Dear Prudence: I gave my husband's cousin money I shouldn't've

[minoanmiss]

Dear Prudence,

received an unexpected Facebook message from my husband’s cousin asking for money. I see him once or twice a year and we’ve always had pleasant exchanges. He’s definitely made some poor decisions, but it all seemed like typical young-guy stuff. After talking with him, it really seemed like he was trying to get his life together, and I sent him some money. My husband was very angry when he found out and called his family. Come to find out, this guy stole a valuable family heirloom from his father in an attempt to pawn it and was kicked out of the house after his parents filed charges. He’s been spending all his money on drugs since then. Apparently he’s also been making threats to family members who are refusing to give him money. Prudie, I feel terrible for sending him money that he’s almost certainly going to blow on drugs, but I had no idea any of this was going on. But what I really feel bad about is that his parents, who are going through so much right now, are insisting on paying us back. I know they don’t have the money to do so, and I never expected to be paid back anyway, but they are insisting. They’re also mad at me for not coming to them first. The thought of going home for the holidays this year is upsetting to me, and I’m trying to convince my husband that it’s a good idea for me to stay with my family this year and let him visit his family alone. He doesn’t like this idea and thinks I need to get over it and “learn my lesson.” What do you think?


—Payback

While your husband shouldn’t be framing a holiday visit as a way to ensure you “learn your lesson,” I do think you could have handled this situation differently. Even without knowing the entire story, once you were approached by a member of your husband’s family you barely know with a request for money, the wiser action would have been to speak to your husband about it before writing a check. There was no reason for secrecy on your part—unless you had some idea of what your husband’s response would be—and your husband’s anger is understandable. You shouldn’t feel guilty for trusting your husband’s cousin, who misrepresented himself to you, but you should apologize to your husband for not talking to him about the message until after you’d sent the money. Then the two of you should handle the fallout from this situation as a team.

Your husband knows his family better than you do, so ask for his input in dealing with his cousin’s parents. Is repaying their son’s debts a matter of honor to them? Could you talk them into repaying you slowly so that they aren’t put in a precarious financial situation? Could your husband talk them out of repayment entirely, or would that insult them? They’re in a difficult place right now—ashamed of their son’s behavior, feeling indebted to an in-law they don’t know well. I don’t think avoidance is the right tack to take here (avoidance didn’t work out well for you the last time you tried it). Be honest, and apologetic, and open, and once you get through the initial discomfort, I think you’ll find your relationship with your husband and his family the stronger for it.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Why is everyone so mad at this poor woman for 1) taking a request at face value and 2) being generous? I include Prudie in that -- I don't see where she deliberately 'went behind her husband's back', though I do agree she should have asked him first (just to see what was going on). I don't like the idea of them all spending the entire holiday visit snarking and sulking at her, and I suspect they're making her the scapegoat for the cousin's appalling malfeasance.

Come visit me for the holidays, LW! Or at least run off to your parents!

[cimorene]

Yeah, if this cousin was roaming around threatening the entire family for money and her husband already knew about it, why didn't she know, anyway? It might've been a good idea to be warned! Of course it depends on the amount of money and the timeframe, but I think there are plenty of couples where there would be nothing odd in one of them making a decision about something like that and sending the money without a consultation.

[rmc28]

Yup, certainly my spouse and I have an agreed threshold below which we don't usually bother checking with the other before spending money / giving it away. Although, if I were giving money to someone in my spouse's family I'd probably bring it up with them first anyway.

(But seriously, if the family gossip was about Terrible Cousin's Terrible Drug Habits, why didn't spouse pass that along? Communication is two-way.)

