This is mostly for my benefit. I need to rant about this guy.
He lives in a pickup type camper during the winter. He parks the thing near a storage place that he rents year-round. The worst part is that he has a 17 year old son, (my wife`s brother), and a wife.
We live in Wisconsin, so the winters are not very friendly.
He has been doing this for 3 years now.
He gets the money he needs by fixing up junker cars and reselling them.
The boy goes to a local high school.
This guy is a religious wacko.
This is just a start, there is a lot more and I will give the info as we discuss this.
This is very frustrating for my wife and I. He and his wife are healthy people who could give a lot to society, instead they choose to live this semi-isolated degrating life for whatever reason.
She hates it. Especially that her brother is stuck with him. He can and has stayed with us but he mostly stays with him. I hope it doesnt rub off on her brother. She rightly feels that he is not properly taking care of his family. My wife worries about what he will do when he gets too old to mess with cars anymore. She cant do anything about it because he chooses to live this way. We have tried to boycott him, but that didn`t seem to work. We also have three of his grandchildren, so they will grow up seeing him like this.
Some people simplify their lives because of their religious devotion. The kid is of age. If he wants to move out and live with you permanently, it’s his choice. Does he want to leave his parents?
Mental illness is a really mean monster. He may truly believe that he is being called to this lifestyle. That said, if he and the family are ok with it, you shouldn’t let it bother you. He’s living his own life; not yours. It sounds like they’re surviving, even if it isn’t a lifestyle you or I would want to embrace.
I dont think hes mentally ill.
The family isnt OK with it either. I can see its beginning to take a toll on his wife, and it frustrates the hell out of the son too.
He has made comments to the effect that he would not have married her if he had lived with her first and such.
The boy was only fifteen was this all started, he wasnt of age then. None of his friends know of his dads life style because he is too embarassed to explain it to them.
His oldest daughter recently moved out to Denver.
He doesn`t belong to a church right now, he quit because the house they let him stay in was sold and he was forced to move out. He obsesses over the book of Revelation.
Part of the problem is he doesn`t want to get a job and work for someone else yet he expects others to help him out (his sister, his aunt, and us).
Well, that’s a different story. You can’t expect to support an able-bodied guy. Does the mom work? I still say give the kid an out and let him stay at your place til he gets on his feet. That’s got to suck! Do they all sleep in the truck?
Does his wife work? Does she have any skills? Is this her son, too? If this is her son, I’m surprised she has let it go on this long, unless she is pretty beaten down by all of this, or doesn’t think she can earn a living on her own.
It’s a real shame about your brother-in-law. He’s really just a kid. This is supposed to be one of the happiest times of his life and he’s ashamed of his family and how he lives. How sad.
It’s one thing if someone is trying, but just doesn’t have the means to support their family well, but it’s another thing entirely when they choose to not support them for their own selfish reasons. He sounds like a nutcase.
Try not to let it cloud your own family life too much. You can’t change him. Just be there for your brother-in-law.
We try to support the son, (who is not the son of the wife, he remarried about 7 years ago) but sometimes he actually defends his dad (?). This causes him and my wife to go at it and they end up not talking for a while. My wife tends to think that if we make it easier on the dad by taking in the son, then we aren`t doing the right thing. The right thing, in her mind, is the dad should get a job and support the son 100%, or pay us to do it (like child support). He gets all the food and clothes he needs, and gas money, and a car - but no home.
The wife does not work, but she claims to have gone to college for a couple of years.
She has ZERO common sense and no self-esteem. I`m not sure she would get through the interview as a paper carrier.
She is an odd one too. We have mysteriously found things in the house missing after her visits.
By the way, the guy is very handy and talented when it comes to fixing and making things, but won`t take it to the next level, e.i. job or business.
