To be shocked my parents treat me and DSis differently

[RipsMyKnitting]

Xmas day dinner at my parents, me, DH, DSis BIL, 4 grandkids. All having a great time, we all get on well. No dramas at all.

My DF let's slip that they've been supplementing my DSis household income for years

My DH and I have worked hard and enjoy the security and lifestyle our efforts are yielding. We both have corporate jobs that we don't mind but that we'd happily give up if we could.

DSis has always been open about having a different outlook on life and not wanting a high pressure carer and a commute etc etc. She's a yoga instructor and her DH is a self employed landscaper. They have a similar lifestyle to ours and jobs they love and I always assumed they earn well which is obviously great to make good money doing something you love, close to home in hours that suit your desire around work/life balance.

But it turns out they don't make good money, they are given financial support by my parents to afford a lifestyle that's on a par with ours. And it seems the reason is it's not really fair for me and DH to have this type of lifestyle and DSis and her family not to.

How would others feel? Not sure how I feel, I'm embarrassed to admit I feel a little resentful and jealous.

It's obviously my parents money and theirs to spend however I they want but I feel a little hurt, theres been time where we've been stretched, my DH was made redundant a few years ago and had a spell of our of work for several months. There was never any offer of help to us at that point.

Happy to be told I'm being petty and jealous. I wish I'd never heard about it. I was blissfully unaware and quite happy for my DSis to have a good life and jobs they loved.

Look I understand that if 1 adult kid has fallen on hard times, the parents will step in to help out however that may be. Divorce, so help with rent on new place. Widowhood, so practical assistance. Illness, so help with mortgage. That sort of thing. I get that.
But THIS is so beyond anything like that, I struggle to think how they thought it would pan out. Did they think it would never be found out? Did they think OP would not be disturbed by it? How would they have handled it as they age and the subsidy has to keep going up?
The mind really boggles.

I think this is very wise advice. Say your piece at the start, then see what they say but don’t react.

I also think you’ll get more honesty out of them this way (given that your update suggests your DSis wants to speak to DP before she speaks to you, to get the story agreed). Silence is powerful. People feel compelled to fill the gap and they will reveal more than they intend by blathering into the silence while you keep your counsel.

Very true. THIS ^

Wow op. You must be shocked. That’s potentially a huge amount of money regularly for a long time. It’s not a much needed cheap break for exhausted parents or helping out with a new boiler. It’s actually levelling up her lifestyle, topping up her wages. I’d be shocked and unhappy. Very unfair. They should give you the same. Even if you don’t need it, extra money is always useful.

Well what's the issue then if she is living a more comfortable financially secure life? It seems however that lots of posters think that the OP is being terribly hard done by and her sister is in fact living the more favourable life in which case maybe it's her sister who has made the better life choices.

But if its about fairness, then give them the full picture of how much take home you get, the size of your mortgage, how long it will take to pay off, how much you spend on childcare, commuting costs, the cost of having a home office, etc. If they listen to you openly then tell them that you would have loved to live locally, to have more time with kids and them, and work less, but you didnt know it was an option.

Please, please don't give them all that information. They'll use it somehow as a reason to give your sister even more. If you must say something stick to the principle that they aren't levelling the field, they're giving sis a better life than you have. But mostly I don't think you should do much talking. I think you should just let them talk and try to find out as much as you can about the situation.

Yes her sister chose wealthy parents - gosh why didn't we all think of that before we were born?

OP, the chat tomorrow is neither here nor there. This has been happening for years. They have all been lying to you, by omission. They have been paying your sister and her DH money to have a better lifestyle than you.

You have just discovered that your whole family dynamic has changed.

I am so sorry. This is shitty, and it will last forever.

The sisters life choices involve taking money off their parents to fund her lifestyle, hardly something to be proud of!

We are in a similar position with my in-laws. I hear you and well done for raising it. We’ve not been that brave.

I'm really sorry, @RipsMyKnitting . I find this horrifyingly unfair and dishonest. You sound really calm and sensible and reasonable. I think your parents' behaviour is awful. I don't blame your sister for taking the money offered, but the secrecy would be a huge betrayal for me.

I completely understand how you feel. Me and DH have a similar situation. SIL and her DH get vastly more financial support from my in laws then me and DH get. A monthly allowance which we do not get. My MIL is of the mindset 'if one of my children has it then the other should'. If we buy a new piece of furniture, household gadget, set of plates - you name it - MIL will go and buy the exact same thing for SIL. This goes way too far, every piece of jewellery I have, make up, every toy my children has, they want the same! And MIL will buy it for them. My children get 'cheaper' gifts all the time and SIL's children have hundreds of pounds spent on them. I honestly don't care but I can't stand them copying everything we do like it's some sort of competition. Once we mentioned that we had X amount of money in the children's savings accounts and MIL gave the same amount of savings to SIL's children. I distance myself from them. DH doesn't see a problem. As it is your sis and parents try to have an honest conversation about how you feel.

