Financially irresponsible sister

[BottleOfRum]

Apologies... I have already posted this in the 'teenagers' section (no replies) but wanted to post it here too, as it is as much to do with how to handle my relationship with my sister as anything else.

Bit of background... My mum died of cancer three years back when my little sister was just 15, and was the only sibling left living at home. After mum's death, it became apparent that mum had been drinking very heavily for a long time, and my little sister had never told us older siblings this, as she didn't want us to worry. She bore the brunt of mum's anger towards a lot of things, and it must have been horrible for her to live in that environment for a long time. Whilst I think my mother was a wonderful parent to me, I can only describe some of the things she said to my sister as emotionally abuseive, and something no child should have had to face alone.

My sister moved in with my dad after mum's death (parents separated but local and amicable), and her attitude to money since then has been beyond awful. After passing her driving test and being bought an old car by dad, she run up unpaid parking fines of over £1,000 in a year. Dad couldn't pay them, so myself and DH did.

Sister went to uni in september and dropped out after a month, but decided to stay living in that city (200miles from home), and has done a number of temping jobs. I have had to pay her rent twice (£300 each time - I am her guarantor) and have also bailed her out financially a number of other times.

If written down, the money I have handed to her over the last year is almost £3,000. Whilst myself and DH can (just) afford this, it is at a cost to us (we did not holiday this year). DH wants us to stop bailing her out, and wants her to experience 'tough love'. I can't help but feel she had a long time of 'tough love' when she was living at home with mum and dealing with mum's alcoholism on her own, and I suppose my financial attitude to her since then has been an attempt to apologise for the fact that us older siblings were so unaware of everything she had to deal with on her own.

Can I ask how is best to deal with this please - is DH right with the 'tough love' approach? Any advice is much appreciated.

I don't think money and guilt are ever a good combination. How about you sit her down and talk to her about financial planning, budgeting, etc, and explain gently but firmly that you can't afford to keep bailing her out.

And, separately if possible, talk to her about the emotional stuff and apologise for not having realised how bad the situation was.

If your mother was drinking when bringing up your sister then I don't suppose your Dsis experienced very good boundaries, leaving her feeling insecure and possibly leading to her now recklessness and low self esteem. Perhaps tough love would give her the sense of that that she needs if done in a supportive but firm way. There's a difference between being strong in a helpful manner in order to guide her and turning your back. She probably experienced the latter with your mum, but you laying down loving rules would be quite the opposite of replicating your mother's approach I think.

*sense of self and responsibility

I have apologised so so many times over the emotional stuff. She had an absolutely wonderful form tutor at the time, who referred her to counselling, but I still find it very hard to come to terms with the fact I spent all my energies at that time looking after my mum, whilst completely ignoring my sister who was struggling so much.

I have tried so hard to explain to her re: the financial things, but the problem is she doesn't often ASK outright for the money. Its more a case of "Oh no, I have £1000 in parking fines, and have been sent scary letters about needing a solicitor, what do I do", or "I havn't got paid from my new temp job yet, how do I explain to my landlord that I can't pay rent?", and I end up paying because I genuinely don't see an alternative. Also, it will be things like she will say she is coming home to visit us all one weekend, then tell me a few days before that she doesn't have money for her train ticket, and I feel obliged to cover it - because I would hate to not see her. Or I hear from family who visited that her cupboards were bare and she was looking very slim, so I gave her money for food. Or I read on facebook that she walked six miles each way to work because she didn't have the bus fare, so I transfer her some money to cover it.

She just has no idea of how to manage money, and needs to be bailed out constantly, and its all starting to take its toll.

UNless you do do tough love then this is just going to continue.

I agree your sister had her fill of "tough love" being left struggling with an alcoholic terminally ill parent for years whilst all the other adults got on with their lives.

Sorry to be harsh but I suspect your little sister is really really angry with you all. Losing a parent to cancer as a teenager is really hard as you are still developing your personality - I speak from experience. This is not to minimise your loss, she was your mum too, but your sister was stuck with it day to day and the rest and no one came to rescue her. She probably feels you all owe her an awful lot.

This doesn't mean I think you should keep bailing her out but it is interesting that she keeps creating situations where you are now forced to rescue her. However, I think your sister needs some effective counselling as I think the whole experience has clearly left deep wounds which is affecting her daily life.

Have you apologised to her for not picking up on how bad things were? Has anyone?

Chaz - I have apologised more times than you could ever know. Knowing I wasn't there for her when she needed it most makes me want to cry every time I think about it. Its in the forefront of my mind every time I think about the 'tough love' approach, and this is why I have never been able to do it.

On the face of it, my sister doesn't seem angry with any of us. She is a bright, articulate, incredibly funny and smart girl, but I can only assume that you are right, and she must, on some level, be very angry with us, and feel like she lost out on all the 'benefits' of having a parent, so it is now my job (as the closest thing to a mother figure she has left) to try and make up for this. When she does get paid, she spends all of it on clothes, handbags and going out. She spent £80 on a new pair of designer gloves last week, and I fon't feel I can say anything negative about her spending, because I'm just so glad to see her happy and thriving, and don't want to be the one to upset her and say no.

You will continue to be responsible for the rent if she doesn't pay as long as she lives there, as you are the guarantor. You cannot change that. I think you need to budget to allow for picking this up, just in case.

I don't know much about counselling, but would something like family counselling with you, her and an independent and competent counsellor help sort out all the hurt and pain and create a workable and happy relationship.

Also, your sister probably hasn't been able to learn some of the life lessons that you learnt, eg budgeting, cooking/meal planning on a budget for one, etc And she may have managed to get herself into debt (student loan? student overdraft? student credit card?).

