DH wants to pay for his older sister’s intervention and inpatient rehab

[Anonymous]

Nope.
Your SIL sobriety is not your expense or burden

Good luck though

[Anonymous]

Divorce him. He deserves a wife with a soul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people I know who suffer(ed) from opiod addiction became addicted after being prescribed it for severe pain through no fault of their own. You clearly have no idea how difficult it is to recover from this.

this is the problem with our society its always someone else fault so they just continue being crack heads. Sorry, we need some tough love and prison time.

+1
Or no luxuries. Sorry. If you are addicted you go to the work house and get clean while you work some menial tasks.
Then at least you're not dead, you're not a burden, and you're not luxuriating on someone else's dime.

That's rehab

[Anonymous]

The fundamental problem with rehab is that they make more money if they don't cure you.

The rehab that works is when you provide the rehab yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:His older sister is in mid-50’s and he suspects opioid addiction. She does not work and has never worked full-time as long as we’ve been married (16 years). We suspect she has been paying for her lifestyle from an accident settlement a while ago, but think the money is running out, as she has been late making her apartment payments the last few years (as evidenced by one eviction and now numerous proceedings from the apartment company against her).

He looked into doing an intervention which will cost $10k flat. But when I asked him how much the rehab would cost, he could not say. I just did a quick google search and it says anywhere from $6k-$50k out of pocket.

I’m fuming as I have literally worked since before I was 16, took out student loans, paid them off, live financially conservatively and responsibly. Meanwhile his sister has coasted, had her college tuition paid for from their parents, barely worked as long as I have known her. I agreed with him that we could help pay for her intervention, but he should at least look at the cost for rehab before committing to anything. Also their mother is living, retired (also never worked a day in her life), lives in a nice paid off condo, drives a Mercedes. I asked DH about her contribution to paying for her daughter and he seems to not want to broach it with her.

I’ve always known his sister would someday be an issue, but wasn’t expecting this sort of financial burden. Originally I was thinking DH and I could just split our finances, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t want to be in a marriage with separate finances, and this is a deal-breaker for me.

Have you considered befriending, partying with her, and enabling her to find her ultimate limit?
It's like taking your elderly parents skydiving and motorcycling.

[Anonymous]

While I totally agree with you, your approach of just fuming isn’t helpful. Your husband is being desperately naive, and you know this. But, you are not going to convince him of this if you are just acting pissed off about spending money on a woman you clearly don’t like.

Take a breath and start looking for addiction help in your area. Find an addiction counselor and ask him to go with you to a meeting to discuss options. Get some real statistics on how often an intervention works and what the chances of rehab working really are. Ask him to attend a few AlAnon meetings with you to prepare for this. Basically try to be cooperative to see if you can get him to a place of being less naive.

FWIW — after decades of driving drunk, my dad got a DUI at age 76. He went to rehab for $20k. It helped for maybe a year. Then, he started drinking again and his current wife threw him out. He didn’t tell his kids but he went to live on his boat. He fell off the boat drunk and would have died but the dockmaster saw it and got him hauled out. I went to visit at the hospital and told him if he wanted to drink himself to death on the boat, none of his kids were going to stop him. He then tried to say rehab was too expensive because it was now $27k. Since he is wealthy, I told him that trying to say $27k was too much was insane, and in fact, he didn’t need to drink himself to death because I might kill him with my bare hands right there in the hospital if he kept telling me that he could not afford it. But again — if he wanted to drink himself to death, have at it. He basically got scared because I kept pushing the “you are going to die” angle and called his wife and promised to go to rehab so she would take him back. He went, paid the money and is back in the house with her (until he falls off the wagon). It is what it is. None of his kids are under any illusions that he will get sober for good before he dies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:His older sister is in mid-50’s and he suspects opioid addiction. She does not work and has never worked full-time as long as we’ve been married (16 years). We suspect she has been paying for her lifestyle from an accident settlement a while ago, but think the money is running out, as she has been late making her apartment payments the last few years (as evidenced by one eviction and now numerous proceedings from the apartment company against her).

He looked into doing an intervention which will cost $10k flat. But when I asked him how much the rehab would cost, he could not say. I just did a quick google search and it says anywhere from $6k-$50k out of pocket.

I’m fuming as I have literally worked since before I was 16, took out student loans, paid them off, live financially conservatively and responsibly. Meanwhile his sister has coasted, had her college tuition paid for from their parents, barely worked as long as I have known her. I agreed with him that we could help pay for her intervention, but he should at least look at the cost for rehab before committing to anything. Also their mother is living, retired (also never worked a day in her life), lives in a nice paid off condo, drives a Mercedes. I asked DH about her contribution to paying for her daughter and he seems to not want to broach it with her.

I’ve always known his sister would someday be an issue, but wasn’t expecting this sort of financial burden. Originally I was thinking DH and I could just split our finances, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t want to be in a marriage with separate finances, and this is a deal-breaker for me.

Have you considered befriending, partying with her, and enabling her to find her ultimate limit?
It's like taking your elderly parents skydiving and motorcycling.

lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you want your son to help his sister?

No.

[Anonymous]

Oh hell no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be a dealbreaker for me.
We do NOT pay for other people's issues. We would pay for our children's but not a sibling's. And if my husband could not give me a number and it was a financial burden for us, that would be it.

+1
OP should not have to as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to be as harsh as other commenters without knowing your finances. I think you need to let go of your resentment. She got a settlement because she was in an accident. That money is meant to cover her for not being able to work full-time. You make it sounds insidious by saying "We suspect she has been paying for her lifestyle from an accident settlement a while ago." It's meant for her to live off, which she has been doing, while also working part-time. If it's an opioid addiction then it's probably from the pain, she's not out partying.

You have some reasonable points. DH definitely shouldn't commit to rehab without knowing the costs, and it's fair to discuss how to pay for this and the long term plans and if his mom has any savings to contribute, perhaps out of sister's share of the inheritance.

Incorrect. He saw her drinking and slurring and not being able to walk properly after a couple of drinks, which is why he started looking into and asking questions.

Amazing how all these important details weren't in the OP, which was already super negative to SIL.

+1. So weird, right?

[Anonymous]

I have multiple addicts in my family and no, we do not pay for the rehab.

Addiction is different than cancer, where everybody needs to help out.

An addict needs to take responsibility for themselves to recover. Saving them only enables them.

This. OP, I wouldn't agree to funding rehab. I might agree to fund the intervention 50/50 with the mom and then see where it goes from there. But honestly, the best kind of intervention might be SIL getting evicted and facing prospect of living on the street. Often addicts need to hit rock bottom before they will make changes. And if she does get evicted, is she going to live with your MIL? That might make your MIL pony-up for the rehab.

[Anonymous]

You and he should go together to AlAnon (they have lots of meetings in person and on phone and Zoom) .
Understand what people try, what happens, how to detach with love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are the WORST kind a person. A total POS. If his sister wants help for the love of g-d help her!

Does that sister want the help? That's not mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are the WORST kind a person. A total POS. If his sister wants help for the love of g-d help her!

Does that sister want the help? That's not mentioned.

No. She does not agree there is an issue. Hence DH’s last ditch effort for an intervention.

And to be clear, I am not opposed to an intervention. Just not a $10k one that would be funded solely by DH and me. . . Same with rehab. DH did zero research into alternatives and now I am realizing he would prefer to throw money at the problem and wash his hands clean afterwards.