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.

I think everyone would feel as you do. Is it fair? No.
However these sort of things can poison relationships and it would be sad to let it do that.
Sometimes life isn't fair and maybe just shake it off and be grateful you got good jobs and aren't being subsidised by parents in adulthood.
It's a challenge for sure but I think it's the only way forward. Although if it was me I'd definitely discuss it with my parents about how it made me feel. But then I'd let it go.

This!

given you have good relationship with her now

Yanbu.

my brother and I have very different lives - he is a free spirit, child free by choice, lives abroad and travels a lot.

I am a textbook “married, 2 kids, DH and I have corporate 9-5 jobs etc etc.”

my parents treat us both equally - I had a loan to get my first house, he had the same loan on the same terms when he eventually decided a permanent home was a good idea, he was actually a fair chunk short of what he needed so my parents made a significant gift to him of the balance. They then called to tell me this had happened and that on the following Monday the exact same sum would be in my bank account, also with no need to repay.

but then we could also view that I get more favourable treatment as I get a lot of their time and support with my children etc. but in reality it will likely be me that the elderly care falls to when the time comes.

mil on the other hand blatantly favours Sil over DH. She paid her council tax for years when she insisted on living in Fulham even though she couldn’t afford it, and regularly sends her cash to fund her champagne lifestyle, whilst DH and I have never had a penny or even offer of support, and if we go for lunch she will pay her share of the bill to the penny.
DH doesn’t say anything but it makes me feel sad and angry on his behalf that his own mother could be so blatantly different in her support of her own children.

Good luck with your proposed conversation with your parents. I hope it goes well and makes them see things from your perspective. I totally get how you feel; something similar went on in my family with my parents supporting my younger sister substantially all her life. When I divorced I was told I’d done so much better in my divorce than she had in hers that it would be selfish of me not to help support her too. I did…bought her a house to live in rent-free, paid towards her bills and holidays, all sorts. Only to find that she had a (semi secret) rich boyfriend bankrolling her as well. I got a lot of push-back when I started to withdraw the amount of support I’d been giving, and eventually, when my parents died, they left everything to her and their grandchildren, nothing to me. It’s too late to sort this out with them now - I know it was their money and they could do what they wanted with it, but still. I will always wonder whether they really saw me as second best, useful only for what I could do for everyone else. It sucks. I hope you can get answers before it’s too late.

You are a better person than I!

Your DSis and BIL made a lifestyle choice that means they value less stress/better home life balance in return for reduced income and as such cannot afford the nicer things they may sometimes want. This is what they have chosen. Your choice appears to be earn better to afford the extra things in life at the expense of extra stress/working a job you dont love/not having as much day to day time with the children. Both options are absolutely fine however its a choice so then your DF making up their wages is grossly unfair to you. I would have to tell my parents this. Not necessarily that I wanted anything, or didn't feel my DSis didn't deserve nice things but because it is really is unfair that you haven't been given the same opportunities.

If you chose to work two days a week to be at home more so told your DF as you'd dropped hours you expected him to make up the difference I wonder if he would see it in the same light!

I think id feel very different if my DSis and BIL tried hard in life but weren't achievers, worked basic pay jobs etc but couldn't stretch to nice things no matter how much effort they put in I absolutely would love my DF to help them, and Id also want to do similar, if I could, to ensure my niece's and nephews had similar opportunities to my own DC.

It’s just there is no other disagreement

seems a shame

be careful
what you wish for

my family has golden child, scapegoat the lot and is very dysfunctional - I wish I only had to deal with this situation

There's a fairly high probability that they've made their will unequal, to continue to balance out the different lifestyles, ie leaving significantly more to your sister than to you. That is going to hurt like hell - it's the last interaction with your parents, and is about so much more than money.

Once you've sat with what you have discovered for a while, you could have a discussion with your parents. Otherwise it's going to eat at you and destroy your family relationships. Also by telling them how this has hurt you - and how unfair it is - you're giving them a chance to fix it.

1.how they've actually given your DSis a better lifestyle than you, since you've had stressful work, commuting and long hours. Try to identify direct impacts of your career choices: like not being there for your DC after school, when your DSis/BIL were. Your parents could fund some unpaid time for you to be with the kids over each of the next few summers, to equalise that. (You probably haven't felt able to take up the 18 weeks/child unpaid parental leave you're allowed by law to request.) This should be for you only, not DSis - it's equalising the extra time they already get with their children.

2.how hurtful it is that they didn't help you when you needed it. The answer to that is for them to commit now to helping you if/when it happens again

3.that it would absolutely not be OK for their will to be unequal, and that this would permanently destroy your relationship with your DSis - this isn't a threat, it's just simply what will happen if they've done that so they should be aware of the consequences of their choices

Your sister and her husband are leeching off your parents. That’s what I would be annoyed about. Not at the parents for helping, but at your sister and her husband taking advantage of your parents. I would be so embarrassed if my parents had to supplement my income long term because I had the absolute cheek to keep on taking their money while flouncing around making none of my own. Your sister needs to wise up and not be a leech.

It’s definitely upsetting that they didn’t offer to help you out when your DH was made redundant. Hopefully if you’d asked them, they would have instantly said yes.

Not everyone is cut out to be able to secure a high paying career, even if they do well at school. I can imagine when my DCs grow up there way well be a disparity in their incomes and lifestyles. If one DC earns enough to buy a house, go on lovely holidays while the other struggles to ever move out or see anything of the world, I wonder how DH and I would feel about that. Especially if they both go on to have DGCs. I think I’ll be tempted to help out the lower earner financially to enhance their quality of life… what would be the point of it stashed in a bank account when seeing them get to have holidays (like their sibling would be able to) would give us far more pleasure?

