To not give youngest daughter the same money as her sister

[SlothsRUs]

I have a daughter from a previous relationship who is nearly 30 and is a single mother with two children.

My husband and I supported her through college and we subsidise her with stuff to this day. She does not ask and we do so willingly.

We topped up our middle daughter while she was at university and she never asked us for money but always seemed to have money to go out and on holiday. She is now doing an MA and she claims that she has had a loan for this. I have now found out that in fact her grandmother has been subsidising her at university and has paid for the Masters.

I often struggled to send her money.

I am now tempted not to do the same for my youngest daughter as I very much suspect that she also has this arrangement.

I can’t believe how underhand husband’s family are and how my younger daughters are complicit.

You're a bigger person than I could be. You slept in a drawer?

Wow having read the linked posts, I’d say you will be extremely lucky if your second two children don’t go no contact with you as adults

Appalling favouritism throughout their childhood, deliberately sabotaging their family relationships and STILL giving out undue help to the golden child while berating the others for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Have a strong word with yourself. YABU

I treat all of my children the same.

I have never favoured my eldest. I don’t subsidise a lifestyle I buy groceries for her and pay subs for my grandchildren.

I hoped my in-laws would have had compassion towards a child but NOT to the extent of subsidising university.

My AIBU relates to my husband, middle daughter and now younger one.

We top up from our joint account Middle daughter’s expenses plus 10% and no issues with this for younger daughter. However, I also sent her money for treats while I struggled a bit. Not once did she say that she had extra money. She blatantly lied to me about the MA. Husband is complicit in this.

I don’t want to send youngest daughter this treat money.

I treat all of my children the same.

It certainly doesn’t look like it to most posters. Or your second and third child by the looks of it

I have never favoured my eldest. I don’t subsidise a lifestyle I buy groceries for her and pay subs for my grandchildren.

Buying her groceries is the absolute definition of subsidising her lifestyle! If you genuinely can’t see that, then you have bigger problems. I’d guess your DH is complicit because he’s sick of you treating his children and his parents so badly

@SlothsRUs why are you angry they’re helping to fund her education?

No you don’t, and you never have. You prioritised your eldest , her feelings and her needs.

Your relationship with your younger daughters seems to have improved, do you really want to jeopardise that again? Because you’re pissed off?

As parents, you continue to give dc's at university what you can afford. Why would you consider not doing so.
Grandparents also sending them money is an added bonus and Im baffled as to why you have an issue with this.

Agree! The fact that you don't want to see it is wild.

PestoHoliday

The grandparents were reduced to slipping her younger daughters £20 when the OP wasn't looking.

‘reduced to’ - you wouldn’t give your grandchildren’s sibling a tenner when they were off on holiday with your grandchildren?

I never sabotaged my younger children’s relationship with their grandparents but stopped facilitating it. Husband could have taken them.

My thread isn’t that my eldest should have been supported but my husband and middle daughter should not have lied by omission.

This isnt like grandma only bought 2 Christmas presents. Even at uni your children are adults and anything you give them is generosity on your part. And I believe you should be equally generous wherever possible.

But DD2 and DD3s grandma is entitled to spoil them as she sees fit. Its quite frankly non of your business how your adult children fund their lifestyle choices. And I think its terrible to not financially support DD3 because he grandma might be generous. I think its bad to tell DD3 you wont help her because youre instead helping her almost 30 year old sister, and hopeful DHs family will cover the gap

Based on all your other posts, it’s a waste of time discussing, you don’t see what you’ve done to your family because of your eldest. It’s like talking to a brick wall. I’m out.

And look up ‘subsidise’ in the dictionary.

You can’t money to make up for the fact that oldest wasn’t seen as a full grandchild.

You and your h prioritised your convenience and your oldest over the other 2 girls who should have been allowed to see their paternal side of the family.

The grandparents have done you a massive favour supporting the younger 2 since you can’t support all 3. The younger 2 haven’t been complicit in some sort of conspiracy against you. They know that you would be angry that they were getting financial help when you should be thanking the grandparents for supporting them. It’s tough for young people and it’s a blessing that the grandparents can help.

The younger 2 have spent their childhood being punished for being in a blended family. You have favoured your oldest when you should have treated the girls equally and not punished them for your decision to have more children with another man. Your h should have told you to get over your guilt that your children don’t have the same father and not allowed his dd to miss out.

This is isn’t very clear at all.

Your post implies that you gave your eldest daughter more support than the middle. Then you say you have treated them equally?

what is the real problem here? That your husband lied to you and pretends his parents weren’t giving extra support to your middle daughter?

did your middle daughter pretend to you she was in financial difficulty when she wasn’t?

there must be more to this? Why the secrecy around money and the grandparents. It’s quite normal for grandparents to help out - why did your husband think this had to be a secret?

The grandparents sound amazingly generous, you should be very grateful.

