Why do people take advantage of family members?

TBagpuss

I think the short answer to "why do people take advantage of family members" is "because the family members let them"

Of course t is very hard to break the pattern, and to live with the fact that you may wind up with the manipulative family member accusing you of being mean/cruel/stingy/unfair , but the bottom line is that you (generic you) need to decide where your boundaries are and then live them.

In your examples, you mentioned the sponger brother and said (for instance) that he spent money for coal on drugs so his brother "had to" pay for electric heating. No, he didn't. He didn't *have* to pay for anything. He chose to. He could have chosen to say no to his brother. But no one else can make that choice for him.

I do also think that in the case of (adult) children taking advantage of their parents, that it to some extent a case of the parents having made a rod for their own backs. If you spoil your children when they are younger, they are more likely to carry the sense of entitlement into adulthood. If, growing up, they have learned that they are expected to help around the house, to learn to save/budget pocket money to buy the things they want, to get a part time job once they are old enough etc then they are much less likely to have the kind of attitudes you've described... and to see help from their parents as what it is - generosity and not a right.