AITA for not wanting DH to give MIL 4K to clear a debt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes op you are a huge AH. Do you want her to work u til she dies? She’s 69!

Op here. She only worked for about 20 years, is super healthy, looks to be in her 50s, and could easily get a (desk) job in her field making 100K. She just doesn’t want to work anymore but didn’t save enough to live on. I’ve been working longer than she has in my mid forties.

She didn't save for old age because she was making sacrifices for her son.

You are a galactically huge AH.

No, she actually made a series of poor financial choices including multiple divorces, repeated custody battles, and staying at home for 20 years and not working.

custody battles for your husband?

Yes, she had two different marriages and two different husbands and fought each multiple times in court over custody of the kids from each marriage (she never got sole but wanted it). She also has just made a slew of poor financial decisions, has racked up lots of credit card/other debt, co-signed private loans for my DH when he was an undergrad (before required financial disclosures and counseling students get now) with high interest rates instead of getting public loans with lower interest rates that he could have gotten, has always leased new cars instead of buying cars, etc. She graduated college and from her masters program debt free. She stayed at home with kids for 20 years in part because she did it want to work. She’s inherited money from her parents and blown through it all. She has refused for decades to go to a financial planner despite everyone suggesting it. She didn’t even start investing in a 401k until her sixties.

As a person who graduated college with nothing but debt and got through it on Pell grants, worked really hard with my husband to crawl out of 100K in student loan debt, built up our savings, delayed child bearing til we could afford it, waited to buy our first house in our late 30s when we could actually afford it, and has worked full time for 20 years and is staring down 30 more years it feels wrong to me to give away nearly 10 percent of our cash savings to his MIL because of her poor decision when I have made so many sacrifices to try and put our family in a good financial position.

Maybe don’t punish her for your mistakes.
100k is a lot of debt for a Pell grant person tbh
Also maybe you shouldn’t have delayed kids but instead married someone more wealthy?
I am playing the devils advocate here, but maybe you have stretched yourself too thin, and are mad that she didn’t?

[Anonymous]

She should at least get a part time babysitting job. People with flexible hours/ 10-20 hours a week are highly sought out. There’s no reason for her not to do that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give her the money an exchange for a legal financial guardianship, and a monthly allowance for her.

Or maybe if it’s possible a certain share of ownership of the house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course you give the money, as a gift. She is family. Keep in mind that not everyone have the same financial smarts and that is ok. She sounds like she has a game plan and it could work. Give the old lady some credit. Your husband is a good man.

+3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes op you are a huge AH. Do you want her to work u til she dies? She’s 69!

Op here. She only worked for about 20 years, is super healthy, looks to be in her 50s, and could easily get a (desk) job in her field making 100K. She just doesn’t want to work anymore but didn’t save enough to live on. I’ve been working longer than she has in my mid forties.

She didn't save for old age because she was making sacrifices for her son.

You are a galactically huge AH.

No, she actually made a series of poor financial choices including multiple divorces, repeated custody battles, and staying at home for 20 years and not working.

Op, I get it. My mom regularly touts the narrative that as a single mom she chose to make sacrifices for me in lieu of saving for her retirement when in fact she made a series of terrible choices, including marrying a drug addict and working only sporadically in “passion jobs”, which would have resulted in her being broke regardless (despite the fact that she herself grew up upper middle class with far more advantages than I ever had) and it’s only thanks to assistance from her extended family that I was able to go to college, etc.

A few years ago she ultimately decided at 62 that she was just done working (a white collar desk job), despite having 0 retirement savings and has since been living off of social security alone, though constantly hinting that she could use assistance.

My husband and I make a decent enough HHI of 270k, but still worry about saving enough for retirement/college for our two kids. There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to draw from that to subsidize her “retirement”, despite the fact that I know her friends/outsiders are judging me for not helping out more as she is clearly struggling financially and we relatively appear to be comfortable.

I have a serious question for you PP. what kind of hurt incurred on you by her prevents you from helping her?
I mean, she isn’t the most hard working person but she also doesn’t sound like a horrible abuser.
Why is it that kids refuse to help parents?

[Anonymous]

How big is the house? Could she sell it and get a smaller apt / condo and have some money to save, invest and live off of?

OP, I am curious about your parents finances and how your husband would react if the roles were reversed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How big is the house? Could she sell it and get a smaller apt / condo and have some money to save, invest and live off of?

OP, I am curious about your parents finances and how your husband would react if the roles were reversed

She mentioned Pell grants, having to work since 15, and no financial help from her family.
For me that’s saying a lot…

[Anonymous]

The advice you get here will be more about the advice giver and their relationship with their mother, than about your dh and mil. But it sounds like your dh loves his mom because she was a good mother.

My take is if you try to stop him from helping her, you'll fail. If you were my dw and the money was for my mother, it would drive a wedge between you and me because I won't see you as person I can count on if it goes counter to your interests. Seriously, don't be selfish, people will remember

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes op you are a huge AH. Do you want her to work u til she dies? She’s 69!

Op here. She only worked for about 20 years, is super healthy, looks to be in her 50s, and could easily get a (desk) job in her field making 100K. She just doesn’t want to work anymore but didn’t save enough to live on. I’ve been working longer than she has in my mid forties.

You sound like a nightmare wife, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not pay off the debt except if there was a lien on the house. I’d help with food and basics.

A HELOC is a lien on the house. And if she’s only making interest payments it’s getting bigger and bigger.

So OP MIL has a HELOC and can't pay it. DH+SIL would each contribute 4 and MIL what out of her assets? Bottom line is OP never included full details on the amounts. Also it doesn't appear that the MIL's children are getting the full scope of her finances from tax returns to bank statements to credit cards.

We had a house with early 1950's cabinets. Most of those were solid wood [same for my parents]. What did MIL do to that kitchen? They can be cheap renos- new floor [usually had some vinyl], paint cupboards, new counters plus it's likely appliances have been upgraded. If not it's time for the basic GE type stuff.

Would be nice to pay it off for her but OP is not flush with spare cash. And has no control over weird and silly future spending

[Anonymous]

You are trying to shame, punish, and teach her a lesson. For that, you are a horrible person. It’s not that you don’t have the money, it’s that you want to put her in her place.

[Anonymous]

Give the MIL the money. OP sounds like a person with no grace.

[Anonymous]

You should agree to free babysitting or home cooked meals, in exchange for the 4k

[Anonymous]

$4K is nothing. We give $2K every month and have done for the last 3 years. It's killing us and my MIL is 94. People live a lot longer these days.

I would give the $4k and ensure that the $ is going toward paying of the HELOC somehow. Also discuss with your DH how to better manage his mothers finances in the future or you will end up like me.

[Anonymous]

NP here and didn't read everything, so maybe this has been said already.

OP - I think it is fair for you to be concerned about your own finances. But it may be a better decision for your own finances long term to help MIL now. I would provide assistance but with the stipulation about seeing a financial planner and perhaps restructuring her assets so that she can't just blow through savings on a whim. Perhaps she needs a trust set-up. What is the state of her will? What are the fall-back plans in case of disability or needing long term care? Use this as an opportunity to get her to establish better financial practices so that she doesn't become more of a financial burden in the future, which seems likely based on your descriptions.