Blowing the Distance

Posted by fxckfeelings on April 3, 2014

As we’ve said before, if you’re not careful, money can be kryptonite to family, or it can be concrete, driving relatives apart or keeping them closer together. That’s why you have to try to keep cash out of the big picture, because there are always good reasons for maintaining family relationships, regardless of financial grievances, and good reasons for encouraging independence, regardless of how money and affection may promote dependence. Develop and heed your own ideas about the proper distance to maintain in close family relationships, then impose those ideas regardless of the push and/or pull of financial pressures.
–Dr. Lastname

My brother was never a warm person, and people warned me he could be unscrupulous, but we were both brought up to put family first. That’s why I was shocked when my brother manipulated our dying, demented father to leave him everything in his will. Everyone was shocked, not just because I got along well with my father, but because I still had school loans (my brother dropped out of high school), not to mention hospital bills from my wife’s illness. Needless to say, my brother was not interested in sharing the inheritance, so we didn’t talk often after that. Now that we’re both growing old and he’s my only family, I find it harder to avoid his emails and calls. My goal is to follow through on the best side of my inheritance, which is to value family, and try to be closer to my brother, though I can’t really like or trust him.

While your brother got the money and you didn’t, it still sounds like you lucked out in terms of family inheritance; you were left good values and a decent personality, and he got the gene for being a natural-born Asshole™.

If he is, indeed, an Asshole™ in the technical sense, he would see himself as deserving of whatever he could persuade your father to cough up, and you as petty, vengeful, and wrong. It’s just the Asshole™ way.

Part of you knows this, which is why you chose to cut him off rather than engage him; you understand how any mention of what he did or why he did it will probably elicit angry justifications that you don’t want to hear or respond to, and won’t bring you any closer to getting money, justice, or anything but a headache.

In addition to avoiding acrimony, you accomplished your most important goal by not allowing grief over your father’s death or bitterness about your brother’s actions to embroil you in pointless conflict or interfere with your moving ahead in life. His actions confirmed that you have nothing to gain from being close to your brother, except the chance of a knife in your back.

While you have good reason to never like or trust him, you may wish to include him in family gatherings for the sake of other relatives, including a relationship between his kids and yours. After all, while you don’t ever want to have a real talk, there’s nothing wrong with brief, superficial pleasantries as long as you discuss nothing other than sports or the weather, then smile and move away. There’s no point in insulting or antagonizing him, just protecting yourself.

A connection with him can give your kids a good lesson on how to ignore past grievances when there’s nothing to be gained and how to use honest superficiality for self-protection. Provide them with an example of how you’re willing to forget about anger and tolerate discomfort in order to facilitate your family’s ability to work together.

You can’t, and shouldn’t, have a close relationship with your brother, given his character and the risks he poses. What you can do, however, is use your diplomatic skills to give other family members the option of spending time together and sharing your family experience.

In doing so, pass on your inheritance to your kids, which, like your own inheritance, might be worth more than cash.

STATEMENT:
“I’ll never feel forgiving towards my brother, but I recognize that he has no choice being an Asshole™ and has never been able to see that he’s the one doing the dumb, stupid things that always break up his closest relationships. I’ll put my discomfort aside and do a little forced smiling to make it easier for our family to come together, so the better people can stay connected with one another.”

My daughter is a good woman but she’s never been able to support herself, which has put a financial burden on me for many years. I don’t mind having her live with me—I actually like it, since her father’s gone and she keeps me company—but it’s hard to support her on my salary. I know she tries, but sometimes she won’t do things that would really help, like seeing a good job counselor, because she puts it off, and it drives me crazy. Now that I’m close to retirement, I really won’t be able to support her any more and I don’t know what will happen. My goal is to feel less helpless about her future and find some way of retiring without quickly growing broke from paying her share of the rent.

It may cause you great distress, but having to worry about supporting your daughter with a diminishing source of revenue could be just what you both need; the pressure may help you figure out your priorities, instead of giving to everyone who asks. You haven’t said no to your daughter in the past because you didn’t have to, and because it was pleasant not to. Now you’ve got to do some thinking and choosing because, if you don’t, your money will waste away long before you do.

I assume you have no way of knowing what your daughter might be able to do for herself if you weren’t supporting her. You hope she could discover some survival skills, but you can’t be sure. Some people may tell you withdrawing your support would be good for her and give her a badly needed kick in the pants but the truth is, no one knows.

What you do know is that, unless you win the lottery, you’d better put together a bare bones budget for your daughter that makes maximum use of whatever benefits she’s eligible for (if any). Depending on your own living arrangements, it may or may not be economical for her to continue to live with you. In any case, the overall space and location available to her will be more constrained, unless she finds a way to make money.

Whatever undesirable economies you see in your daughter’s future, let them occur sooner rather than later, while you’re strong and can offer more advice. Hopefully, she’ll surprise herself and find ways to make a living. If she can’t do more to help herself, then at least you’ve done no harm.

Don’t let anxiety and stress make you pessimistic; use the choices forced on you by shrinking resources to incentivize your daughter into thinking hard about her independence and future survival. This is a chance for you both to take some risks, and hopefully, you’ll both emerge with new skills and independence, financial and otherwise.

STATEMENT:
“I hate to scare my daughter, particularly since she’s such a good friend and companion, but times are scary and money worries may be the perfect catalyst for getting her to take new risks, stretch her skills, and become self-supporting.”