[purlewe]

Yeah I feel similarly. I equate it once to when a coworker asked me to lend them $20 until payday. He didn't pay it back, I shrugged it off. I didn't think to ask anyone about it. Come to find out he had a gambling problem and he had asked others for money (some significant amount of money from people higher up the foodchain than me at my job) and he got sacked. Like lending money if asked by someone you know... if you can swing it.. so be it. The amount of weirdness and guilt coming from all this seems the odd bit to me. I do like the idea downthread of telling them to just donate the money when they want to to an org that helps people as paying it forward. But really all the weirdness this family is throwing at the LW down't make much sense unless they are a family that holds SECRETS and they like to use it as LEVERAGE and those are all red flags to me about how this family deals with problems.

[azurelunatic]

Yeah.

It also depends how much money it actually was. And that should be in relation to the other amounts of money she gets to spend without consulting her husband, not in relation to "normal people" amounts of money, if those amounts are different.

[ex_flameandsong751]

I feel really bad for LW right now. She didn't know what was going on when she sent the money!

I also have some concerns about 1. why she wasn't kept in the loop about Husband's Cousin's problems, if this is such a big deal in the family, and 2. the whole "learn your lesson" thing from the husband which is weaponizing the holidays. That doesn't sit well with me at all.

[shirou]

LW didn't know what was going on, but I do find it odd she didn't think to ask before sending money. More than odd—completely bizarre. I don't share your first concern at all. I couldn't even name all my wife's cousins, much less whatever problems they might be having, but if one of them contacted me asking for money, I would tell my wife immediately.

LW gave out (presumably shared) money and interfered with her husband's family without his knowledge or consent. I'm not surprised he was mad. I also assume, from the difficulty his cousin's parents will have repaying, that we are talking about more than the cost of a dinner. I find his initial anger justified.

However, I share your concern that, although he has told LW to get over it, he himself does not appear to have forgiven her and moved on. Bizarre as LW's behavior was, it was an honest mistake. The persistent anger is uncalled for.

[ex_flameandsong751]

That's fair, I can see how it might be prudent to ask before sending money (especially when we don't know how much LW sent, and that LW's parents-in-law want to pay LW back and this is said to be a hardship, that implies it was probably a non-trivial sum of money), and not every family has the same level of closeness re: issues going on in the family and who knows what.

Yeah, the persistent anger from LW's husband bothers me.

[jamoche]

Also “hi I’m a relative you don’t talk to often, please wire me money” is a scam that’s older than the Internet, but much easier when the scammer can see your Facebook.

[sara]

Yeah, I'd find it very strange to be approached by a partner's cousin and I can see why the husband was angry that she didn't mention it. But the money is gone now, so there's no point worrying about any of it; he'd be best off letting it go. I'd be more concerned about having now drawn the attention of Cousin Addict than anything else, especially if he's at the stealing and threats stage.

And the simple way to deal with his parents wanting to repay her is to not deposit the check. It's very hard to give money to someone who sincerely won't take the money, as I know from experience.

[torachan]

The husband got mad immediately, which seems to indicate he knew there was a problem with this cousin, and didn't think to tell his wife about it. Meanwhile there is no indication that the wife was keeping secrets from her husband. It seems like she sent the money and then mentioned to her husband that she sent it. So the whole family ganging up on her in punishment just seems really awful, and her husband is the worst, talking about learning her lesson like she's a child and has done something wrong.

[shirou]

You’re probably right LW’s husband didn’t think to mention his cousin’s problems to his wife. Many couples adopt an approach of “I’ll handle my family, you handle yours,” and give one another the readers digest version. That is not the same as keeping a secret.

I agree everyone ganging up and talking about LW needing to learn her lesson is awful. LW’s choices perplex me, and I find her husband’s initial anger (and shock) understandable, but by staying mad, the family is treating her abysmally.

[ambyr]

and your husband’s anger is understandable

Wait, it is? Why?

It's hard to assess this letter without knowing how much money we're talking about. I think most couples with shared finances have a level under which they freely spend without consulting with each other, and a level past which decisions are jointly made, with where those levels are varying based on how tight their finances are. So, are we talking about "I sent my husband's cousin the amount I might have spent on a nice dinner out?" or "I sent my husband's cousin the money we'd been saving up for a jointly shared new car without consulting him?" In the latter case, I can understand anger; in the former case, it just looks dangerously controlling on her husband's part.

