Tension with Wife's Family over Finances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you sure FIL is serious? I cannot imagine some dad in his 60s-70s truly wanting his daughter to pay him back when that money could help her own family. My dad would be mortified at the idea, and we are middle class.

DP. It is a control thing. People are weird about money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe anyone can possibly agree with OP. It’s clear that the wife was paying her father back because there previously were payments to be stopped. However, OP and his wife decided she would stop having an income, which their decision to make, but OP refused to accept one of the results of that decision which is that he would need to foot all of his wife’s bills, which includes the one to her parents, whether he likes it or not. Instead he decided her father didn’t deserve to be paid back, so he just wouldn’t. His FIL is not choosing not to cut off his daughter over this but is upset.

OP sounds like a physician with a god complex who enjoys having his wife dependent on him so he can call the shots and force his own agenda based on how he views her family. He clearly enjoys feeling like a benefactor and still doesn’t understand that it’s easy to be generous when you have a ton of money and resources and have never had to struggle.

The father in law sounds like an interesting person who has done a lot with very little. I am not going to make the same decisions but I have a lot of respect for someone who likely really hustled and sacrificed in a way OP will probably never understand.

The FIL sucks if he has a mid-8-figure income and wants his SIL to pay back his daughter's "loan" for college that was never even documented. I don't respect that at all. My father is similar to OP's FIL, and even though he never went to college, he paid for all of our education - law school, medical school, pilot training - we pretty much got a blank check if it was in furtherance of our path toward self-sufficiency. Now we cover our own expenses, but education? Of course, he paid.

the difference here is that you probably picked a major and possibly a cheaper college that lead to your self sufficiency, whereas the wife picked an expensive college and a major that had low ROI, and further, chose to go to graduate school for another low ROI major. She chose the non-self sufficient path, clearly evidenced by her continued reliance on her wealthy husband. She continues to make poor choices, knowing that she has to pay back a (0% ) loan that she agreed to.

IMO, the FIL wanted her to understand the consequence of picking a low ROI major and an expensive college. The "loan" is 0%, and appears to not have a maturity date. I'm thinking he doesn't really expect her to ever pay it back given her choices. But, she needs skin in the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her loans are her responsibility. Those need to be on hold until she starts working.

For dining and travel, just accept what works for you.

Overall, be generous but don't feel obligated to go out of your comfort zone.

You and your FIL sound like more alike than you and your family.

Any undocumented quasi-agreements made between an 18-year-old and her parents are not a "loan". Its not enforceable.

Indeed, which is why I don't think the FIL really expected her to pay everything back, but wanted her to have some skin in the game.

If he was as much of a jerk that OP thinks he is, then he would've made it a legal binding contract, with an interest rate and maturity date. But, he did none of those things.

He's a self made man (unlike OP). He expected his daughter to also be a self made person and not rely on parent's wealth (like OP), and then think they are great for being generous (like OP).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to let it go.

I had a similar issue where my parents paid for college, car, wedding and downpayment on a house. In-laws saddled dh with 80k in student loans, including a few parent plus loans we paid for them that didn’t even have his name on it. I paid off all the loans very quickly in full once we married. Despite both sides being retired with >10m, we pay our own way on every vacation and split all dinners.

I would be upset if someone ordered up the dinner bill. I’d ask for my own family’s check and he can pay his own. I’d also just not go on fancy vacations that I don’t want.

I bet a lot of this stems from him not being into education. My in-laws are very against universities.

No parents "saddle" their adult child with student loans. He chose to go to that school and they declined fully funding it. Both of those choices are legitimate, but he was the one who owed money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I are both from successful families, but they have very different mindsets in terms of legacy, finances, and the like. ...

- He had her take out "loans" from him informally for college and a graduate degree. He was ticked off at me once I informed him the payments on these "loans" would come to an end once our marriage took place.

- He and my MIL invite us on very expensive vacations and then expect us to cover our own cost which can be in the tens of thousands of dollars for some of the trips he likes. They complain if we do not go. ..The older generation in my family always covers vacation expenses.

- Similar situation with restaurants. He will propose an expensive restaurant, order expensive items, and then want to split the check 50/50. ...

Inlaws and parents have financial resources. Inlaws strings and control: book expensive restaurants and vacations and expect your family to attend and pay. Your parents, no strings and control, invite and pay and/or have dialogue on which restaurant/vacation and fund it.

Funding weddings, or any component of the whole, can be a situation of strings and control. What happened with the wedding? We are no strings funders and 1 DC wedding had a declination on some help from the other side due to major strings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blue collar boomers assume all physicians are very wealthy. FIL sees his SIL as having deep pockets and being blue collar expects the deep pocket guy to pay. It’s a scarcity mindset. Even though FIL has unexpectedly made a lot of money, he doesn’t want to share it and he wants others to give him more money. Generational wealth building is something very foreign to him. FIL would probably also love to get his fingers into some of the OPs parents’ money.