On a practical level she may benefit from seeing what is on the Moneysaving Expert forums. They are really useful, with lots of nice people and it is very busy.

I hope it all works out for you.

Have responded on Teenagers section.

BottleofRum its not your responsibility to make up for this. Nor do you have to take on the mother role. You also lost a parent and where going through the trauma of caring for someone with cancer.

I know my post probably seemed hard but I know how angry I felt with the world about my mum's death (I was 16) and I hadn't been through what your sister went through. I'm not sure it would have been obvious from the outside.

Your sister needs professional counselling, a safe space where she can say all the unacceptable angry things she won't say to the family or anyone who knows them.

What would your sister say if you did say no you can't buy that? You might get an idea of just how angry she is then!

This is not your fault and you don't have to keep trying to fix it. Sorry to say this but the main fault lies with your parents but, in the case of your mum, I know it is very hard to feel angry with someone who has died. You do need to guide your sister (if you can) towards some sort of help.

She may be deliberately making you pay for things, or she may just be a bit useless financially, never having had a good example to learn from. Either way, I think you do need to talk to her about budgeting - she needs to work out how much of her salary she needs for rent, bills and food, and how much that leaves her each month for "fun". At the moment she seems to be treating her wages as pocket money, and expecting the rest of it to be sorted out by you.

I know the idea of "tough love" sounds nasty, and you would be cruel to just suddenyl cut her off. But you still need to help her by not just coughing up every time she needs some cash, or you feel guilty.

Setting boundaries is something you have to do for children, you wouldn't let a toddler stick her fingers in the socket because you felt guilty for going out to work so she "deserves" to do anything she wants, would you? And that's where "tough love" comes in - its not about being tough to hurt her, its about expressing love by helping her grow and develop and so be better able to live a happy fulfilled life.

You could also look at some form of counselling for yourself - to help you move on from the guilt. I'm not saying you should be happy about the choices you made or the effects they had. But you should not have to spend the rest of your life crippled by guilt because of things you did or didn't do. And that guilt is stopping you from helping your sister now.

Where's your dad in all this? He is her surviving parent, after all, and there's hardly a word about him. Sounds like she's looking to be parented (we can't all have a mother and a father available, sadly) and he's the one who should be stepping up here, surely. Don't allow guilt to drive your overcommitment.

I like what AMumInScotland said, a gentle chat to say you won't be bailing her out anymore. (I also genuinely think you shouldn't give her more money unless you're legally obliged, this is an unsustainable approach, and could lead to big, big divisions between you and DH, which I don't think you could afford on an emotional level. I do see his frustration, he probably is wondering where it all ends, as it can't carry on indefinitely.)

You could follow that up with an offer to show her how to budget, etc. This will show her you care, and want to spend some time helping her. Why doesn't she move back home/in with yr dad for a while to save up some money or blow every wage packet for a while if that's how she wants to live? I think she needs to make some decisions here, it's a very typical teenage thing (for some) to want rights but not responsibilities.My heart really does go out to you both, though. It sounds very tough indeed.

Dad is, IMO, a wonderful parent to her. Aside from her financial problems, I think she is 'parented' well. For someone who went through the traumatic time she did, she has remained remarkably level headed and not turned to alcohol/drugs etc, as she could have. She loves our dad dearly, but has the attitude of 'Paris Hilton' towards him, e.g. "Daddyyyyyyyy, can I have a new dress to wear pwetty pwease" and he agrees, although he is getting old now and has very little disposable income himself so she asks him rarely. Also, dad used to leave a lot of cash in his house, and straight after mum died, he noticed it was going 'missing', and eventually my sister admitted she had been taking it for nights out with friends etc, and she still feels guilty for this, so doesn't like to ask him for financial things.

A gentle chat would help, and I have tried before - it stopped her asking me to bail her out, but it hasn't taught her anything about money - she was still spending all her money on going out and clothes, and not spending any on food/travel. If I don't bail her out, I honestly believe she would go without food, and would walk the six miles (each way!) to work every day rather than save the money for a travel card.

It may sound cruel, but perhaps a few days of not having anything in to eat and having to walk all that way would get her to re-assess her priorities? To an extent, it is her right as an adult to make stupid choices.

She may have stopped asking you to bail her out, but you're doing it without her even having to ask, so of course she hasn't learned anything from it. She is obviously capable of changing her behaviour, and understanding concepts like "can't afford it" since she has changed her behaviour to dad. So ther is room for her to change, gievn the right impetus. And hunger and sore feet are quite convincing arguments!

She´s never going to learn whilst people keep intervening, is she?

And quite honestly she isn´t anyone´s financial responsibility anymore, is she?

She has left home & is working.

I think its nice that you are supportive to your sister , but really , enoughs enough.
You couldnt have known what was going on , and as someone else said , you cared for your mum and have now lost a parent too , its time to dump the guilt and stop apologizing for something you are not responsible for .

Lots of young people are like this , its a situation played out daily across the world , irresponsible teen needs bailing out , again. Its not new , mine have played it in the past , as did i and many of my freinds , whether that was in the form of " missing " the last bus home , knowing full well we wouldnt be left in the bus station all night , or like your sister running out of money.

The worst thats going to happen is she,ll go hungry , or she,ll get a ccj , but the chances are she,ll only do it once. Its not the end of the world.

Without being unkind , she sounds a little manipulative ,and is probably playing on your good nature and your completeley unfunded guilt . Dump the guilt , and stop bailing her out , shes not your responsibility , she is an adult and your not helping her really .