What a great thread this will be for people to vent. Allow me to partake.
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This was part of the genesis in my thread I just had over the weekend, which I posted after a huge fight with my older brother:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/sibling-confrontationargument-was-i-wrong-and-how-to-move-forward/My older brother was also the subject of this thread three years ago -- he and his wife had two cars, two motorcycles, three dogs, etc. and were asking me for $5 so they could buy food:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/brother's-gf-just-facebook-ranted-about-food-stamps-need-help/**
My older brother (now 32) began mooching off my parents when he got a $10,000 loan from them to start a landscaping business in 2004. That went out of business after one summer, but that treadmill of mooching hasn't stopped.
He continues to consistently and regularly borrow money from my parents. He plays ping pong with each of them, alternating calls about every two weeks, needing money for different reasons. He drives his car over my dad's house on an empty tank, knowing my dad will fill it for him. He only comes out to eat when he knows someone else is paying for the meal.
It's always the vital thing that needs money (cell phones, electric, whatever). It's not that they buy Dunkin Donuts every day or eat out more than the rest of my family combined, it's that oh, man, their cell phones are getting shut off, how could this be. It's very comparable to a drug addict asking his parents for "grocery money."
This has gotten to the point that I'm considering paying for my parents to undergo professional addiction counseling.
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My brother is a police officer making about $30k/year. He has a huge inferiority complex about not going to college, even though I think about him not going to college probably the same amount that I think about the hair on his ass. It actually never crosses my mind, but whatever...him being the "black sheep" of the family is one of his go-to lines.
His wife has two psychology degrees but commutes about 170 miles round trip to work in Pittsburgh for about $16/hour. Rather than cut her losses, she is going back to school for more degrees this fall. And rather than move closer to work, the house they moved into is actually 7 miles further from Pittsburgh.
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They spend so much money it makes my head spin. Eat out all the time, shop all the time, and the amount we moved out of their house was just insane. Oh, and they just bought that house, which they were only able to do by, you guessed it, having my parents gift them money for the down payment.
They spend every last cent every month. They get Dunkin Donuts seemingly every day. My brother is probably 5-7, 260 pounds, and his wife his probably 5-4, 220 pounds. They constantly complain about their weight and blame their busy lifestyles.
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A summary of my brother's advice to me over the last decade can be distilled to the following: "Wait until you have to pay your own bills. Wait until you get a girlfriend. Wait until you are engaged. Wait until you are married. Wait until you have a kid."
The shame in this most recent line--"wait until you have a kid"--is that my niece is beautiful and the cutest thing you've ever seen. But her middle name might as well be "Excuse," because she is the bottomless well that they always go to. Having a one-year old is why they are each about 80 pounds overweight, she's why they're tired, she's why they're broke, she's why they are late to everything, she's why they can't attend anything, etc.
Some day they will probably have a second child, so at least their current daughter won't have to shoulder all the blame.
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It's almost as if my brother and his wife believe that all of this happened by circumstance, and that he just has a bad stroke of luck. His wife's long commute, his low-paying job, their never-ending need for money, their stressful life raising a one-year old...all of it is the just they way life is, and there's nothing they can do about it.
And when they are around, it is just so depressing. Everything I've posted is all they talk about at the dinner table. My brother talks about some guy he beat the shit out of at the jail; his wife talks about a kid who wants to kill himself in Pittsburgh; they talk about how busy they are; how they wish they could get their daughter more but can't; etc.
Just hearing about it is all so exhausting. Nobody in my family can stand it, yet my recent blowup with my brother is the first time anyone had said anything to him.
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As someone else iterated, I'm nowhere close to perfect. But I married well, and I live well below my means and take personal responsibility for my decisions. I started my own law office three months ago and haven't quite figured out how to pay myself (due to tax reasons), so I haven't had an income since April 13th. You'd see me in a pit of snakes, raccoons, spiders, and rhinos before you saw me ask my parents for money.
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I went golfing with a close friend Sunday night, who went to high school with me and knows my brother well. He asked, "Why do you care so much? He's never going to change. Just let him go."
I'm sadly getting closer and closer to just not caring anymore.