FIL may also lose his money or not be as solidly wealthy as he lets on. If he is a tradesman who became a contractor, he could very well blow up at some point. Real estate developers who can come from blue or white collar backgrounds often skate between being worth millions and being bankrupt. If he’s built a successful plumbing or HVAC company and sells to PE he could make a lot but then invests it poorly with a developer friend where he could lose it.

OP is wealthy.

So is FIL.

Everyone is mocking the wife's usless degree as a probable justification for why her father wants her to pay the money back but did OP even say what the degree was? Because relative to his career as a physician I'm sure everything seems low paying.

Regardless of what the undergrad degree is in, by OP's admission, she is going to get a masters in an area that is low pay. So, she is making one bad decision after another knowing that she would not be able to pay her father back like she promised she would.

OP is an elitist who thinks how he uses his wealth is the right way (look at me, aren't I great for helping my extended family), and the FIL is a tightwad a$$ (who made his wealth rather than inherited it) for expecting his daughter to pay back money she agreed to.

OP's wife is kind of an idiot and a leech for expecting the men in her life to keep subsidizing her so she can do whatever she wants. If she weren't married to a rich man, how would she pay back the loan and get a masters in a low paying field?

FIL is a bit harsh, but he built his wealth by himself and knows how hard it is to make that money. IMO, him letting his daughter pay back the loan with no interest and no maturity date signals to me that this isn't about money but about teaching his adult daughter the value of money and the consequences of her choices. Seems to me that she has yet to learn that lesson.

As for the expensive dinners and trips, OP can say no, but why should FIL subsidize OP's choice in using his wealth to help his extended family members (while kind), and then OP turns around and says to the FIL that they will no longer be paying the debt owed.

OP here. I am not providing financial help to my family. They do not need it. I have obtained prestigious research internships and gotten their names on publications for when they apply to medical school. I also help elderly family members with managing their affairs - I work 0.8 FTE to make time for this.

I don’t consider my wife’s degree useless. I encouraged her to go back school and if she wants to stay at home after school I am happy with that as well.

Ultimately, I find my FIL’s stinginess embarrassing. He has a mid eight figure net worth and is still a poor tipper. He will gobble up all the bread at the table. In my family we are generous with our time, money, and other resources. FIL has the opposite mindset. If he were less fortunate I would happily pay for his dinner and vacation. I paid for the last semester of college for a friend who is in a tough spot so I consider myself very charitable. But, a wealthy old man who is stingy with their own family and the less fortunate will never receive money from me.

This is shady. Possibly fraudulent. I wouldn't share this with anyone if I were you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One issue, if you two decide, she stays home to raise kids then guess you pay her loans as you are benefiting from unpaid labor and she is missing out on paying back what she promised to pay back to him.

They are married, he needs to pay her loans.

The father in law is the worst kind of cheapskate and I would find that really annoying. But it has nothing to do with OPs family. That is a weird take on it. Your family is not subsidizing anyone. They paid your expenses as a student. Your wife’s family didn’t. It’s not uncommon for one spouse to have loans and one who doesn’t. You knew that when you married her.

Next time father in law wants to go to a fancy restaurant tell him you can’t, money’s tight right now with the stock market. Who cares if it’s not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One issue, if you two decide, she stays home to raise kids then guess you pay her loans as you are benefiting from unpaid labor and she is missing out on paying back what she promised to pay back to him.

They are married, he needs to pay her loans.

The father in law is the worst kind of cheapskate and I would find that really annoying. But it has nothing to do with OPs family. That is a weird take on it. Your family is not subsidizing anyone. They paid your expenses as a student. Your wife’s family didn’t. It’s not uncommon for one spouse to have loans and one who doesn’t. You knew that when you married her.

Next time father in law wants to go to a fancy restaurant tell him you can’t, money’s tight right now with the stock market. Who cares if it’s not true.

This is my post. I misunderstood the loan thing. She owes her father? I would not pay that, that beyond cheap, that’s pathological.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You told your father-in-law that your wife wouldn’t be paying back a family loan? No wonder he’s pissed.

OP here. She would not be paying it back with marital income. Since she is now back in school and not earning income that means that I would not be making payments on it with my income.

+1 totally agree with you Op! Stand your ground against this cheapie

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They do things differently because they have a different family culture than yours. I can see that you think the culture of your family of origin is superior, but thinking doesn't make it so.

Does your wife work or have her own money? Will she inherit from her parents?

If I were them I wouldn’t count on any money from her father

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You told your father-in-law that your wife wouldn’t be paying back a family loan? No wonder he’s pissed.

