Wife secretly giving money to in-laws

Neo

I feel bad for your wife.
Before I had my own family I used to send money to my family.
I used to get the occasional requests for extra money and complied.

Then I decided I wanted to get married and save and the thought of stopping that money was very painful for me.

I know if I spoke face to face it could degenerate, so I wrote a letter to my parents and explained that I had done what I could to help the over the years and that I appreciated everything they had done for me.
But that now I needed to put money together for myself.
Signed off " Your loving daughter."

I posted that letter and that was about 16 years ago.
I have not heard one word about money or the letter since.
I'm sure they were hurt, but they understood. Never.mentioned.again.

Thing is my family has a dysfunctional way of managing money.
They will never see that themselves. They are often in crisis.
My own grandparents spent their nest-egg bailing my parents out. To no end.

Get your wife to read this thread....it is she who has to act.
 
Bronte said:
Neo as you've come back to tell us more of what is going on, I'll tell you why I thought it was a windup and sometimes people do windups on here. Based on the salary your earned I reckoned you had to be a professional, someone College educated and so I thought therefore you must be bright and therefore would not be giving away most of your income to the detriment of your own family. Frankly I found it hard to believe. I still do.

Minion - are you sure your brother is telling you the truth. Maybe it's him that has a gambling/spending problem? He had an extraordinary reaction to your withdrawal of financial support.
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It was his FIL alright. My brother married his childhood sweetheart. We gre up on the same road so we all know each other well.
I went around last night and went through him in front of his wife and brother. Turned out his brother had been giving him money too and thought noone else was.

Basically i told him he owed my brother and better start paying him back. Obviously it will do no good, but im delighted i made an idiot out of the chancer in front of other who might benefit from knowing what hes like.
 
Bronte said:
But he did give a 350K house to his own son? Does this son help him out?
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His son doesnt work. He went traveling for a few years and came home and couldnt find a job (read couldnt find a job he didnt think was beneath him).
 
Neo,

I hope you won't take this as unduly patronising. Your income is very good, but it is simply not at a level where you can afford to support three families without restricting yourself to a lifestyle that will - ultimately - be considerably more humble than that enjoyed by your peers.

If you are making a high six-figure income but are nevertheless quite happy to live in a modest 3-bed semi, drive a small car, skip foreign holidays, avoid dining out or ordering in, restrict your kids to cheap or free extra-curricular activities etc., then the very best of luck to you. Many people - mostly those who have no economic freedom to do otherwise - do exactly this. Many people with much less money than you have very happy lives. It is the way most of us were raised, myself included.

BUT - poverty is relative. If you are a dairy farmer milking 20 cows in Ireland, you are in a very humble position. In Africa you would be the richest man in the village. You are not an African farmer. You are dentist in one of the wealthiest countries in the developed world.

Will you really be happy to see your colleagues send their teenage daughters on ski trips while yours help you in the garden? Will you really be happy to go to a conference in your Ford Focus while your colleagues all travel in Audi\Merc\BMW cars? Will you eventually get fed up of hearing about the dresses that other people's wives can afford in whatever boutique is flavour du jour, while your wife mixes and matches the same five or six pieces from Gap or Zara? All perfectly valid lifestyle choices, by the way.

Even if you don't want a relatively expensive lifestyle, even if you don't want a big house or car, even if you don't want to give your kids a good financial start, can you see a situation where you might want to be able to say to yourself "I don't have those things because I choose not to have them". Can you see a situation where you might ultimately resent the fact that you simply don't have the choices that your peers have?

Where am I going with all of this? Simple. Get help. Make a plan for the life that you want and get that plan costed. I think you need a mentor of some sort to help you plan your finances. Start looking for one.
 
Neo said:
I am not from Dublin, but live here, and yes, there is an upper class, middle class and lower class. There are haves and have-nots. Some families can afford 2 suvs, some families can't afford even 1 car. If you dont believe me, I ask that you take a drive from D4 to D24 and then tell if you still believe that everyone is the same class.
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I'm afraid you are mixing up middle class with middle income.
 
I would just like to say that what MOB wrote was excellent. What a fantastic piece of advice to give in this situation.
 
I am astonished by this thread!

Your MILs attitude is unbelievable. What you earn is none of her business. You should not feel obliged to support her.

