That’s the most despicable comment in the whole thread. If you’re serious, it would deserve a pit thread of its own.
Anyway, if he’s financially irresponsible, it’s safe to assume there won’t be much of an inheritance.
I don’t think those questions are so despicable. FIL is asking for money to maintain his social life. That’s not a bad thing, but FIL has shown NO consideration for his family in the past and there’s nothing to say that this will change or that he will even appreciate what his kids are doing.
$25 now, in a few months maybe he’ll need $50, $100. Where did this sense of entitlement come from? Just because he’s their father?
Of course Dutchman has to do this – it’s for dad, ya know – but I can certainly understand the resentment. Who would want to give in to someone who is so selfish and demanding and who hurts the feelings of people you love?
Which has nothing to do with wondering if the inheritance will make up for the 25 $/month.
I already gave my opinion about the 25$. I can understand the concept “he’s a selfish bastard, I won’t give him anything”. But “Let’s see if we’re on his will and act accordingly” is more despicable, selfish and cold-hearted than the father’s behavior and anything that has been said in this thread. I just can’t bear people who perceive their relatives (or friends, spouses, etc…) as potential cash-cows.
But FIL is looking at his relatives as cash-cows, isn’t he?
This post is pretty disturbing. How is this going to affect how your daughters handle grandfathers? Are freeloaders and moochers really more important to you than grandfathers? This is one of the worst cases of bathwater/baby confusion I think I’ve ever seen: sacrificing your relationship with your grandfather is a small price to pay for learning how to “handle” freeloaders.
And extorting his dignity in exchange for a lousy $25 a month is almost as horrifying: sure, I’ll give it to you gramps, but I’m going to use it to control your life too: you only get it to buy gas with. You don’t get to decide one month that this or that enjoyable event is more important to you than gas; that choice is not going to be up to you to decide. *I’ll *decide, with the power that $25 a month gives me over you.
And you have the blind hypocrisy to use the word “blackmail”!
Wow. This has been a really eye opening thread. All of you who would blackmail your grandparents over $25 a month, and are more focused on exacting revenge on them for their imperfections, now that you have this power over them. Just, wow. Truly, the modern equivalent of sticking them on an ice floe and setting them adrift.
I hope that Shirley and Pam and Grits live a long, long time, and I hope your grandchildren read this thread.
(Most despicable thing so far: using the 126-year-old French woman as an excuse to punish an 80-year-old father.)
Good point I I intend to adress that later in this post.
And a happy holiday season and wonderful new year to you and the rest of the posters in this thread as well !
First off , please see Chanteuse’s response.
Secondly, we were always poor compared to most others around us. I wouldn’t ever say he was financially brilliant.
Thirdly, my father’s joy was always spending time with his kids. He lived for his kids.
In a nutshell my father did not put himself first.
Good one ! 
Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me in spates of brief moments.I just don’t think his transgressions have reached a level to warrant that response. I honestly think he has self respect issues that are soothed by his excellent social skills with others and their response to him. On the other side of the coin, his magic just doesn’t work with his kids who know him all too well.
Well yeah. I’m about 10 years away from 65 with nothing to show for a retirement account. We are closing in on paying off the mortgage, and I consider home ownership the most important retirement goal of all. I groaned years ago when the FIL sold his house to go to school at the same age as I am now.
She cried quite a bit last night. FIL came over and spent the day with us for Christmas. He forgot that he had promised to pay back a $40.00 loan yesterday. Oh well, that was expected. On the other hand he initiated a conversation regarding his monthly financial request through his Texas based daughter. Apparently my wife’s sister lambasted him with enough criticism that he felt compelled to apologize to my wife for being a lousy father. That really shook up my wife. She did not suggest otherwise. During his visit however she was able to maintain enough composure to request access to his bank manager in order to ascertain the extent of his financial problems. The bank manager had previously set up a plan for him to submit monthly payments in order to address his financial obligationThis embarrassment for him should address the need for the consequences he should endure as Qadgop has suggested. The intent of the access also is to study the feasibiliy of clearing his credit card debt,(he claims he has already cut up his cards) so that he can get on with his life without our further help, which would be a stipulation he would fully have to understand before we would go ahead with the proposal.