Cannot equate your first sentence in this post to literally anything else you’ve posted. 😆

Why does DD2 owe you an explanation as to how she funded her MA? Lying isnt nice but tbf its not your business how she funded that, she may have even intended or actually got the loan when she told you and then her DGM paid it off or offered the money. You say in your other post it was a lie by omission but I dont know why when shes an adult shed need to tell you where her funding came from.

The treat money was your choice and I accept you may have made a different one had you known DGM was also treating her.

However, I dont follow why youd deny DD3 "treat money" because her sister got extra? Why are you punishing DD3 for something you say DD2 did?

You will cause problems between your children.

The younger 2 probably already resent the oldest, from your other post she was regularly getting upset about her younger sisters getting ANYTHING she didn't, and if she couldn't have it neither could they.

And now you're punishing the youngest because of a problem you have with the middle daughter. The youngest will feel like the least favourite child and it might even damage the 2 youngest daughters relationship.

How would it have played out if you'd been told the in-laws were giving the middle one money? Would you really have said "OK that's great, thanks! I'm struggling so I won't give you anything (while supporting your eldest) and I'll let your grandparents support you instead"?

You should treat YOUR 3 children equally. GPs should treat all THEIR gcs equally. Ok it's a shame they don't view your eldest in the same way but given that you were complaining about their behaviour towards your eldest before you even had the other 2 then it was never going to be a situation that improved. This is entirely your fault and if you make a further fuss now you will ruin your relationship with your 2 youngest, their relationship with your eldest, your relationship with DH and his relationship with your eldest

To be honest I find your feelings around this to be controlling. Ultimately you feel your 3 children aren’t being treated as perfectly equal, but you can’t really force that dynamic with step-family.

You might want to rule your household a certain way and spilt money in a certain way, but you are speaking about people old enough to study their masters. They’re not children anymore. You’re not going to be privy to every conversation they have with their grandparents. I’m not really sure about “lying by omission” here. Ultimately there’s a reason your immediate relatives didn’t feel comfortable telling you about this, so there’s perhaps a lack of trust on both sides.

1. a 30 year old should be well capable of standing on her own 2 feet and buying their own groceries
2. if it’s ok for you to treat your grandchildren, why isn’t it ok for your in laws?
3. your daughters finances now they are adults are absolutely none of your business and they don’t have to share any information with you about their finances
4. You are of course free to give/not give any adult child money at your choosing but you are by definition setting your kids up against each other by not treating them equally
5. All your children will be well aware of your favouritism and the younger ones are clearly hurt by this - you will end up reaping the relationship you deserve with this attitude

' I don’t want to send youngest daughter this treat money. '

how nasty !

it's very very clear you prefer your eldest daughter.

don't be surprised if / when your other 2 daughters go low or no contact with you in later years.

you gave birth to all 3 - so at least treat them the same

and how kind of your husband to subsidise your eldest and her children

how does he feel knowing what you think / feel / treat the youngest daughter - bit of a lick in the teeth to him is it considering that he helps towards YOUR eldest

So you are cross at your in-laws (you said how underhand your husband’s family is) and your husband and your middle daughter for not telling you that the in-laws were giving her money

so now you want to not give the money you have your eldest and middle dc to your youngest dc Not because she’s done anything wrong but because of things other people did.

but you still say you treat all your dc the same.

you are being SO contradictory and contrary that I’m assuming this is why no one tells you anything.

out of interest had your in laws been open about spending money on their grand children what would your response be?

What will happen when your 2 younger ones have their own DC? Will you spend less on them than your other GC because they have GGPs to buy them things?

From what people are saying the OP has other threads where she is angry whenever the in-laws give anything on their gc but not on the OPs first child.

this is no doubt why the family doesn’t tell her anything. Because she would have gone ballistic if she found out the in-laws paid for the middle child.

and now she bizarrely wants to not spend her own money on her own youngest child because she is incandescent that the middle child got money her widest child didn’t.

so making the youngest child suffer is somehow going to assuage the weird anger the OP feels with regards how the in-laws treating their gc

the OP is doing a fantastic job of fucking up her relationship with her youngest two dc. she seems to carry so much guilt about something relating to her eldest dc that she won’t stop until she has driven her other dc away.

I think people are missing the point.

OP struggles financially - she tries to help all three daughters as much as she can. Whether she SHOULD subsidise her 30yo daughter who is struggling with two kids is one issue. A separate issue is that even when she’s been struggling financially, she’s been giving her middle child money thinking she’s also struggling (like the eldest daughter) but in reality she’s actually really comfortable and has no expenses because she’s getting help elsewhere.

I think a comparable example would be if eldest daughter met a man that paid for her lifestyle and still kept taking money from her parents - her mum would be annoyed she’s still accepting money - knowing mum didn’t have much to give.

I will say that if your middle daughter is early 20s, she won’t even think about her parents not being able to afford to help if they offer her money and don’t appear to be struggling financially.

I think helping out based on need is a dangerous game as NOT helping your two youngest with expenses could lead them to end up like your eldest. I would see the grandparents as a subsidy to your youngest two, which can only ever help you. Sure maybe you now lower what you give them because they have more than you thought, but still help them!