With family money squabbles, sometimes all you can do is watch

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, February 22, 2017

When you are watching someone make a bad financial decision — and the person is intent on plowing ahead despite your warnings — sometimes all you can do is be a witness.

I’ve dealt with dozens of people and their financial issues, and I’ve learned that a lot of times your only option is to let them fail and, in some cases, suffer the consequences.

In a recent column, I addressed a question from a reader about her 30-year-old sister, who has moved into their parents’ house along with her boyfriend. The couple doesn’t pay rent, despite a request from the parents to do so.

“My mom’s main argument is that she doesn’t want to kick someone out in the cold,” the reader said.

In my advice to her, I said she was right to be concerned. But in the end, she can’t force her parents to see what she sees — a spoiled adult child taking advantage of her parents. I told her to just let it go. It’s the parents’ money to do with what they want, even if it’s to enable a grown woman and what the reader described as her trifling, unemployed boyfriend.

Well, some readers thought I let the parents off the hook.

Others didn’t think I sympathized enough with the responsible sibling.

One person said I was too dismissive in suggesting that the responsible sister just accept that her parents have a right to do what they want with their money.

“I get that the parents’ money is theirs,” another reader wrote. “But what happens if the support for the sister spends down their assets and they need to ask the sibling for financial help in retirement? Unfortunately, far too few people have the savings to support themselves in retirement. Is it reasonable that the sibling then helps her parents without resentment?”

I assure you, I understand the point that the parents, in supporting one adult child more than another, can create tension between the siblings.

It can lead to a hostile situation that may endure long after the parents are gone.

Many fights about inheritances stem from siblings who “did all the right things” feeling they were cheated because their parents unfairly supported irresponsible adult children.

But if you’re an adult child who is not being treated equitably — in your opinion — you do have a choice. You can get angry and alienate yourself from your siblings and/or parents.

Or you can take a more emotionally healthy approach that doesn’t negate your hurt feelings but that moves you on to a place of serenity.

If you have no power to control how your parents dole out their money in a situation where they are not physically or mentally ill, such as suffering from dementia, you have no choice but to stand by and let them do what they want.

You have no choice but to watch them take care of a financially irresponsible adult child.

Could the spending on the sister jeopardize the parents’ retirement safety net? Absolutely.

But if the responsible sister resolves to assist her parents if they need financial support, I would argue she should do so without resentment.

Yet she should be aware that, in coming to her parents’ rescue, she will be doing just what they did — not leaving a loved one out in the cold. And she will be rewarding their unwise financial decisions. Hopefully she’ll see the irony.

(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group