We all do love the guy. There are a lot of positive things to be said about him that I haven’t mentioned. Its just that he’s such a kid and i’m still waiting for the day when my own kids are fully independant.
Thank you all for your info. I’ve been following this thread quite closely, sharing it with my wife and it has really helped.
It’s not necessarily revenge. It’s entirely possible that it’s more a case of reaping what he’s sown. Not all children love their parents, and not all parents deserve their childrens’ love and respect. If my father wanted me to contribute $25 a week or a month so that he could continue to see his girlfriend, he’d be out of luck. Why in the world should he expect my siblings and I to sacrifice anything for his entertainment, since when we were young (and poor) he wouldn’t sacrifice a six-pack a week to buy us sneakers? My mother had to do all the sacrificing, and she was giving up lunch, not beer. He didn’t give up a few hours of tv watching to give one of us a ride, he didn’t attend my brother’s baseball games or any of our other activities and was so uninterested in our lives that he thought I graduated from college two years before I did.
On the other hand, my mother could get anything that she wanted from us, for whatever reason she wants, even though she’s become a bit of a spendthrift since their finances have improved. It’s got nothing to do with power or revenge. It’s got to do with the fact that my mother loved us and treated us as if she did, and inspired us to love her , while my father treated us as if we were the kids down the block, which does not tend to inspire love.
I don’t care WHO they are-you don’t let people insult your loved ones-your spouse and your child, in your own home.
If my grandfather had ever said something like that to any of us, my mother or my father would have called him out on it. Period. It shouldn’t put his wife in the middle, if anything, she should stand up to her father and tell him to shut the fuck up. That’s her daughter too, you know. I wouldn’t put up with that from my dad (not that he’d ever do that, except in jest).
lissener, just because someone is blood doesn’t mean you have to like them. I have plenty of relatives I don’t bother with because they’re assholes. Why should they give FIL money when he treats them like shit? You do NOT allow family members to walk all over you just because you share DNA. That doesn’t make a grandparent, it’s your actions that count.
I think Grits and Hard Toast had some good advice.
I would do either the ocassional loan or the $25 set amount, but not both.
$40 here and there adds up damned fast. If you have no savings and you’re looking at 55 soon, you better take care of YOU.
I can see this happening to us if my FIL dies first–my MIL treats all money like Monopoly money…
I have no problem with this. I’ve tried to manage things so that I won’t ever have to ask my kids for financial assistance. But if I do, well, generosity is sort of a family trait. My mom used to say, “If I have money, everybody has money.” I’m the same way, and so are my kids.
If I needed it, and if they were able to help, they would. I wouldn’t even have to ask.
Being irresponsible and then demanding that someone help me out, just because it’s family and I “deserve” it – nuh uh.
Dutchman, I’m glad that you’re working things out.
You’re preaching the wrong angle here; I divorced my whole family, including my grandparents, in 1999.
Again, you’re introducing a false dichotomy: that the only solution to an imperfect FIL is to stake him to an ice floe. My impressions are based on the specifics of the OP, not on a general rule that not all relatives are worth supporting. To presume that that’s where I’m coming from is to ignore the specifics of the OP, and of my response to it.
The specifics are that he sounds like mostly a great guy with a few flaws, and that the OPer is using those flaws as an excuse to project his own sadness/envy surrounding his own father’s death. Blackmailing an 80 year old man over a measly $25 a month is teaching NO ONE any valuable lessons. NO ONE. Not him, not his granddaughters. It’s a self serving and malicious power play that’s worthy of some further self examination regarding what emotional baggage is REALLY being indulged here.
To pretend that this is really only about “fiscal responsibility” and is “for his own good” is classic denial about what the REAL issues are.
