A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I'll try and keep this short, so here's the summary of the story with my mother. She has borrowed a lot of money from me, and we're talking over 10 000 dollars here. She promised to pay back parts of it already, which she didn't. I have so stopped lending money out to here, realizing I should have never agreed to loan her anything in the first place. Lesson is now learned on that matter, and I just hope I get to see any money being paid back. It has been 2 years and nothing. She has then turned to my younger brother for money, who is on social welfare. Needless to say he doesn't have a lot (neither do I for that matter as I am still a student). She didn't pay him back either, and although he hasn't lent her as much as I did, it is still a hefty sum of money. He recently had to open a locked savings account and is using up all his savings now just to buy food. My brothers birthday was here the other day. My mother called me while I was on my way over to visit my brother saying "I forgot to ask you to buy him a gift". Now, she always asks me to buy gifts for people as she lives out of town with no shops around. But she hasn't sent me any money for the gift. In addition I think it was lousy of her to not remember her own sons birthday. She didn't even call me on my own birthday, and she sent a badly knitted scarf and a book she had borrowed from me which arrived 2 weeks after my birthday. Im not picky on gifts or demand a lot, so I accepted that gift. Still wish she could have called though. Now with my brother she didn't even bother to arrange a gift for him. My question is, as I am quite fed up with her at the moment (much due to other problems she keeps pushing on to me when they are really her own problems), do I just ignore her? Should I not get my brother a gift on her behalf until she sends me money for a gift? Should it even be necessary that I call her and ask for this money to buy a gift with? I don't want my brother to go without a gift, but I refuse to buy a gift with my own money and tell my brother it is from her when she had absolutely nothing to do with it.
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male
reader, C. Grant  +, writes (14 June 2010):
 Buy the gift only if you are content doing it on her terms -- that she offers it as if she'd gone to the effort and expense herself. Since that's not the space you're in, then it's time to stand up for yourself and tell her that she's on her own.
You have to decide whether the money you've 'lent' her is important enough to you to allow it to damage your relationship. Having been in your situation, it seems most unlikely you'll ever get it back. The fact that she's leeching off your brother now tells you something about her character. But as an adult you're in control over whether and how much of a relationship you have with her. And I've never found relationships based upon guilt and obligation to be all that satisfying.
A
female
reader, howcomehoney  +, writes (14 June 2010):
 Is she physically handicapped? Is there a reason she can't do it herself? If not, it's her problem. Give your brother a birthday gift from YOU, but let your mother give him a present herself. It's up to her to do it. As for your brother, it's really no worse knowing that your mother was too lazy to bother buying you a gift and made your sister do it, than if she didn't give you anything at all.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2010): I think that you need to buy your brother a gift from you... Don't mention your mother just the fact that she must not be in a good place right now. Then, you need to confront your mother about what she is doing and that she needs to be paying you back. Do not let her have any more money from you or your brother. cut her off!
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