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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tell them no. Full stop. I have a brother like this. He’s a dead beat. There is zero reason why my brother can’t get a job, he’s just lazy. My mother has asked me if I will look after him when she’s gone and I said no. I have my own 2 kids to worry about. I was very clear. He stopped speaking to me but I have zero regrets.

Make it clear now. I am serious.[/quote]

This. We went through this with my BIL. We made it clear that we would not be opening our home to him or supporting him financially, and that our focus is supporting our own children, saving for their college and helping them get started in life, plus making sure we have enough saved not to be a financial burden to them in our later years.

Suddenly BIL was enrolled in a vocational training program and getting a full time job. I think for a time everyone just thought we would take over where MIL/FIL left off, letting this full grown man with no special needs (I repeat NO SPECIAL NEEDS, beyond an almost pathological refusal to support himself) sponge off us AND our children until he dies. We made it clear this would not be part of our plans and that we do not view it as necessary, and suddenly BIL is on a career path and working and saving money.

Now that she's seen the light, MIL (FIL has since passed) is finally trying to get him to move out of her home (where he has lived for 20 years, rent free). He has an income and some savings and could afford to buy a condo or a small house, but he keeps putting it off, because I think he doesn't know how to structure his life where it doesn't revolve around his mother making all his meals and providing him with a social life. He has lost touch with friend and peers who have built lives for themselves. We have been supporting her in standing up to him to get him out of her house. He is nearing 50 and, again, no special needs. He is just entitled and has always thought he was a little too good for whatever was available to him as options for a more independent life, so he's sponged off his parents thinking that his "big break" was around the corner, and didn't just put in the time necessary to build something. Now he is basically being handed it (his parents paid for both his original college degree, which he never used, and this more recent vocational program, have bought him a car, and his mom is now offering him the money for a down payment on a home even though he does have savings) and he's still fighting it.

Just say you won't do it, and watch how fast your sister suddenly decides maybe she could find a job doing marketing or filing or manning a front desk somewhere. She can massage her lack of work history by saying she's been taking care of her elderly father (a lie, of course, but a useful one that might get her full time work). She can stay in her parents' house until she's stable enough financially to move out. And then she figures it out. Better for this to happen now, while they are still alive, than waiting until they die and you trying to extract yourself.

Tell them now that you will NOT do it. She is an adult and needs to act like one. You didn't sign up to be her permanent caretaker. NO.[/quote]

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