Dutchman, don’t let all these bitter dopers Rorschach this into something it’s not.
I really don’t see how you can take what I said, and turn it into “exacting revenge on them for their imperfections.”
When you are young, you have no say in how you are treated. If you have a parent that neglects you, belittles you, makes your life more unpleasant that it needs to be, well, nothing you can do about it.
But as an adult you can chose how you are treated. You can decide that you won’t have anything to do with people who abuse you, who say and do things that negatively affect your life.
You can cut that person from your life, that is extreme when it happens to be a parent who is causing the trouble. Or you can continue to have that person in your life, but let them know as an adult you have a right to be treated in a certain manner. If they are not willing to respect that right, at least you know you have tried to find a workable solution, and it can mimimize the guilt a child feels when having to say no to a parent.
In reading the OP, the FIL is negatively affecting The Flying Dutchman’s family. He is manipulating his own children into covering his debts. He has shown no financial restraint in the past, and now expects his kids to fund his good times. He expends his energy being a great guy around others, but is morose and insulting to his own family. Why on earth should his kids continue to let him treat them poorly?
My guess is that they don’t want to see him unhappy, he most likely only has a few years left, they would like what time he has left to be pleasant for him. So why not require the FIL to act in such a way that will make it more pleasant for everyone? All he would have to do is treat his own family the way he treats those he wants to like him. He is capable of being a great guy when he feels like it. For years he has had no reason to make an effort with his family, what is so bad about having him make an effort now?
My mother is 82. She now requires a lot of help with day to day things. There is no way I could stand to spend the time with her she needs if she was still telling me what a terrible disappointment I was to her. Complaining about how her being stuck with such a plain, boring child was so horrible for her, she wished I had never been born. She would tell me she never wanted children, but maybe if I had been the least bit interesting, or talented in anything, it might not have been as bad as it was on her. She was embarrassed to admit I was her daughter, how could she have had such a bland child? Since I was neither attractive or intelligent, or witty, I better at least be nice to people if I was to have any chance in the world, she would tell me over and over and over. I grew up hearing these things, it was normal for me. When my husband heard her say them the first time, I thought his head would explode. He pointed out it wasn’t normal, it was a form of manipulation that she had found worked on me. He let her know, if he ever found out she said any of those things again, that we were done with her, that would be the end. My older brother cut her out of his life when he had kids, not wanting her to be able to hurt them the way she had us, so she would have no one left if I cut her out as well.
Well, it worked. She stopped saying those things. It really never occured to me to stand up to her, I was so used to her making me feel bad for just existing, I felt I deserved the harsh treatment. But my husband could see things I couldn’t, and I agreed with him. Either she make an effort to stop with the abuse, or I would stop with the help I was giving her.
That isn’t blackmail, or exacting revenge, or the equivilent of setting them adrift on a piece of ice in the ocean. That is just requiring your parent to treat you with the same respect they would show to someone who wasn’t related to them. I bet this FIL doesn’t tell women he is about to ask to dance that they are fat. I bet he doesn’t tell a funny story to his buddies, then ask them to give him $40 he has no intention of paying back.
With self-centered people like my mother and this FIL, the best way to get them to change their behavior is to make it in their own best interests to change. That is all they care about anyway, themselves. So if The Flying Dutchman is going to give him the money anyway, why not make him at least treat the family decently. If he can directly benefit from treating his family better, I bet he could make the effort, and all their lives would be more pleasant. If he has no reason to change, he won’t, and as he gets older the problem will only get worse.
I just wanted to mention something I thought about a couple time while reading this thread and is directly related to this last statement.
My father wasn’t exactly happy with his own father (and by the way, my parents had to support him financially in his old age). As a result, I never knew him. I was even told he was dead when I was a kid (which was false). Maybe he was the greatest ashole of all times, but I regret not having ever met him. Maybe I would have hated him, or maybe not. I think I should have had a chance to know my grandfather. So, I think that barring really extreme cases, someone estranged from his family still should leave this option open to their children.
