Please help my Mum! She is burying her head in the sand, HELP!

Blade26

Thanks for the messages, I cannot break my Mum's confidence by speaking with my Dad, she will completely freak. Although, when I see her later today I will encourage her to tell him about it, the likelihood of it is nil though, so it does seem like a waste of time, but I will keep chipping away at it.

As for my partner, I am going to tell him what is going on, please remember that this has only been my knowedge for 2 weeks, and has been alot to deal with, what with moving house etc etc.

I spoke to my Mum last night about today, and she seems to think that I will be doing all the talking, well she has another thing coming, although I have made it my business by getting involved, Mum seems to feel immense relief that someone else can shoulder the burden, and I dont know whether she is just trying to save face, but she seems almost blase about the whole situation. Perhaps thats just my impression, as I have only spoken to her on the phone since the initial CAB visit, but it seems to me that since me and my Sister have been involved she's OK because she doesnt have to think about anything. I dont expect her to be grovelling and kissing my backside through gratitude, and I suppose it all comes back to the fact that she has to be seen (by Dad) to be carrying on as normal. The man is not thick though, which we keep telling her, before all this I used to speak to my Mum, once maybe twice a week but now its every day sometimes more than once.

I am going to take her for a cup of coffee after the meeting with the CAB and tell her that she is going to have to start handling parts of the situation herself, such as I fortunately have flexible hours at work and so can take a couple of hours at lunch to coincide with the CAB visits, but there is a limit on how often I can do that before people at work become suspicious/worried etc that I am taking a long lunch every 2nd Tuesday.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but all the advice about telling Dad is what I am trying to get her to do, as I said in the first line its not my place to tell my Dad, I would be furious if my Mum broke a confidence of mine to tell my partner something, however well intentioned it was. Please also don't forget that I am only in my mid-20s and up until 2 weeks ago I looked to my Mum and Dad as being a couple I would aspire for me and my partner to emulate, but that has all been all but destroyed by the secrets/lies/fears etc.

Blade26

Mum is a complete computer novice, so I am going to print off the thread and take it with me, she is going to get upset at some of the things I have put, but I think she needs to realise how difficult it is for me and my Sister to cope with all this.

Sorry if I offended anyone with anything in my previous post, its very easy to get all defensive when people are telling you to do what you know that you should do anyway (if that makes any sense)

Sofa_Sogood

Maybe your Mum's not blase about it Blade, it might be that now you and your sister have helped to lift the weight off her shoulders that she's feeling a whole lot better - more confident about tackling it all knowing she has you helping her?

Personally I wouldn't apportion any blame just yet. Some couples, like my late parents, know what the situation is, but carry on living as they do quite happily. I know when we bailed my Mum out of debt I blamed her initially, (not in a bad way and I didn't let her know either ), but my brother put me straight and made me realise that my Dad must have known for years, but chose to put up with it. Thinking about it now, if he did know, it wouldn't have stopped her getting into debt. It's just the way she was

It's a good idea to let her realise that you can't do everything for her though, and you never know, after today her confidence might get another lift. She's probably afraid of the unknown? Some people just can't speak for themselves - I can't in some situations and find it far easier to speak up for others, but it's all a learning curve isn't it? For you and your Mum. But encourage her to get involved more or she might never learn to be independent.

I guess what I'm trying to suggest is; concentrate on the money situation for now, and then you can maybe work together in the future about whether your Mum tells your Dad, and you tell your partner.

Good luck with it all

Spendless

Blade

This is why i mentioned you fetching up the 'not telling dad' at the CAB. He is going to have to know,or he's going to find out about chance.

At least if CAB know about this part of it, advice will come from a third party, not what you and sister say.

Personally i don't understand the 'his' and 'hers' money either. I have friends who do it including one couple who've been together since teenagers, got 3 kids
but she doesn't know what he earns (they're in their 30s). But that's my view , others have dfferent ones.

I recently saw a repeat of an Alvin Hall Your Money Or Your Life, where one of the middle aged couple had got into debt, the other had savings.They had seperate money and one had had to confess to the other about the debt. Alvins suggestion was for the debt to be borrowed from the others savings and then paid back by the other.


Good Luck - let us know how you get on

DiggingOut

Blade, no one should have been offended by your post, so don't worry about it.

I think there is an important thing that you might be overlooking. Not everything you know is "in confidence". She didn't come to you with the bill, you found it. The existence of that bill is NOT in confidence, and you have the ethical right to reveal it to anyone that you believe it is necessary/beneficial to do so.

Counsellors have to deal with the troubled question of what is in confidence and what is not all the time. This is not.

