To accept the risk of losing my sister with honesty

[Balloonpopper101]

My sister has been ‘dating’ a jobless, weed smoking loser for the past year. She has 3 young children and moved him in very quickly. He doesn’t help her, he doesn’t work or pay his way, she feeds and clothes him and treats him better than her own children, she bails him out when he has a drunken fight at a pub and I feel like she’s changed as a person so much yet she defends him constantly.
She is happy (or so she says) and doesn’t see the issues I do. My concern is that he is using her for somewhere to live and someone to fund his addictions. His ex went to court to ensure he kept away from her and his sons. My sister thinks the ex is jealous and made it up.
They’ve just had a baby together and he’s taken off. He doesn’t help with the baby and abandons them regularly to smoke weed. So now she is struggling with 4 children and on universal credit and to be completely honest, I have no sympathy for her anymore.
She put herself in this situation and has turned into an unrecognisable person, suddenly very rude and snappy at her family who are trying to support her, has began copying her boyfriends mannerisms and behaviours and is generally a shadow of her former self.
I don’t believe there is any abuse, I just think she has chosen the worse person to bring into her children’s lives, yet she plans to marry him and have more children.
I feel she needs a sharp awakening to who he is and that she is putting herself and her children in a bad situation, she will be very lonely if family turn their back on her and also the children need family to ensure they don’t go without.
My MIL has suggested an anonymous report to SS, but I don’t want to ruin the family and risk my nieces and nephew going into care.
I want this waste of space out of their lives for good, but only she can make that decision.
What would you do in this position?
If I came across bad in any way, I do apologise, I’m just sick of being the punch bag when once again the boyfriend has disappeared with his drug taking friends and spent the last money for nappies on weed instead.
So my question is, am I being a bad person by not caring about the risk of losing her as my sister by being honest after supporting her all year and having it thrown back in my face? I’ve done my best and watched the whole situation from the sidelines but there’s only so much I can do to help.

I think in a subsequent post the op clarified that the court hadn’t prevented contact. He is allowed contact but the ex refuses to let him have it. (Quite sensibly by the sounds of it)

You may be the only advocate these children have, be their voice

None of what you've described would result in the children being removed from your sister's care

That's MN these days, it seems. Relationships was a lovely supportive place back in the day, now it's degenerated into drive-by bitch-plopping that belongs in AIBU.

OP you're in a horrible situation and I feel for you and the DC. You mentioned the older kids' dad - is he aware of the situation? Could he be useful here?

Sounds like those kiddies need removing from their feckless mother asap

The children are not loved, safe and well cared for.

When you pay her rent because your sister has given her money to her bf, you’re not supporting her, you’re enabling her. You might as well give him wads of cash. Bailing her out with childcare and money means she never has to deal with the consequences of her fecklessness.

You have to report this to social services. It will give your sister the wake up call. They don't break up families, they safe guard them.

Report to health visitor
Report to social services
Report to school
Stop giving him money via her
Stop enabling her behaviour

You know you should do this

Those poor kids growing up in that toxicity

You can tell her all you like. You can make your feelings towards him obvious. If she wants him she’ll dig her heels in. I’ve seen it all. No amount of dissent from you will change her mind. Trust me

I agree. Honestly, some of the replies on this thread, and the responses to OP are awful. Some of you seem to live in cloud cuckoo land if you really believe that reporting that someone's boyfriend smokes weed and isn't allowed near his ex partner is going to trigger all kinds of action. There are many, many, children living in homes like this - not just in the UK - and there are also many living in far worse conditions, and it is the latter ones ss need to focus their limited resources on.

I really had no idea there were so many people so disconnected from the real world. Of course it's dreadful and shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it does. This is the world we now live in and maybe some of you should look outside your middle class bubble once in a while and then you might be able to offer sensible advice to people caught in the middle like OP.

You can’t call the police and Social Services because you don’t like a boyfriend.

people are just very concerned about four children living in this shit show day in and day out.

Even someone in RL who the Op has confided in (her MIL) has urged her to progress with SS

every day that no adult knowing this doesn’t act, is another day these children go without “food and nappies sometimes FGS) with a mum who the Op says treats her drunken weed addict boyfriend of one year better than her children

so apologies if some of us aren’t going to go “there there Op” but instead get bloody angry at the inaction

Sounds like reporting is the best way to help the children.

Your sister is failing them.
Don't you fail them too.

@plumberdrain no I didn't miss that. SS aren't going to get involved over a court order in a previous relationship

Children that are subjected to a mothers 'Cock before kids' attitude are often subwjwct to being abused, whether it be physically or emotionally.

Report her.

they don't go without because OP steps in. You're kicking the person who is caring and trying to help @plumberdrain and that will never help, you're just going to drive her away from the helpful and good advice she could get here. Just because the MIL says report that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, if she is estranged from her sister then who will help these kids. You're ignoring all the posters who are rightly pointing out that this just does not meet the threshold for SS involvement. We all care about kids here, you can tell OP really cares. If you want to help just advise nicely, it's so much more constructive.

You're having a laugh, right? His ex went to court to try to keep him away from his children.

He gets drunk and starts fights.

Sister is leaving her children without essentials in order to give him drug money.

Of course social services will want to visit and ensure the children aren't at risk in any way.

Report it. Do it anonymously via the nspcc website if it makes you feel better. The children won’t be placed in care if there is loving and safe family members to take them but it is also very hard to remove a child so they are unlikely to be removed in this situation unless things are going on you don’t know about. Social services will check with professionals and find out from the police he’s got a history of domestic abuse, talk to health and find out your sister has refused visits and talk to the kids school and find out they smell of cannabis etc. It’s likely with all that they will at least want to speak to your sister on the phone which might make her think about her choices.
You also need to think very carefully about boundaries you are going to put in. If you keep rescuing her and papering the cracks he has left how will professionals ever know how bad it is, and will your sister ever be motivated to try and change things when she doesn’t experience the full consequences of her choices?

you say “caring”

i say “enabling”

doeent meet the threshold

so… children go in smelling of weed
so… mother spends benefits on her boyfriend rather than food nappies for her children
so… the mother “treats hime better than her children”
so… the man has been convicted of assault against his former partner who refuses access to their children
so… he will “fight anyone” and get in drunken brawls

it’s worth a shot don’t you think?

I wish I was as naïve as some MNers. Similar well meaning but misplaced advice on a thread last night. Next there'll be posters saying to OP's who are up against services which have basically ceased to exist and don't function any more, 'well why don't you just click your fingers, OP'

@Balloonpopper101 what are your parents saying about the situation? Could they step in too if needed?

No, it isn't. She's very carefully said what he does and how he is.

No I don't think it's worth a shot if it estranges the kids safety net!! She might not be doing everything perfectly right but at the moment she's a strong protective factor for them.