SIL and MIL greed

oh god....dear op hugs to you.

we cant do any thing directly hear. because he is their son & brother before your husband. so they thought that they have more right on his money than your.

1. if you are not working...start working. so you can save money on your side.
2. make him do lot of savings at shares/ mutual funds/ loans so on for future purpose...so he will dont have money in hands to gift them.
3. if possible ask money directly for savings. so you can save at your own.

finally, try to solve problem from MIL & SIL side.. i absence of DH comment like..u r eating our money. so we dont have money for our needs. so on...if need, do arguments/ fights with them. may be 1 month will be affected. but later they may stop taking money from your DH.

dont leave them as like now. later that effects your family future only...not theirs. be strong. be planned & do war with peace of mind with out excitement & frustration

 

@amnilakshmi:

A brother gifting or taking care of his sister and mother financially is actually OK. But is this affecting you in some way? Is he ignoring you completely and is not taking care of your needs? If yes, then I think you should worry about it and act on it.

You did the right thing by not discussing this further. Instead you can try and talk to your husband about investing something for your (only you 2 + plus kids if any) future. May be buy a property in your own name, investments in your name etc.

 

I am in the same exact situation as well. I have two sil and my MIL asks my husband to send gifts to them often. Sometimes we can't afford to buy those things for ourselves too. Both of them are married and are well settled. Still I think greedy people always look for things. When I ask my husband why to gift the things which we even don't buy for ourselves.? He says that his family Is more important than me. Sometimes I get so much frustrated thinking of what my future will be once I have kids.

 

Why has your husband built a house for sister? :shock:Has he built one for you or not?

 

I am sorry but I don't agree with this concept that a if the husband is taking care of wife then it is ok for him to spend on mother and sister. Because firstly, the mother is being unfair to one child at the cost of other. In old days when many girls were not educated as much as the sons (girl's education mostly sacrificed for her brother's), the better off son took care their sisters and elderly parents. But today, daughters are just as much educated as sons. Moreover, parents and brother spends on the daughter's wedding. And in most families, inheritances is also split equally. In a world where women are fighting for equal right, it is not hard for the sisters to understand such things and discourage their brothers from unnecessary spending. If a sister is sincere, she should advice her brother to invest for his wife and children not fleece the brother. Moreover, what kind of mother is okay to fleece one child at the cost of other?

You are right- a wife should never have to tell her husband not to spend on his mother or sister. But at the same time, the mother and sister also owes to son and dil not to force unnecessary expenses- willing or unwilling- on them.

What kind of world is it fair that a brother buys a house for his sister? Why should the sister not buy one for her brother? Why don't I hear that heart warming story of a sister buying a house for her brother or a sister spending her money to get her brother married when both got same education and opportunities in life?

OP- even if your husband is a millionaire with 10 houses to your name, unless his sister is destitute, buying a house is a bit much. Whether you work or not, your husband's earning are yours just as much as his and if you were to take out of that and buy your sibling a house, I am sure that will not go well with your husband. So ask him how is that fair?

Husband and wife should spend any material amount with each other's agreement. If you want this to stop, you need to start being more firm on your stand.

 

I don't understand this logic.
Why does this logic not work for the wife? How does the husband get to be the first priority in a wife's life?

By this logic....The wife will always be number 5-6 in a husbands life because she came later in his life.What about the poor kids who come even after the wife? Do they stay last priority? ...or do the get to jump the queue because they are related by blood unlike the outsider wife.

Why the hell do these men marry when they already have so many people they care for?Why get a wife in your life just to ignore and neglect her?Why not just give all your love to the ones who came first in life.

 

***
I love your logical thinking friendssmiley

 

There is no need to support capable adult relatives like siblings and SILs. In some cases elderly parents may need financial support (they do not have pension, have big medical expenses etc). Then the adult children can pay for the parents housing, medical costs etc.

Gifts are given for special occasions and only when the giver has fulfilled the needs of his/her family. A husbands main responsibility is his wife and children.

 

These practices are still developing. They have not changed completely. There may be a lot who educates men and women equally or splitting inheritances equally. There is a much wider lot not educating women and not splitting inheritances equally. Even in well educated and accomplished families, in laws and money related issues are prevalent. If that was not the case, at least in IL there won't be much threads about property disputes, gender equality and in laws related problems.
Calling these as old days practice is a stretch.


Finding the balance and mutual respect is the key. It is not OK for a husband to treat his family better than his wife and it is not OK for the wife to take the first place and so the husband leaves the family behind. Applies if roles are reversed too.


Some items I want to point:
1. Say a family is in a setup (may be a closed community) that has the mentality that the men should take care of everything, brothers are responsible for sisters forever, brothers get the property etc. chances are that the family will follow the same through life. Those brothers are taught this from their childhood. Just after getting married, changing such an attitude which is deep-rooted in their minds since the past 25-35 years will be a challenge for the wives. The husbands will not even think about it. From the wife's family, she will be an outsider now and she is part of her husband's family.
If such a family from a moves to a larger community, they will not leave behind their thinking. So the issue is still there. Any kind of law or education will not change these practices significantly.


What if the family educated the daughter and son equally? And the father is no more? Is it wrong for the brother to feel responsible for them both or is it wrong for them to ask any favors from him after he is married? Why is he expected to stop helping them? Applying the same logic, any married educated woman should simply stop accepting gifts/favors from her family. But it doesn't happen that way.


2. Why is a husband taking care of his family financially considered not OK?
Isn't there a background on how he was brought up, who contributed to his education etc? Some parents pay for the boy's (men later)education, pay for his higher education, even pay for his job (and paid to go abroad and settle in some cases). After he marries, is he supposed to leave all his life behind and focus only on his wife and children?
Such behavior is not right if he does not care for his wife at all and is bending and bowing to only the needs of his mother/father/sister. If he cares for all of them as one, where is the issue?
There is also a possibility of caring for dependent elderly parents. There are some case of dependent siblings. Even in IL we can see some threads where sisters are divorced, brothers care for them and their wives don't like it. Where are those divorced women supposed to go except their own home? Some unique cases rise out with the support of their family, find a job and move on. Else most of them are dumped quickly into a second marriage. What is wrong in a brother caring for his sister in such a place?
BTW: what if the OP was a guy posting that his wife is spending for her side of the family? The responses would have shut him up.


3. There is also the case of emotional attachment from women's side. Even a very well educated woman is told to adjust and adapt when she reaches the marrying age or after she marries. Any kind of position she is in at work, she is just treated as a wife/servant/homemaker at home. Where is education playing a role here? Women easily position their families behind because we are told this from time to time that we are going to another house. Men are not told that. They are told to be responsible for a lot of events and people in their life. Women think that we will be respected and considered as equals after marriage and men fail to see this. That is the setup we are living in even if we don't want to admit it.


4. Every family and every relationship is different. Generalizing like the husband's first and main responsibility is his wife and children will not work for all. It depends on the wife's behavior as well. Every person has a different story.


Coming to the OP:
If the husband drains out OP's finances and is abusing her and is not caring for her, then what he is doing is wrong. If he takes care of her, treats her as an equal (which I doubt is the case), and is taking care of his mother and sister, everyone is happy. What is wrong in suggesting a win-win situation?

Sorry @amnilakshmi for digressing the topic. I also would like to hear if the FIL is aware of your husband's behavior. If your SIL is married, working or not, are you working or not, is your husband treating you well etc. This will help posters in providing clearer suggestions.