One of my siblings was always far less academic than me and our other DSis. Plus, she didn’t end up marrying someone who was as well off. When we inherited from a close relative I passed on my entire share of the inheritance to her to enable her to buy a small house outright. As a gift, not a loan. It just felt like the right thing to do as I love her and want her to have a nice life too. DH and I can afford nice holidays and sometimes have invited her to come on holiday with us for free as I want her and nephew to get to enjoy holidays and we enjoy their company. If our DPs were easily able to give her money on a regular basis without suffering financially themselves to enhance her lifestyle I genuinely don’t think I’d mind it.

Do you genuinely want to work less? I know a few mums who wouldn’t have wanted to work PT even with small DCs. But if you would like that, I don’t think it would be at all unreasonable to have a heart to heart talk with your DPs about how you feel and see if they’d be up for supporting you a bit to enable you to have a nicer lifestyle without being worse off financially. If your DPs have spare cash it probably gives them pleasure to see their adult DCs quality of life benefit by gifting it now.

The problem with all of this is it presumes that the sister asked for the help rather than simply being offered it. To go and ask for any of these things would be rather vulgar. If the OP wants a better work life balance then she should make that choice and see what follows, not try and start some sort of transactional negotiation with her parents.

Personally I'd probably never speak to my parents or sister ever again.
The End.

I have the this problem!!! My parents have helped my sister with finances, moving house, two cars etc etc she’s never had to pay a penny back even now they don’t speak to her because despite all these handouts and allowances over the years she’s never got herself and her kids ANYWHERE! I’m on my own two kids both with autism one has severe medical needs and yes I’ve borrowed money but always paid back. I work I pay for EVERYTHING myself, any car holiday treat EVERY SINGLE THING! And people think they financially subsidise ME and they don’t!! She’s away playing the poor me they never help me card when they’ve literally got her thousands up on thousands of pounds worth of financial support and it’s me that’s had nothing even though she’s disowned now. I’m still furious about it because still to this day people assume they are helping me financially and they are not 😡

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do, and I hope your chat with your parents gives you a bit of what you need, whatever that might be.

I do wonder if they offered to support your family in a similar way, and enable at least one of you to enjoy a different career path without a massive blow to your lifestyle, would you take it?

She should tell her parents how she feels and what she thinks is reasonable - whatever that truly is. Otherwise her relationship with her family risks being permanently damaged. That's far more important than being vulgar.

It's not about what she thinks is reasonable, it's about what her parents thiink, they are the ones doing the giving. The OP can react however she wants but it's not for her to tell her parents what to do.

This is very unfair OP. I think the advice given by @grumpygrape is the best. I think you should also ask your parents if they have thought through the tax implications of what they are doing - where I live there would be tax consequences.

We recently discovered something similar in our family - MIL has given huge amounts of money (and I mean huge) to one child. Like your dad she "let it slip" to dh "without meaning to" I suspect she felt someone should know. Ironically enough it wasn't to the child earning the least - it was to a high earner, living large who likes to live well beyond their means. Children in private schools, multiple ski trips, holidays in Asia, house in the best part of town, big parties for everything. So far everyone is remaining civil about it but she potentially has blown the siblings apart with the favouritism.

Extremely unfair and I’d be absolutely raging. You shouldn’t be penalised for making better life choices than your sister.

Like you, I would regret no longer being in blissful ignorance. But now it’s out in the open, I think I would just have to distance myself and continue to plough my own furrow, safe in the knowledge that it’s all my own work.

They haven’t just been helping her out with childcare and the occasional treat, they’ve been subsidising her mortgage, so that she can have the same lifestyle as you… when it’s her lifestyle choices that have prevented her having that. I’m not a parent so I don’t know where that logic comes from.

I think you need to really think about what you want from the conversation - do you want them to stop subsidising her (unlikely to happen), give you something (would you want that) or…?

YANBU. I feel a great deal of sympathy for you in this situation OP. I round be gutted if I found out my mum had treated one of my siblings like this.

You should not be penalised for working hard. I would be very different with my own, and actually telling the one in your sister’s situation that you need to learn to live within your means or switch to the types of jobs you and your DH do. I hate bad behaviour/lack of effort etc being rewarded over people who do the right thing. Siblings are not entitled to have exactly the same as adults.

Personally, I will be giving mine the same financially throughout their lives. Eg same amount towards a wedding, house deposit, certainly in my will, which already makes that crystal clear.

I think you have every right to feel disappointed, that you’ve been treated unjustly, and to call it out.

Same here. 100k vs nothing for me lol.

That's not how relationships work. Both sides need to feel that a relationship is working - based on the behaviour of the other - and either can choose to pull back from it, if it isn't working for them.

If their behaviour (treating OP and her DSis so differently) is likely to make OP draw back from the family, then it is better for her to give them the chance to fix that before the relationship is permanently damaged.

Being honest about her feelings and about what she would consider suitable re-balancing is probably the best chance for their relationship. And that's on them for their previous choices.

Same here. 100k vs nothing for me lol.

Your parents choice

That choice makes you feel less than and means that you have a much more stressful life with poorer work life balance.......are they aware of this disparity?

I’d feel exactly the same as you op.

You have made family sacrifices to get what you have. Dsis has a better work/life balance with no sacrifice on their part.