Ignore the credit card debt. Who cares? They can't take the house for it. It will mess up her credit - her problem and frankly that will keep her from getting another one. The house is secure (sounds like it - it's in trusts name, not theirs right? If not, change that -- a heloc would be a much different scenario).

I am in a similar situation in that I cover living expenses -- housing, food, utilities etc. - for my mentally ill mother. Any other debt? Her problem, not mine. She has a roof over her head and necessities to survive. I can't spin my wheels more to control the uncontrollable.

I'm sorry, it sucks, but hopefully this is a good lesson in detaching a bit. Good luck.

Op, I feel your pain, and also amazed by your husband's willingness to support his parents.
You mentioned trust, do your ILs have any assets in their names only? If not - I would not worry much about cc debts. CC Company that gave that credit to you MIL is screwed, but hey, it is there businesses expenses - unpaid unsecured loans. There are no debt jails in US, nor debt collectors with hot irons as some other countries have.With no physical harm to MIL and risk of losing house - worth thing she has to deal with - ruined credit history, wich is good, no more unsecured debt for her in the future.
Support your DH, and help him be strong and not bail MIL out this time. PS I know it might be hard not to pay those bills, ethics-blah-blah, but your DH is not responsible for the action on grown-up adult.

OP here. I understand the enabling part, I really do, but like most things in life, it's not quite that simple. When my husband and I first fell in love, and before we were married, he specifically told me that one of the things he would need to do is financially support his parents. He did this as a way to warn me that this is a financial obligation he would have to take on and he wanted me to know this before we got married. I respected my husband tremendously for his honestly, and 18 years later, I still respect his honestly and loyalty to both his parents but also to his wife and children. He managed to leave a dysfunctional lower middle class household, put himself through college and law school, and we have both been blessed with financial success (I'm also a lawyer) but we work really hard for it. As I mentioned in my original post, we can afford to help them out, but of course, within reason. I am not really taking away from my own family to help the ILs if that makes sense.

However, it's still the principal of the thing. We work very hard, we don't overspend, we do our best to help the IL's, and we were very responsible with not enabling her overspending. This is why we set up a trust, with an estate lawyer's assistance after she burned us the first time. All of the money we give them is controlled by the trust to pay their basic living expenses. I understand even this may be enabling but we are not willing to watch his parents live in poverty or lose their house, so we helped. However, as we just found out, a trust didn't prevent my MIL from applying for and receiving a credit card, enabling her to rack up thousands of more dollars in spending. This is where I assume our help will stop. I don't expect we will bail them out, but it is sad and painful to deal with this. It kills me to see how disappointed and sad (as well as angry) he is in the face of his mother's total disregard and selfishness. For those who had kind words, thanks for your feedback. It really does just help to vent here. The next couple of days with be rough for me as we are on vacation with the IL's and it's hard for me to even be around them I'm so disappointed and angry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have divorced his ass by now. That's your money too, OP. That's money that could go toward college for your kids, retirement, emergency savings, travel.

YOU, OP, are enabling him to enable her. Don't complain about this dynamic--you accept it, you are a party to it.

This. Stop complaining about a dynamic you choose to enable.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I would have divorced his ass by now. That's your money too, OP. That's money that could go toward college for your kids, retirement, emergency savings, travel.

YOU, OP, are enabling him to enable her. Don't complain about this dynamic--you accept it, you are a party to it.

This. Stop complaining about a dynamic you choose to enable.

Do you have legal help in all this? Can they file for bankruptcy?

Anonymous wrote:I hope your husband can see that he needs to cut the financial ties. You've done more than your part.

Yep. Fool me once... You know the rest. You are enabling.

Is she by any chance bipolar?

Please try not to be mad. Clearly your MIL can't help herself - she has a compulsion to spend and your poor FIL can't be expected to manage it.

I don't know how a trust works, so maybe you could do this within those parameters, but... what if you don't pay the debt? What if MIL and FIL transfer ownership of all their assets to their children so that the debt collectors would take nothing?

Why the hell would you support your in laws? Are your children all set up? For college tuition and living, weddings, first home, etc? Your retirement? I hope so. My in laws might get scraps after that if they were indigent.

I would have divorced his ass by now. That's your money too, OP. That's money that could go toward college for your kids, retirement, emergency savings, travel.

YOU, OP, are enabling him to enable her. Don't complain about this dynamic--you accept it, you are a party to it.

I hope your husband can see that he needs to cut the financial ties. You've done more than your part.

Wow. You have my sympathy. I hope that your DH and his brother will be able to find a way to deal with this mess.

Oh gosh that's terrible. I have no advice to offer but want to say I think you're a saint for putting up with this and for the help you offer them. Any future help should be in the form of therapy to see if they can get to the bottom of her spending and help her curb it. I'd probably offer no other financial help but I'm not nearly as nice as you are. It's one thing to help someone who really needs and appreciates it, but what you're describing isn't it.

So I just posted in another tread and realized the therapeutic value of posting! I hope I can safely vent here. My DH and I and my BIL and SIL all financially support my in-laws. I'm actually fine with this generally as I know my DH loves his parents, he always puts me and our family first, and we can generally afford to help. However, I just learned (while on a family vacation with in-laws and family) that my MIL just racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt after secretly opening up a new credit card. This even after promising us years ago she wouldn't do so. Several years ago we bailed out ILs by paying off their house. A few years later we found out that ILs secretly took out a second mortgage in their paid off house to pay off my MIL's cc debt. After that, DH and BIL established a trust and took over their finances. Well, apparently she is at it again.

Her selfishness sickens me and my FIL's enabling is pathetic. I'm so angry but just need to get through this vacation. I'm just so disgusted and sad for DH. His mother looked straight at him and lied to his face years ago with her promise to not over spend. Oh, and to top it off, her dog just shit all over the rug at the beach house we are paying for. The idiots showed up ( without asking) with their dog in our "no pets allowed" rental. They sicken me. So why am I here- for the kids. On surface everything is fine, no fighting, etc. and our kids love their grandparents and their cousins. Thanks for letting me vent. I'm just so upset, angry and sad.