That doesn't mean you should reveal it, but you have that option. You could, for instance, meet your dad for lunch and tell him you found the bill. Or you could tell your mother that you are going to tell him if she won't. She'll hate you until it is sorted out, but then she'll be grateful.

Your mum is doing wrong here by keeping this secret. It is a very vexing problem how much we protect the right of people to do wrong and hurt themselves and others. Did she swear you to secrecy before telling you about the rest of the debt?

I don't understand the 'his and hers' money thing either, by the way. My wife and I have EVERYTHING joint. In a couple of cases it costs us a few pounds in taxes, but the whole philosophy of having things separate seems to me a total violation of what a marriage is supposed to be. But I suppose that is a topic for the discussion board....

The best of luck to you, and you are absolutely right to push her to take responsibility for this -- if she is going to abdicate responsibility, she should do so to the right person, her husband.

DiggingOut

Just spotted this in the New York Times re: separate accounts.

Poppy9

Blade no one is offended by your post and likewise no one wishes to offend you. I know the stress and responsibility you feel. What people are merely trying to do is reinforce your own view that your father should be part of the solution. Do you tell or not - imagine the situation this way.

You and your partner own a house together. His mother knows that he has run up vast debts on credit cards etc. If left unchecked the situation could escalate and your home is in danger of being repossesed. You know nothing of this situation and are quite happily saving away for a holiday or planning on starting a family and reducing work hours. Would you want his mother to tell you? After the initial shock would you help and support him?

You may be right about your mother being blase now as someone else has taken over responsibilty. My sister was like this and still would be if I was bailing her out. Now she has to sort herself out. Sounds hard but your own cross is big enough you don't need to carry someone elses. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Good luck.

r.mac_2

Hope that today goes well for your Mum Blade.

Perhaps if your mum feels that she has made steps towards a solution she could approach your dad. Sometimes it is easier to say - "this has happened but I am sorting it out. I am telling you because I thought you should know and I would appreciate a little moral support?"

She might feel that she doesn't loose as much 'face' this way.

Just a thought x

Blade26

Just got back to work from the return visit to the CAB, as they are so pulled out with cases, so it was a drop in session again, we were 1st in the queue and were just going into the meeting room with another advisor when the one we saw originally spotted us, so they swopped. It was good to see the same bloke again, as he obviously knew what was happening after last time.

Anyway, I digress. Basically he has said that if my sister wants to transfer the Citi Card debt onto a 0% card, then now is definately the time to do it, as we havent yet set up any payment plans with the other companies. Going to mull it over a bit more before doing anything about it.

We went through the I & E form that we had completed which left £366 ish for servicing the debts and he has worked out the pro-rata payments to offer and make to the Companies, with a letter the enclose with a copy of the above to show that they are all getting an equal share of the 'surplus' monies. They will type up the I & E form and send copies in the post for us to send off, so we should be able to do that by the end of the week. Mum seems to think that the payments under the pro-rata are more than what she pays now, I will have to look into this further when I've got a minute.

Spoke to her again about Dad, she said that she will discuss the matter of putting the household budget on a more even footing, but she must 'pick her moment'. Not sure what she means by that, but she obviously knows him better than me and my Sister, so time will tell. The CAB man was in complete agreement that in an ideal world she would have the bottle to 'confess all' to my Dad, but we can see that she is adamant that she wont. Perhaps, I will leave it for a few days before having another go. The CAB man reiterated to her what I said in one of my original posts that the financial agreement they came to 28 years ago when they got married may have been OK for that time, but times change, and now the mortgage is paid off where is all Dad's wages going. If Mum is honest with herself she doesnt really know, he pays for them both to go on holiday a couple of times a year but apart from that who knows what he's doing with the rest of it. She can only imagine that he is investing it all for his retirement, I suggested that she perhaps tries to find out.

Finally, I gave her the print out of the thread to read, I know that she will probably be upset by a few things I and others have posted, but so be it. Perhaps she will see that there are several people out there who believe that in telling Dad about everything is the most honest and hardest thing to do, but would be worth it in the long run.

Anyway, feel a bit better from going there today, feel like the weight that was starting to weigh heavy on my shoulders is lifted. I know that its just stress of trying to help and keep it all secret, which I why I am going to tell my partner when I get home tonight, a problem shared and all that. He might be able to put a different perspective on things for her.

elona

Blade

I think you and your sister have been very brave in tackling this for your mum.

When you tell your other half - be careful how you do it as the last thing you want is to have your mum's problem and her insistence on secrecy causing problems in your relationship.

It must have been horrible feeling you were keeping secrets from him.

It could be tactful not to mention straight away that you posted on this board as it could be taken that you could tell strangers but not him.

The best of luck.