Financially supporting estranged mother
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Anonymous
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My mother is in her early 70s and does not live nearby. My parents divorced when I was young, and while I was and remain very close to my father, my relationship with my mother has always been distant. Without going into too many details, she made a lot of bad and selfish choices during my youth, which have taken me decades of therapy to sort through. We've never been completely estranged, but it is a real chore to spend more than an hour with her.
Among my mother's bad choices was financial management, and a second husband who got away with most of their money and property in their divorce five years ago. She cashed out most of her modest pension to help his son buy a house, and started taking social security early so now her monthly payments are far lower than they otherwise would be. She also has had a compulsive spending problem and racked up a ton of credit card debt. Her financial situation has gotten to a point where she will either need to declare bankruptcy and scrape by on a very modest remaining pension and reduced social security, or I (the only child) will need to help support her. She barely ever calls, but last week she asked if we're able to help her out so she doesn't need to file bankruptcy. DH and I do pretty well by national standards (probably middle class by DC suburbs standards), and have fairly aggressively built our 401k's and other savings. We have a son in elementary school who, for a variety of reasons, we had been planning to put into private school next year. If I have to start supporting my mom on a monthly basis, private school will be out of the question. I hate the thought of my mother being in poverty toward the end of her life, but I get angry thinking about our son getting a worse education because my mother has made some pretty bad life choices. DH is amazing and said he'll support whatever I choose, but I'm really torn. I'm wondering if others have been in a similar situation and what they have done. |
Anonymous
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I strongly suggest you invest in therapy to figure out your priorities.It has taken me being burned many times, having my own illness and getting therapy to finally say no to takers and have them face the consequences of their choices. You are trying to be rescue someone at the expense of your own family needs. Look, if you were wealthy with money just falling out of your ears then sure if you want to throw money at a selfish family member and rescue then throw it.
Do you think she will even be grateful? Do you think she will suddenly become responsible? Do you think she will ever apologize to you? Do you truly think her needs are more important than your child's educational needs, etc given how she has been your whole life? |
Anonymous
| I would have her file bankruptcy and then support or don't support afterwards. Trying to forestall bankruptcy is just flushing money down the toilet in this situation, because she is irresponsible. |
Anonymous
| She's going to be in poverty even if you do give her money, because she'll make bad choices with it. Maybe that will help you feel at peace with saying no. |
Anonymous
+1 Plus, help her sign up for what3ver she is eligible. Eg housing assistance, food assistance, health care……. |
Anonymous
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Do not waste a dime helping her avoid bankruptcy- they are her debts and she needs to accept her financial management failures and suck up to bankruptcy. The credit card companies won’t be hurt by not getting the pennies she owes them, they write off the debt and get tax advantages. If her only income is SS and a small pension she is likely judgment proof anyway. If she is too poor for a lawyer refer her to Upsolve which can help her prepare a pro se bankruptcy or determine if she even needs to file.
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Anonymous
This. Do not take resources away from your children to bail her out. |
Anonymous
This. And I'd give her MINIMAL support, if any. Only enough to keep her safe. She's going to squander whatever you give her. |
Anonymous
| Don’t take away from your child. |
Anonymous
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She needs to declare bankruptcy, so that her finances are officially very low for when she'll need placement in a medicaid home. You will be able to pay for certain things, in your name, so the money doesn't show up and taint her eligibility. |
Anonymous
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Bankruptcy for sure. Public assistance for sure.
If you can afford a small stipend, like a cable bill of $200, I would do that. If you cannot, I wouldn’t. Children are the future. I wouldn’t short change your kids education. Speaking from experience with a lot of family members in trouble- expect zero appreciation. You won’t get it, weather is 200 or 2000 a month. |
Anonymous
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So, my siblings and I have BTDT. We paid her rent for almost 2 years. The thanks we got? She said if any of us had real jobs, we would be able to give her the lifestyle she deserves. There was no end to what she thought she deserved. We finally cut her off.
If I were in your shoes, I would let her file for bankruptcy. If you give her money, would it mess up her financial records for purposes of the bankruptcy? |
Anonymous
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The obligation you feel to support her after all she hasn’t done needs to be explored in therapy.
Put your child first in the way that your mother never put you first. That should be your path forward to healing. |
Anonymous
All of this. My father declared bankruptcy several years ago and now lives in rent-controlled housing for senior citizens. He has SS and Medicaid and mostly, those suffice for his needs. DH and I are prioritizing our own retirements and financial health first, and then college for our kids. With zero family help from either side, those things aren't cheap. Oh - and therapy helped me *enormously* while this was going on. I'd been in it for a while, so by that point was adept at setting boundaries, but my therapist helped so much with reinforcing and validating my perspective. Good luck, OP. |
Anonymous
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Do not divert resources from your child to financially support your mother!
I’m in a similar situation with a single mother who has also consistently made bad financial decisions including a bankruptcy and deciding to retire/collect social security at 62 (in perfectly fine health but because she was tired of her white collar job) with no pension, no property and maybe 40k total in retirement savings/assets. She has at times strongly hinted (though never directly asked) that she would like us to financially assist her, but like you we are upper middle class but not wealthy and subsidizing her would come at the expense of college savings and extracurriculars for my kids so it’s a hard no from me. Not to mention that based on her earlier patterns of seeking assistance from other relatives, I’m very cognizant of the fact that any such aid would just open the door for larger future asks. It’s been over 10 years since she retired and she has managed to get by well enough on her reduced social security alone, living in a subsidized rental, so it’s definitely doable. We buy her nice gifts for birthdays/holidays and pay for flights for her to visit but draw the line there. |