[adrian_turtle]

We are talking about a sum of money that it hurts his parents' finances to pay it back. To my mind, that makes it look substantial. Though I guess a lot of couples who wouldn't think they needed to consense about "one of them spending the price of a new phone and some nice new outfits." But if the LW is a lot richer than her in-laws, those prices could be an order of magnitude higher.

[heavenscalyx]

Oh, no. Dispose of the man and his whole family. This is unreasonable bullshit from the husband. The parents wanting to pay her back and not taking no for an answer, while also being pissed she didn't go to them first, are also unreasonable. One, I would never go to the parents of someone who was asking for help unless that was part of the assistance they asked for -- too queer and too aware of possible toxic dynamics. Two, husband has no frigging right to be angry, full stop, unless they have separate bank accounts and she used his. He didn't inform her about the issues with the cousin, so it's all on him.

I mean, okay, she barely knew this kid and maybe should've discussed with her husband. But this kind of punitive bullshit is over the top.

[melannen]

LW there is worrying stuff around control, secrecy, and payback happening in your husband's family and also your husband's relationship with you that other people are giving you better advice on, but please be careful. But giving money to someone who needed help (and whatever else is going on, this cousin needs help) was not the morally wrong choice, as long at it was your money to give, no matter what he chose to spend it on.

One piece of direct advice isolated from the rest of the mess: something I have found useful when people insist on "paying off a debt" to me that I don't think is a debt and don't want to be paid back is to tell them that if they insist I would rather they paid it forward by giving the money to a related nonprofit. In this case, something related to drug rehab or addiction or mental health support sounds like it would be appropriate. If you can suggest a particular group local to them (or the cousin), that will give them a specific thing they can do that both "pays off the debt" and at least indirectly will still help the cousin, and if you suggest someplace that allows recurring donations it could encourage them to pay it out as slowly as they can afford.

[oursin]

I wonder how many other family connections who haven't been let into the conspiracy of silence about him this cousin has been hitting up for money 'to get his life together'... I doubt this was a one-off thing.

[sara]

Not if he's at the point where he's hitting up his cousin's wife on Facebook....

I mean, there's giving someone the space to get their life together and not gossiping, and then there's this. Which is why everyone else should work on their communication skills.

[ioplokon]

Is it possible LW knew far more about the cousin's issues than you'd assume at first glance but has dismissed it as 'young guy stuff' (or not put two and two together the way the family did - eg if she's from a scene where casual drug use is common, maybe she knew he did drugs but not the addiction stuff vs the family wondering how she didn't realize if she knew about X incident)

[likeaduck]

Just as a side observation, I'm really interested in the way judgement about addiction and substance use is bound up in this language about fiscal irresponsibility. "He’s been spending all his money on drugs since then....I feel terrible for sending him money that he’s almost certainly going to blow on drugs" kind of thing, where the cousin is making threats to family members but the LW's remorse is phrased as if the problem is wasting money.

Also, sometimes knowing that your spouse would not want to send money to a relative in trouble is a good reason to do it without telling them, within whatever limits are reasonable in your relationship for discretionary spending. Like, if I was inclined to help someone by giving them money and my spouse would be upset about it, that's a conflict of our values and potentially an issue of compatibility in our partnership, but I don't think it impacts whether I should send the person money that I have discretion over.

[fred_mouse]

I'm coming from a different perspective than the other commenters about 'why didn't LW talk to husband' - because possibly in the exchange with the younger cousin there was something that came across as confidential. Picking the member of a couple that is going to be more understanding and not wanting ones dirty laundry (particularly as a 'young person having made young person mistakes') shared around the family -- as it obviously is being -- seems reasonable. But I'm also spending a lot of second hand time with teens who aren't able to talk with their families about what is going on, and trying to find ways to keep them safe, and would absolutely hand over money.