetting and disappointing them but couldn't face another year of hell just to please them.

Over the next few years, my mum occasionally complained about the fact that I hadn't finished my contract and that I had wasted their money, which really upset me but I bit my tongue because I hate conflict, particularly with them.

Skip forward another couple of years. My DB and his wife bought a house with my parents' help, renovated it and sold it a few months ago for an enormous profit. Because my parents had helped them out and they wouldn't have been able to buy it otherwise, my parents promised to give me and my other brother each £20,000 out of their share of the proceeds. Yay - again I was very grateful for this.

They have recently told me that they've decided to take out of that £20,000 all the money they've given me over the past few years (and the same for my brother too). This means that, less the course fees they paid, it's now something like £11,000.

The main thing that upsets me about this is not that I've "lost" £9,000 (because obviously I haven't lost anything at all - on the contrary, I'm being given a huge sum of money!) but I feel like I'm being punished for not completing my contract. I am sure that, if I'd finished it, it would never have occurred to them to take the money back again.

It also upsets me that a few years ago they gave me a gift and now they've taken it back off me again.

Finally, £1,000 of the money they've claimed back comes from a deposit they paid on the first flat a friend and I rented in 1997. When we moved out, the landlady ripped us off so we didn't have the money to pay back to them and we eventually forgot that we owed it at all (I am mortified about this ). However, they only suddenly started mentioning it about a year ago. Now they've said that they've taken the whole £1,000 off me and if I want my friend's share then I'll have to ask her for it. Which is kind of fair enough but I am too embarrassed to mention it after 11 years and it upsets me that they've effectively passed her debt on to me because they're too embarrassed to ask about it either.

I'm sorry this is so long I feel (marginally) better for purging. On the one hand I feel like I'm being a spoiled bitch because, ffs, someone's giving me £11,000, but on the other I feel like I'm being unfairly punished and it really really upsets me

DH says I should just let it go. I would love to let it go - but how?

I think you are right to give them the benefit of the doubt, both out of fairness and for your own sanity. I really doubt they judge you half as much as you think, or half as much as you judge yourself, I bet. Do you think about it a lot? I'm sure most of us have have paths we could have gone down and think about sometimes. It sounds to me, and I could be wrong, that you would love to tell your parents something about how low you were at that point in your life, and maybe if you did, you might find it quite cathartic. If you tell them you are fine now, I doubt your news will do them any permanent damage!
They are about to become grandparents, and that's often a good time to readjust your relationship with your parents. Good luck.

Thanks We're also moving a hell of a lot closer to them, which I'm looking forward to.

Again, you're probably right that it's more about me judging myself. In many ways I'm a tediously stereoptypical over-achiever (e.g. did six A-levels and still beat myself up over the fact that I didn't get straight As etc) and I sometimes have trouble reconciling my belief (shared with CrazyMofo and someone else above) that it's better to be comfortable and happy than working my ass off and miserable with the notion that I "should" be a £100k+ City lawyer or similar like most of my peers. Perhaps I should have just posted on the recent "is it okay to coast?" threads and saved myself some stress!

Anyone want to join me in letting this thread fall down the page now?

Well this has been an interesting psychological and philosophical discussion.

I still have a feeling that you have unfinished business with your parents.

I'm feeling they use money to manipulate and control.

Parents don't have to be alcoholics and physically abusive to be toxic - there can be a gilded cage also. Moving closer to them, eh? Are you trying to get back in their good books?

I'm thinking you want to brush your concerns under the carpet by wanting the thread to disappear - but your feelings won't just disappear.

you post your DH has advised you to forget it, so I'm assuming that this has come up before with you? And here it is again.

You say you're afraid of conflict, and now you want to close the thread? bells are ringing in my head that there's more going on in your family dynamic than meet the eye here.

I'd still recommend counseling for you, firstly to help you come to terms with what's eating you about your parents offer: secondly to enable you to see conflict as an opportunity to be understood and to understand in an adult way: thirdly to give you a realistic way of validating yourself - being gutted you didn't get 6 As etc is not a very useful way of thinking about your achievements you know!

I hope your depression has lifted and you are able to talk about it with those who mean a lot to you - be it friends or family. here's another left field? book suggestion you might find interesting? here

You are completely justified to have any feelings about your family. Your feelings are completely valid.

If you think you are being unreasonable I agree: if you think you are not being unreasonable I also agree.

I hope you find in a few months that you still want to let this thread drop, my feeling is that you may need to do a bit of work before you can move on. HTH

God I hate it when threads like this come onto MN, not because I think the OP is being ungrateful, but because of the horrible bitchy comments that come from women who are basically green with envy at someone having money, and by God does that come across in their posts. Not one single bitchy comment that I read actually noted the fact that the OP was unhappy to be doing the course that she was doing. Why on EARTH should the OP have stuck out something that was making her so unhappy just so she could say she was a solicitor, which she realised she didn't want to be after all?

Xenia - I really can't see why you would do that to your own offspring, push them into something they hated. Ohh it's only another year, you'll have so many more prospects dear. What?! She hates it, she's not going to be a solicitor and that extra year is a year of hell.

