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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes op you are a huge AH. Do you want her to work u til she dies? She’s 69! [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

You are a galactically huge AH.[/quote]

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. [/quote] custody battles for your husband?[/quote]

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. [/quote]

DP and I think this $4K will just be the start of another $4K and then bigger amounts. Sorry but she isn't going to suddenly become financially sound and make good choices.

I do think you and your DH need to think about it a lot more and discuss a real plan. It's not too late for your MIL to learn money management skills but I am going to guess she avoids it bc she doesn't want to really know how bad her situation is and fears that there is simply no way to deal with it. And the truth is, she might have very few options and her age.  Also, your DH and sister need to be very realistic. The house might need to be sold sooner rather than later and the replacement may not be the same size or kind of home that she is in now

I know you mentioned she is going to pay off the home in a few years but I think you should be very careful there and find out if she has other HELOCS or if she has looked into a reverse mortgage. 
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