Money and MIL - advice needed (sorry it is quite long)

[shil0846]

This is more about my mother-in-law, however it is starting to affect my relationship with my husband and I would really appreciate some advice.

My father-in-law died last year leaving a lot of debt, but also a lot of valuable art work. My MIL also had a £15k credit card bill on which she was paying masses of interest. When she was widowed, she couldn't afford to keep paying the interest and was desperate. We therefore paid for the funeral and also took £15k out of our mortgage to lend it to her for 3 months to give her time to sell some of the art work. We are paying 4% interest on this.

11 months later she hasn't sold anything. I have sent pictures of items to auction houses to get them valued, but when I tell her what they say she tuts and says she paid far more than that and she wouldn't sell for such a low price.

The added complication is that I had a baby 6 months ago and we need the money back to buy a bigger place (we're in a tiny flat) and to fund my maternity leave. My MIL is aware of this (I have told her as plainly as I can without upsetting her). Her reaction is to apologize and say that she is ruining everything...yet she just doesn't sell anything. Most recently when I raise it she's started telling me how lucky I am to have had all this time with my DS, as she went back to work when my husband was 4 months old.

I generally have a good relationship with my MIL, but am starting to resent the fact that my family is suffering because we paid her credit card bill. I also feel duped. My husband gets really defensive when I mention it and reminds me that she's lost her husband and he's lost his father. So we end up arguing.

I know that the grief is still raw and suspect she doesn't want to part with any possessions she bought with her late husband, but I'm desperate to spend longer with my DS and could do so if she would only pay us back.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Xx

De-lurking to send support, OP. This is a terrible situation. I really feel for you. It is clear that your son's financial future will be in jeopardy for as long as you remain shackled to this free-spending idiot and his parasitic mother. Talking has proved to be futile. I think the only weapon you have left in your arsenal now is to walk out. It may be the only way to make your H realise how stupid he is being. Am so sorry.

His borrowing power will be far more limited if he's on his own, and his brother has no interest in bailing out their selfish, entitled mare of a mum. But I'd not put it past him to borrow without your consent. An offence depending on the loan, but sometimes not, and I have seen it happen. He will RUIN you to keep his mum in a big house.

Hope it goes well for you tomorrow, and I'd do the Land Registry thing, check your credit and change your will. You are moving in the right direction. This is good. Bad credit and bankruptcy are not.

Hear hear Chunderella.

I really feel for you Shil, what a horrible situation. I am mid 40's and its only been the last few years that the penny has dropped for me in terms of understanding finances. I feel so stupid that i've gone through my life frittering money away and having so little understanding about what i was doing. I think my big eye opener was when i was trying to get another loan or extend my overdraft, during the meeting i was being asked questions and i think i got a bit shitty and the bank person laughed at me and said 'but its not your money', and then said it again. i was kind of stopped in my tracks.. i feel so dumb now! I thought that once i'd got the cash etc it was mine, but it actually isn't and you have to pay it all back eventually, usually at a point in time that doesn't suit. Having a young family and being saddled with debts is frustrating to say the least.

Oh, and realising how much i've paid over the years just in interest is sickening. I really don't know why i was so wilfully ignorant about it all.

Thinking that 'borrowing' is the same as 'earning' is a common misconception that peaked before the credit crunch, fuelled by easy credit and prolific advertising of 'lifestyles'. Living within your means requires (for most of us) saying 'no' to things we'd like to have but can't afford/justify. It sounds like you've grasped this but your DH and MiL haven't - and maybe never will. Do all you can to ring fence your personal and family finances - I've learnt a lot from reading this thread, eg the Land registry facility to register interests separately. And keep asking DH why, if it's all one big family 'pot', the flow of cash is all in one direction.

What is most unfair about the one way flow is it's not about need. When you loaned your MIL the money to clear credit cards, then yes, that was about need. But now your need to spend time with your DS and get a bigger place for your family should trump hers to keep her antiques and be in the Tory party. Sure, if she needed and operation or something, that's different, but that's not the case.

Surely a private Operation should be out of the question if the OP is considering selling jewellery to fund Maty leave !

I'm sorry you are going through this. Does he not realise credit is finite and if his mother has all the available credit for her lifestyle there will be none left for real emergencies including her own.

How can it be one big family pot if BIL isn't putting into it (because he realises he can't) and only MIL is taking out?

Does he know the reality of your financial situation? Would it help to sit him down with a spreadsheet and show him how you can ill afford this? Tell him you are selling things to keep your head above water. Wit the best will in the world what is she going to do once there is no more money left your H can get? Ask him that? If she continues to expect where else can you get it from? It's not sustainable in anyway. Ask about your DS what plans did you have for his future which will now not be possible?