Not letting you go yet Rainy! Overachiever...are your parents perfectionists? Nothing you did was ever good enough...maybe just physical clues they were not happy...a grimance when it was less than an A? a sigh...a forced smile...

Try the links that have been offered...like has been said, these issues will not go away...

Your parents should not be 'punishing' you at your age either...your a big girl now and your emotional wellbeing is more important than any course...

I hope this thread is opening your eyes a bit to validating your feelings as being okay and on target...as someone else said already...

And moving closer why? If you want to answer that of course.

I also notice that you are really depreciating and 'oh probably just me'...how often do you get angry? And what do you do when you do get angry...who do you get angry at?

allyxx Keep posting if you want to...I'll keep an eye out

I do find it sad that they apparently GAVE you money for help you out and then decided to 'take it back'. and therefore punish you.

They could have said here is 11 grand and not mentioned that they would've given you 20.

odd behaviour imo

Am not really surprised at the level of vitriol on here. I expect nothing else from one of these threads on MN

Anyway, rainy I think that money aside you really need to address the relationship that you have with your parents. These wonderful parents that would rather you stuck out a miserable job where you were clearly depressed just so that you would finish your qualification. Surely your happiness is more important?

I really do appreciate the sentiment of why you are upset. I do think that you perhaps shouldn't take the money that they have offered as if you keep taking their money you will forever feel like you owe them and you will look to them to validate your life choices, which isn't healthy. If they don't pay they don't have a say in what you do. I suspect that you rely on their opinion a lot.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter whether or not you are being unreasonable. You feel that you are being punished for a very brave decision, that is a very real feeling and it is going to turn into a fear of them judging you for the rest of your life. You might benefit from talking to someone about your relationship with your parents. It's not a betrayal of them to do so, it just might help you come to terms with their decisions and gain some autonomy from them.

lolli - I would not push my children into something they hated ever. The three at university have completely free rein to choose any career they want even if that's to enter a monastery or live on a beach in Thailand (or even on my island!). The girls seem to have picked sensible careers but once they start if I fund a child then they ought to stick at it. If they give up mid way then the basis we have agreed is they repay the funding. Anyone can stick at a job they hate for a few month or a year. I think the fault here is that the parents did not tell her - really bright girl you are very silly indeed to think you will like low paid low grade legal aid work when you should be aiming for a city partnership on £1m a year never mind £100k. Fulfil your potential and then you'll have the money and time and space to do other things you want. You can always do legal aid work later but if you qualify via a big firm then at least they pay the fees and this issue wouldn't have arisen.

It's interesting being a parent of much older children because you see things from both points of view.

Parents often do lend money to children and then write it off later - ie make it a gift. That can lead to complications on divorce although I didn't have any such gifts so it's really important if you're married always to have a written agreement with parents who give you money so you can prove it was a loan and not part of the sums the husband can claim on divorce by the way.

sorry RW, the questions you raised are much too interesting!
I notice you havent responded to the several posters who suggested distancing yourself from your parents by not accepting more money from them?

I too find it odd, that they offered to pay your fees of their own accord, and then took the money back some years later.

move on - you have had money support from your parents and now it's time to live your own life without the cash cushion you're been so lucky to have.

Rainy, ignore the money issue (and better still...don't take it...) it is about your relationship with your parents...I would like to hear more about that, like some other helpful posters on here...we would like to help

And to you others who are focussing on the money aspect...give her a break!! The money is obviously the sideshow, not the real issue!

I agree ally that from how thie thread has progressed it seems that there are deeper issues and its not just about the cash. But the money thing has blurred it all hasnt it? - and it's also the issue that has sparked all this for the OP. Which is why i think she needs to let it lie now. Being gifted 11K is excetional!! Most of us don't get hand outs! The issue of whether it is exceptionally lucky, or whether it creates all kinds of complexities in the relationship ('fairness' with siblings,having some emotional tie-in with parents etc) is a huge one. But ultimately, if you take the money, I think you need to accept that you get what goes with it. There is always an alternative isnt there? - pay your own way as an adult.

*exceptional

Gosh :blush: I'm very touched that people are taking an interest and giving me support.

zazen There are a few reasons why I want the thread to disappear. Yes, it's probably partly because I want to stop thinking about it. However, it's also partly because I can't stop checking it every time I see it's been bumped, and I never know when I click whether I'm going to be called a bitch, which is quite stressful. Plus I feel I've been seduced by the apparent anonymity of the internet into revealing far more than I usually would and I'm really anxious about being recognised (I've seen other threads where MN have deleted threads and posts, so I thought I could post and then have it deleted, but they won't pull this).

DH wants me to forget it because he doesn't like me getting upset, especially when I'm PG

I honestly don't think that they use money to control or manipulate us - in fact, I think the reason that I'm so put out by this incident is the fact that it's the first time that it's come with "conditions".