You are certainly not doing BIL any favours in supporting him. If you don't put a stop to this now you could find yourself supporting him for many years to come.

At the moment yous have one child. If yous plan on having more kids it might be wise to be saving for their education and future.

I don't really see why you need to be helping either sets of parents when yous haven't even a house of your own.

This situation seems to be having a detrimental effect on your health and marriage so I would try to resolve it ASAP.
 
First of all, a couple of very simple calculations:

When you and your wife married, your joint net income was €8,000 per month. By a joint decision, you gave €1,200 to your families. Since then, you added a child to your own family, your wife quit work and you took a 20% pay cut. Your income decreased by €3,000 yet the amount of 'give away' money increased by at least €400. This all doesn't look sensible at all.

A long time ago, a wise old woman told me that her children owe her nothing - a child's debt to parents is repaid to the next generation (wise old lady's grandchildren). Personally I couldn't agree more. Something similar should be pointed out to your wife who is clearly being manipulated by her sponging mother and brother. Im on the verge of becoming a parent for the first time and majority of financial responsibility will fall onto myy husband, at least for a while. There is no way that I personally would feel right about subsidising my brother's lavish lifestyle from my husband's hard earned income. I understand necessities and emergencies but having an expectation the way your MIL has it is simply not on.

IMHO, your situation calls for a heart to hear with your wife, including the pen, paper and a calculator. Work out what you can realistically afford to give to both your families and stick to your guns. Surely, if pointed out the facts, your wife will have to agree with you.
 
Yachtie said:
IMHO, your situation calls for a heart to hear with your wife, including the pen, paper and a calculator.
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If things persist forget pen, paper and calculator and go straight for the real action. I think you might need a solicitor.
 
Alas..we will never know the ending..I hope it was a happy one....
 
Hi Folks
I haven’t posted much, but I do come here often. Because you asked, here is an update. There is a happy ending, well sort of.

I first tried to be logical and rational and showed my wife all the posts on this thread. We argued and eventually she appeared to agree and promised to put us first. Things were grand for a few months, or so I thought. Turns out all it did was put the activities deeper under cover. She would withdraw X from account for the weekly shopping, spend Y and keep the difference to deposit into my MIL’s account at the end of the month.

That infuriated me, so I told her that I don’t trust her and I opened a separate bank account, with me as the sole signatory. Every week, I transferred a standard amount into the old account to pay for shopping etc. I thought things were ok, but they weren’t. Friends started asking me when was I going to pay them back??? Turns out she borrowed from our friends to help her mother and to evoke their generosity she had told them untrue stories about how it was for us as we were suffering or how I was mistreating her.

Things went rapidly downhill from there and we separated. She and my son are back at her mother’s and I am renting a room in town. Ironically (or is that painfully) I pay child support into the very same bank account that caused all this mess in the first place.

With regards to my BIL. Unknown to me, in 2010, he had a drug habit, which he has now managed to kick. I like to think my turning off the free cash helped. He is now working in London, but of course, “his only 22, so he is not able to do much”.

I say there is a happy ending because, the strange thing is, there is no more stress, or fighting, or suspicions. Instead there is peace and calm and hope that there is a brighter future. Yes I miss seeing my son during the week, but at least he is not in a house filled with constant fighting and negative energy.

2012 is around the corner and things look good. Thanks for listening to my rants and for your advice. I wish you all the best for the new year.

Take care
Your friend
Neo
 
Good for you Neo,you did all you could but the situation seemed intolerable,it would be impossible to continue on like that.
You are an intelligent,positive,resourceful fella and will prosper no matter what life throws at you.
Wishing you all the best in 2012.
 
I remember this thread. Sorry it didn't work out and hope you are in a better place now. All the best for 2012 and beyond. Thanks for updating us.
 
mate, get a grip.
your in laws are selfish!
They obviously dont care much about there grandchilds future.
you owe them nothing. You owe your family a secure future.
 
"I say there is a happy ending because, the strange thing is, there is no more stress, or fighting, or suspicions. Instead there is peace and calm and hope that there is a brighter future. Yes I miss seeing my son during the week, but at least he is not in a house filled with constant fighting and negative energy."

That's good.

You did what you had to do. . . sooner or later

Good luck for the future.
 
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