Is there any chance BIL can talk some sense into him. It seems your DH is trying to fill his fathers shoes (something my H did in the year after his F died). He needs to realise he isn't his father and isn't in his fathers financial or social position. He needs to help his mother in a way he realistically can and not step into the breech. Things cannot stay in limbo never changing.

Yes to getting legal advice and protecting your own financial future for your child someone here has to and BIL seems to be able to see that too.

I'm so sorry shil, I'm naively optimistic and I thought your MIL had had a genuine revelation and that your DH would come good, but clearly not.

MIL doesn't seem to care that she is going to drive her DS into a serious debt situation and cause monumental problems in his marriage.

Agree with you shil - off to the solicitor, someone said put the jewellery in a deposit box and do the land registry thing.

Do you have any RL friends you can talk to about this, or indeed even stay with for a few nights to try to clear your head? Right now you and your DH are stuck in a pattern which no spreadsheet or financial plan is going to help with - perhaps a few days on his own to think about things might assist the matter.

Hoping you have had some positive advice today shil

Hope the weekend wasn't unspeakable and you're able to sort out a solicitor's meeting soon. So sorry, once again, that you are coping with such a terrible mess. All you ever did was try to offer someone a lifeline in a short term fix - dreadful that that kindness has been repaid like this.

Another one who has read al 31 pages with my jaw on the floor. What a terrible situation Shil0846, I really do hope things have taken a turn for the better over the weekend xx

Shil I've just caught up. How unspeakably awful. I hope you've been able to see the solicitor.

I just do not understand your DH and how he could do this to you.

Some people, you give them an inch and they take a mile. I too am married into a family like that. I give nothing to any of them now which hurts me, as I'm naturally generous and I like to be so when I have stuff to be generous with, but not to them any more. DH gets upset when I won't, but I am a hard nut now.

I have just caught up with the whole thing - and my jaw is on the floor. Please please do what you can to protect yourself as much as you can.

Even if you can't get it all back and split it to protect you, you can stop it getting worse.

Please come back and keep us posted. Thoughts are with you.

Another one here who is thinking of you and hoping the visit to the solicitor's was useful. DH and MIL's behaviour leave me speechless.

Oh my fucking Shil I've just caught up

I'm so, so sorry - how are you doing?

Any news on seeing a financial advisor Shil?

I just re-read your posts Shil after lurking at the start of your story.
What strikes me, after reading all your posts together - and they span a period of 5 weeks now - is how well you've handled yourself and your depressing problem.
You have been very patient and clear sighted, including about your husbands issues with not standing up for you as his partner, and constantly defending his mother.

Also what stands out to me as your strongest point of leverage, as others have pointed out, is that phrase of your husband - "all one family pot to be used in need" -
I think you should keep repeating that calmly back to your husband, because if it is the truth, he simply can't deny that you are correct, and your MIL is failing you very, very badly.

Because his defence of his mother simply falls apart when you point that out to him -- if it doesn't matter where the family wealth rests, why on earth can't it rest in your bank account?

Best of luck, I hope things go well for you.

Wow, just wow!
I've been a lurker I this thread and my mouth is open at the latest update.
Hope you are alright Shiv.

on and Shil feckin auto correct!

Jesus fookin wept, I've ready some horror stories on MN but this?
Gold medal to you Shil for your patience but I agree with other posters above, time for the big guns.

I am coming in to this from the standpoint of someone who watched aMIL do this to my parents. My DF was widowed and remarried with my DM moving in to an established home and lifestyle with the daughter of the first marriage being brought up by her paternal GM. Her household consisted of her widowed daughter and her daughter. Very little money and financed by my father. He felt an obligation to her as she had been widowed and brought him up. At some point he found that her house was leasehold and this had ended and within days he had to remortgage our house and buy her a house. This made a difference to all our lives but noticeably to my mother who seemed to become a paid servant. I don't think my father realised how much this upheaval meant as they were both dutiful people but when my grandmother died he was very very upset to find that she had ample funds to buy a house. My parents didn't have a splendid lifestyle or anything other than no debt but my mother bore the brunt of the second mortgage with penny pinching and making do and mending. Retrospectively it was very destructive corrosive.There is really very good advice on this thread. We can't really understand the loss of a father to a young man who feels he has to step in and it's commendable but he also has to grow up and treat his mother as a grown up. As someone said she may have another thirty years . Personally I would go at Xmas and make sure the valuables were in the boot of the classic car as you drove off in it home. Your son and his father are worth fighting for.