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male
,
*ude
writes: I'm married and blessed with a son, my problem is that me and my wife cannot seems to agree on the fiancial support to give to her parents. I feel that she spends a lot of money on her parents at the cost of our family but her position is that her parents needs are her problem must be included in our budget.I have a problem with this and invite your suggestions
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female
reader, stina  +, writes (18 September 2006):
 Hi Jude,
To an extent, she does have an obligation to her parents, but if it's taking away from the needs of your family then I think something needs to be done. That shouldn't be happening.
I think that since all of you are involved, you all need to sit down and have a discussion with them about creating a budget. Write down everything that is a need and everything that is a want and how much that would cost. Figure out what can be cut back or altogether eliminated. Do her parents work? Are they retired? Have they considered cutting back on their spending so your wife doesn't have to keep giving them money? Do they even know how much she is contributing? How do they feel about this? What percentage are they contributing and what percentage is your wife contributing to them? Figure out how to make it so they pay for most things.
Maybe your wife could just help them out during the holidays, birthdays, etc as a present when things are all set so she doesn't feel as though she abandoning them. If they can't afford to live without a percentage of her income, can they get any money from the social security, organizations, etc? Are there any other relatives that would be able to help them until they can support themselves again?
If everything has been done, then maybe they are living in a place they cannot afford. Could they downsize? Maybe move to a smaller house or condo? What about a senior community - usually the housing costs are less and there are things like free maintenance work, etc. Whatever needs to be done should be done because you need to do what you can for your family.
Surely you two must reach a happy medium with the funds she's giving her parents. Money issues are one of the most difficult to discuss in a marriage and are the downfall of quite a few. This is a serious problem and you two need to take care of it asap before it escalates into either of you resenting the other or having any other ill feelings toward anyone in the family. I can't imagine her parents would feel comfortable taking money if they knew it was having an impact on their daughter's family.
I think you should all sit down and plan a budget, figure out what can be cut back/eliminated, find where the funds will come from, figure out what can be done if their living expenses are too high. There has to be an answer to this so that everyone can be happy.
And one final question: have you thought about speaking to a financial advisor? They can be a tremendous help with issues like this. You can probably find one by looking in the phone book or going online. I highly recommend this if you all can't figure out a better budget on your own.
Take care.
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