Regarding the OP, it doesn’t seem the FIL is some some sort of monster or viewed as such by his family.
I think you are the one “Rorschaching” this into something it is not. The OP is 9 paragraphs long. 5 of them deal with the FIL’s irresponsibility with money, and how that negatively affects those around him. Two paragraphs deal with the fact that he although he can be a great guy around others, he is not a great guy when it comes to his own family, he is a drag on them. One paragraph saying he is not all bad, and one paragraph about the OP’s own father, and how different the two men were: one put his family first, the other put himself first.
So this really is about financial responsibility. The REAL issue is a FIL who has always had a problem with money. The FIL’s lack of financial responsibility caused hardship on The Flying Dutchman’s wife’s family growing up. Now as adults, the FIL’s children are still having to deal with the mess the FIL continues to make concerning money. I think the Flying Dutchman and his wife have every right to feel upset that the FIL expects his kids to continue to give him money.
And how you compare staking someone to an ice floe to die, to not giving someone $25 a month is silly. The other posters are pointing out correctly that the FIL’s children don’t owe him anything. He is not entitled to their money. If the children chose not to continue to give money to someone who makes no effort to control his spending, that is completely understandable in this situation. And if they should chose to give him the money, why not at least make sure the kids get something in return, even it that is just to have him not ask anymore, or refrain from insulting them. That is nothing near tossing him out to die. And it isn’t blackmail when you are simply saying, I will do something you want, if you do something I want, your choice, what will it be?
Some people are LUCKY they never got to know their relatives.
Like I said, being blood doesn’t make you family, in the true sense of the word.
That is sad you were told your grandfather was dead when he wasn’t. I guess you found out the truth too late to ever meet him. I brought up my brother as an example of how bad things can get, when certain destructive patterns continue for many years, sometimes people just reach a breaking point, and can’t take anymore.
And I didn’t mean to imply the FIL was a monster, or even as hurtful my mother was. I mentioned my mother as an example of how family problems can improve. My situation with her is much better now. She recently admitted that she was aware that saying what she did to me was not right. She didn’t know why it made her feel better to cause me pain, but she said it just did. I think she feels better about herself as a person now that she has stopped blaming me for all her unhappiness. I don’t think she has much time left, and it has been good for both of us to work on some unresolved issues. I hope the Dutchman’s FIL will work to resolve some of his family’s issues before it is too late. It would be nice if they could know he really did appreciate them as people, not just as a money machine when ran out of money.
Where is it written that people in their eighties can no longer learn or change their ways? The man may not start handling money wisely, but as long as there are no signs of dementia, he can be lured into wanting to do some things differently. But changing him is not what it is about.
I am a grandparent and in my sixties and still learning all the time. One of the things I’m learning is how not to let my 93 year old mother manipulate me. She still has a reasonably strong mind and her narcissistic gamesmanship can take many cruel forms.
I have changed so that emotionally, I am out of her reach even though I am still in contact with her once a week and I see her once a year.
Dutchman’s family is the one being blackmailed. “Pay Poppa or you are a terrible person.”
There IS a lesson to be learned and it is the answer to this question: Who can relieve you of your self-imposed sense of obligation?
I like Grits’s idea of having him “earn” that $25 by keeping his mouth shut about his wife and daughter’s weight. Unless there is a medical reason, being eighty and a grandparent is not an excuse for being an asshole.
There is nothing wrong with a “power play” when you empower yourself to have power over yourself.
Well, dutchman, the plus side is that you and your family will in all likely have many years in which to cherish the memories of personal satisfaction, points scored, and vengeance wrought. You can always change your mind after he’s dead.
I think you’ve raised some good points, Lissener, but I think you’ve got this backwards. The 80 year old man is blackmailing THEM, not the other way around.
They have the right to decide if they will go along with the blackmail and pay up or refuse. It should be all about the OP and his wife, not about the guy manipulating them and making financial demands.