I am slightly concerned that I might have inadvertently given the impression that my parents have been constantly dripfeeding me money, which I don't think is true. Yes, they paid my rent and gave me food money while I was doing my first degree, but I don't think they gave me any more substantial sums of money then until I'd started the second year of courses, several years later - despite the fact that I started my first course homeless and living out of my car for two months. So I don't think it's fair to say that they have continually propped me up and refused to let me stand on my own two feet.

Counselling seems like a bit of a self-indulgent non-necessity when we're about to be down a salary and with an extra mouth to feed! ally90 you asked about this too, but I don't think that my perfectionist streak came from my parents but from me - I think it's quite common in kids who over-achieve at an early stage, isn't it (particularly for us PFBs!)? I certainly saw a lot of it at university and now in the City law firm where I work. A few years ago, before I was a typist, my mum suggested a few times that I became on of those incredibly high-powered large-shoulder-padded PAs and it just made me think "Really? You've spent this much on my education and you're happy for me to be a secretary?" - so I do think it comes from me, not them.

I want to move closer to them (and the rest of my family) because we genuinely do get on well and I hate living so far away and seeing them so infrequently (probably for a weekend every 3-4 months).

I get angry at stupid stuff a lot - like things falling on the floor and inanimate objects not cooperating with me. I get wound up by little things. If I get angry with people then yes, it's probably mainly at myself, though I don't think it's all that often. I'm trying to be nicer to myself

Nighbynight I have said somewhere that maybe I shouldn't take the money - though this would have a knock-on effect on the rest of my new family, I think they would be hurt, and let's face it, it's hard not to take a free cash hand-out! And as I mentioned above, generally I don't feel that it comes with conditions - I think they're quite aware of how giving someone money can cause problems and try to avoid it. Actually, taking money without conditions is quite a difficult thing to do I think - it's hard to take without giving anything back, isn't it?

Anyway, thank you again for taking an interest I think having a chance to discuss it may have given me the balls to discuss it with them the next time the you-should-have-finished-your-contract thing comes up

'get angry at stupid stuff a lot - like things falling on the floor and inanimate objects not cooperating with me. I get wound up by little things. If I get angry with people then yes, it's probably mainly at myself,'

This describes me to a T! And what you were saying abut knowing you should be happy to just be comfortable but feeling like you should be in the city earning stupid amounts of money -check. Being the eldest child, early achiever, perfectionist - check, check and check!

Sometimes counselling can help even when you don't think their is something specifically worng. I have been seeing a counsellor at the local sure start centre for free which has made me realise the controlling effect my mum has on me and how my childhood has affected my relationship with DH and how I am now, especially as a new mum.

Anyway, I hope you manage to sort things out. I completely understand wanting the thread to disappear when you have been roundly abused, you don't want the reminder, especially when you think that you might actually have been wrong.

FWIW the thread in Chat disappear after 30 days so try there next time!

Hee hee - I'm glad someone understands! It's fun being the PFB isn't it? (And what a telling acronym that is!).

I'll have a look at some of the books recommended here and into the sure start centre thing. And thanks for the tip about Chat!

The root of all evil is money.... perhaps parents would be better not doling it out because it just leads to problems. I don't plan to give the children any until they're may be in their 60s because you're never appreciated for it and just taken for granted or it causes family problems. My father has given my sister double the money I have had in the last 3 years presumably because she doesn't work as hard and doesn't earn as much. Is that fair? I just shrug but I suppose it isn't fair really.

Ok Rainy - I'll let you off this time! I hope you continue to post - and let us know how you get on with your pregnancy (congratulations) and birth, and those crazy months of days/nights afterwards of course.

You know, counseling is never an indulgence.. It's personal development. And it helps in so many surprising and unexpected ways.
I trained as a counsellor and find it amazing how sudden insights can really release so much joy and energy. Being self aware and actualized isn't an indulgence surely.. and it becomes more and more important to know yourself when you're a parent - you've got 11K now to give yourself a loving investment.

keep in touch

I think parents tend to have an unconscious desire to help the one who possibly couldn't be as self sufficient as the others (providing there are other siblings)
I just remember an episode of 'malcolm in the middle' where the mother specifies that she would help one child out unconditionally, but she would gladly allow another to fend for himself because he would be able to turn his hand to anything. I loved that show.

nauhgty step now!

Lolli and others - I personally wasn't aiming for bitchiness. I think people should appreciate that for those of us who have had to carve their own way every step of the way, threads like this can make us feel a tad incredulous, NOT "green with envy".

No, not envy here at all, just sadness that OP has a negative perspective on her situation rather than counting her blessings, of which, by the sounds of it, she has so many yet is still unhappy.

oh god xenia, dont get me started on that one. My brother is an idle git who has been helped far more than either of his hard-working sisters. Now my parents are planning to give him their house (which is not a small one), and I am sure that part of their reasoning is that "nightynight has a very good job and doesnt need our help"

Thanks Zazen

ChocolateRockingHorse and mylovelymonster, I share your sadness/incredulity! I think one of the reasons I hide it in RL when I'm unhappy is because I feel I have no "right" to unhappiness - the fact that I'm extremely aware of just how lucky I am only exacerbates that. There probably isn't a single person on MN who doesn't have more than 90% of people in the world, so why aren't we all happy all the time?