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[quote=Anonymous]Maybe this is a vent only.  I am really stinging from a visit from my mom and stepfather this past weekend.  He wanted to see the ballgame, and offered to pay for tickets for all of us.  He wanted me to buy them, and said he’d pay.  I asked for guidance, sending the stadium map and range of prices, and got no response.  So I bought cheap seats - knowing that he’s a cheapskate, for a total of $160.  Then he wanted to get better tickets, and said he’d pay for better tickets.  So I bought other tickets for $500.   I told him the first set was non-refundable non-exchangeable.  With his consent, I gave them to special needs kids.  He sent me a check for $500.   This made me furious, as it left me holding the bag for the $160 tickets.

Background: My mom and stepdad are in their late 70s, and have been married for over 30 years.  They live about 7 hours north from here.  Stepdad has always been really really cheap and stingy.  He never pays for anything.  He makes my mom pay for the cars, even though he does 90 percent of the driving (he never thinks their cars, that usually go when the odometer is at 200,000 miles, need to be replaced).  He has a combined SS and  pension of about $120,000 a year, and a liquid net worth of about $4 million.   My mom has a pension of about $65,000, and about $500,000 in assets, including the house, which she “got” in the divorce with my dad.  Stepdad has paid very little to stay in the house all of these years, with my mom shouldering about 75% of food, and all of the mortgage and repairs (my mom would occasionally ask for money, and get nothing, and put up with it as she wanted to be "independent").  He didn’t pay anything towards my education (he moved in when I was 11), and nothing towards my kids’ education, even though he vaguely offered to (when we said we would appreciate it if he did, he fell silent).

Money is tight in my house.  What happened this weekend with the tickets made me really angry - and I see that it’s compounded by family history.  After they went home, I told him what he did really hurt me, and that he was a cheapskate.   Since we are not supposed to make waves in my family, I don’t think this went over well.  But I feel like it needed to be said.

Now what?  I still feel angry about it.  I told him I didn’t want the $160, I wanted him to know that I felt what he did was wrong and cheap and that it hurt.  I figure I just move on - I am so angry that I feel like I don’t care if I never see them again, although I’m not sure that’s really true.

Reading some other posts about family and money, at least I’m not “up their butt.”  But still, I feel like he was cheating me, and he’s cheated my family for years, and someone needs to stand up to him and tell him to stop.

Thoughts?
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