The level of jealousy, bitterness and rage on this thread towards people receiving and giving gifts is quite frankly gobsmacking. Investing this much emotion in feelings about money is not healthy and no wonder inheritances cause so many family rifts if this is how so many people carry on about money.

Just read your update OP - that is so upsetting. I am so sorry that you have been betrayed by them for so long. The fact that they were initially topping up your sisters finances to match your salary makes it really personal - like they weren’t initially just gifting her money due to favouritism which none of them realised - they were directly measuring what you had worked so hard to earn and then just gifting it to your sister. I think it would be really difficult for them to justify how none of of them have ever thought of you during the past 15 years this has been going on or consider how fair it is

OP how you are feeling is completely valid. That line “it’s only fair you both get a good lifestyle” would really cut me. It’s like they will intervene for her so she doesn’t get left behind (despite making life choices that were easier than the corporate grind but come with a cost of less financial security) but when you needed help financially it wasn’t offered because you’re the one who is supposed to look after themselves. Also it’s so strange the tone of that comment, almost like fairness as between children vs grown adults who made their own life choices?

Do not shame yourself about being embarrassed/petty or jealous, what really underneath there is hurt and it’s valid. on that hurt though, whilst what your parents said was hugely clumsy it might be that you’ve just always had that role of being the competent one compared to your sister so you never asked for help and they never assumed you needed it. Even when you were made redundant, they probably still had you in their heads as the one with your shit together. The fact you found it hard to say something even suggests you are the one who just quietly gets on with stuff.

If you need help in future don’t be afraid to ask, you might just have to actually speak up vs assuming you will be ok.

Also some parents really need to be needed. Speaking here as the competent sibling of a sister with borderline personality disorder who never received proper treatment because my mum needed to be needed and needed her vulnerability… and every success me and my brother had was just contrasted with her position, we were even made to feel bad about it or like it was somehow unfair and she was given more slack (and had the whole household running around her). A more extreme situation but I get that it hurts and I will be really sensitive to any potential for this dynamic with my kids xx

Agree. OP thought she had one sort of family and now on Christmas Day she has discovered she has a different sort of family with different dynamic altogether. It's substantial, it's long term and it's been kept from her.

This IS shitty, and it WILL last forever. I wish otherwise.

I’d be inclined to think she has been ending up with more than you. When people usually share a salary, they give the whole figure not the after tax, NI and pension figure, so it could be that they have been topping her up to the higher amount and then extra for the holidays and car. It stinks either way, but don’t expect anything other than excuses and deflection tomorrow. They will probably even try to make you feel guilty for not agreeing with what they are doing.

Are they “topping up her salary” to match what you make before tax or after tax? If it’s before tax, she ultimately could be taking home much more than you!
sorry this happened OP, it all sounds very strange at best and blatant favouritism and secret keeping for years at worst

Honestly? I think I would be saying to your parents that you have been needing to slow down and spend more time with the children for quite a while but just couldn’t make the sums work, and are so grateful to know that they are willing and able to make that a possibility for BOTH THEIR CHILDREN, and that you will be handing in your notice and taking a part time local job, and looking forward to receiving the same from them as your sister has been receiving.

spoken like the golden child recipient of handouts.

this thread is a great argument for slapping a hefty tax on family gifts. Maybe that would go towards reducing general societal inequality too.

One can assume your work ethic and daily life is more like DSis (with cup in-hand) than OPs hard graft!

So you wouldn’t understand - or refuse to!

Again with the weird references to pride! WTF has pride got to do with anything. If you won the lottery tomorrow would you give it all away because you didn't earn it? Do you always cut off your nose to spite your face? Money earned is no different to money given in the end. I am sure half the outraged posters on here are up to their eyeballs in tax credits yet seem outraged by some other person somewhere having some money from their parents, all very odd.

That’s awful.

I have 4 dc’s, all of varying abilities (two earning a living and two in education) and I would never show favouritism such as this.

I hope all of my dcs know they can ask us for whatever help they need and we will always do our best to- but supplementing one child’s income on a regular basis so she doesn’t feel “less than” her sibling is just wrong in so many ways.

I’m another who has never asked for anything from my dm (I don’t need it but there’s been times in the past I did but still didn’t ask) and Id be extremely pissed off of I found out my db or dsis had been receiving large sums of money from my dp’s when I’d had nowt!

Doesn't matter. The damage has been done. These last 15 years can never be taken back. The lying can never be taken back.

Do you have children? Is it that they may be giving for their grandkids benefit? When did your DS have her kids?