That guilt is misplaced. You should feel guilty for enabling her, not for cutting her off.
While I agree it's misplaced guild, goodlife hit it on the head: it's really hard to relate to this situation if you haven't experienced it firsthand. Cutting off the person(s) that raised you for 18+ years and watching them struggle is a lot more emotionally distressing than cutting off mooching siblings or lazy adult children. Siblings had the same chances as you, and aren't entitled to the fruits of your labor. Likewise, your job as a parent is to teach your children to grow up, and in some cases it escalates to the point where cutting them off and watching them fall on their ass is the only way to do that. It may be hard, but you know it's your duty as a parent and that they'll be better off in the future because of it. Parenting a parent takes a strong will, as children
do traditionally support their parents.
Picture this scenario: Your 80 year old mother lives down the street. She's on a fixed income, and because of rising medical costs is struggling to pay her bills. You're well off, and the amount she needs doesn't put a strain on your own finances. Do you help her pay her bills so she doesn't lose the house, get her utilities cut off, or go without food/medicine? Or do you tell her it's her fault for not having planned her retirement well enough, cut her off, and watch her fall on her ass? Most people would feel a sense of duty to help out, and be really guilty if they had the means to help and chose not to.
Minimos is feeling the same sense of duty and guilt, probably compounded because she was raised by a single parent.
Anyone else experience similar family dynamics/financial issues? I know there will be face punches for the enabling her choices, but how do you get past the guilt when its a parent?
Minimos, I've dealt with exactly what you are right now, and it sucks. Here's what I see, from my own experiences and what I gathered from your post: Her problem isn't being wasteful, it's that she's stuck in the mindset of making decisions purely from an immediate cash flow perspective. And as such, she won't see any problem with her decision:
1. You gave her $6,000 for a car.
She spent the $6,000 on a car. But from the perspective of cash flow, a ~$300 car note is easily doable, since she has a $6,000 lump sum to draw from. Where the payment will come from once that's gone
didn't even occur to her, because it didn't affect her immediate cash flow.
2. She wanted new countertops. When she got her refund, she had the ability to cash flow the cost of those new countertops.
Both of these decisions may have been splurges, but
did not hurt her short term cash flow. Therefore she saw no reason not to make them. They only become bad decisions if you take into account how the future impact of them. It sounds like she's never had the choice/luxury of factoring in future repercussions, so at this point in her life it doesn't even
occur to her to do so.
Teaching her how to do that is going to be painful for the both of you, but necessary. Until you do so, you
cannot trust her to make decisions with any monetary support you provide, and must make the decisions on her behalf (e.g. take her to get the car, not give her the money for it). She will resent this, but it's the only way you're going to expose her to the benefits of planning long term. She isn't even aware of what's wrong with her behavior, so cutting her off cold turkey will only alienate her and potentially cause a rift. You'll need to force exposure to incorporating long term impact into decision making,
then you can cut her off and take the tough love approach.
Good luck to you, and if you'd like any details about some strategies I used to deal with my mother feel free to PM me.