OP here. She would not be paying it back with marital income. Since she is now back in school and not earning income that means that I would not be making payments on it with my income.

That’s not how debt works. Jesus, I would hate you too.

That IS in fact how debt works. If you are a student your student loans are not in repayment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe anyone can possibly agree with OP. It’s clear that the wife was paying her father back because there previously were payments to be stopped. However, OP and his wife decided she would stop having an income, which their decision to make, but OP refused to accept one of the results of that decision which is that he would need to foot all of his wife’s bills, which includes the one to her parents, whether he likes it or not. Instead he decided her father didn’t deserve to be paid back, so he just wouldn’t. His FIL is not choosing not to cut off his daughter over this but is upset.

OP sounds like a physician with a god complex who enjoys having his wife dependent on him so he can call the shots and force his own agenda based on how he views her family. He clearly enjoys feeling like a benefactor and still doesn’t understand that it’s easy to be generous when you have a ton of money and resources and have never had to struggle.

The father in law sounds like an interesting person who has done a lot with very little. I am not going to make the same decisions but I have a lot of respect for someone who likely really hustled and sacrificed in a way OP will probably never understand.

The FIL sucks if he has a mid-8-figure income and wants his SIL to pay back his daughter's "loan" for college that was never even documented. I don't respect that at all. My father is similar to OP's FIL, and even though he never went to college, he paid for all of our education - law school, medical school, pilot training - we pretty much got a blank check if it was in furtherance of our path toward self-sufficiency. Now we cover our own expenses, but education? Of course, he paid.

the difference here is that you probably picked a major and possibly a cheaper college that lead to your self sufficiency, whereas the wife picked an expensive college and a major that had low ROI, and further, chose to go to graduate school for another low ROI major. She chose the non-self sufficient path, clearly evidenced by her continued reliance on her wealthy husband. She continues to make poor choices, knowing that she has to pay back a (0% ) loan that she agreed to.

IMO, the FIL wanted her to understand the consequence of picking a low ROI major and an expensive college. The "loan" is 0%, and appears to not have a maturity date. I'm thinking he doesn't really expect her to ever pay it back given her choices. But, she needs skin in the game.

Let me get this straight. Instead of a parent clearly communicating to their child: "we will pay this much for this school," you think the better approach is to agree to pay but then claim it is a 0% loan that they may or may not ever collect? No. That's bull.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her loans are her responsibility. Those need to be on hold until she starts working.

For dining and travel, just accept what works for you.

Overall, be generous but don't feel obligated to go out of your comfort zone.

You and your FIL sound like more alike than you and your family.

Any undocumented quasi-agreements made between an 18-year-old and her parents are not a "loan". Its not enforceable.

Indeed, which is why I don't think the FIL really expected her to pay everything back, but wanted her to have some skin in the game.

If he was as much of a jerk that OP thinks he is, then he would've made it a legal binding contract, with an interest rate and maturity date. But, he did none of those things.

He's a self made man (unlike OP). He expected his daughter to also be a self made person and not rely on parent's wealth (like OP), and then think they are great for being generous (like OP).

A loan with a maturity date would have made clear what the transaction was. A vague "skin in the game!" "0% loan that may or may not ever be repaid depending on how we feel that day!" is a way to control through money.

[Anonymous]

I don't think OP sounds like a jerk or is crazy.

But, OP you need to think of DW as impoverished. Which she is, basically. She has no wealth, only debt, and will probably inherit nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to let it go.

I had a similar issue where my parents paid for college, car, wedding and downpayment on a house. In-laws saddled dh with 80k in student loans, including a few parent plus loans we paid for them that didn’t even have his name on it. I paid off all the loans very quickly in full once we married. Despite both sides being retired with >10m, we pay our own way on every vacation and split all dinners.

I would be upset if someone ordered up the dinner bill. I’d ask for my own family’s check and he can pay his own. I’d also just not go on fancy vacations that I don’t want.

I bet a lot of this stems from him not being into education. My in-laws are very against universities.

No parents "saddle" their adult child with student loans. He chose to go to that school and they declined fully funding it. Both of those choices are legitimate, but he was the one who owed money.

If this was in the United States, they absolutely did saddle him with debt.

In the US financial aid is based solely on the parent’s income. Because they were wealthy, they blocked their kid from qualifying for aid and refused to pay for it themselves.

This happened to a friend of mine. She had grants and financial aid that covered all of her tuition and living expenses. Then her mom got married her sophomore year of college and suddenly her expected family contribution was 50K a year and she no longer qualified for aid. Stepdad said it wasn’t his problem. She was stuck with massive student loans because her mom got married.

Parents who actually have money and choose to screw over their kids in college are the scum of the earth. Why even have kids if that’s your plan?